Dr. Benjamin Boone, a saxophonist, composer and music professor at California State University, Fresno, and several alumni collaborated on “The Benjamin Boone Quartet: Live Steve Mitchell,” which hit the national charts over the summer in radio airplay.

Radio stations across the United States played it often enough it reached No. 67 the week of June 14 on the JazzWeek charts, a list of the most popular jazz songs as submitted by national radio stations.

The CD, composed and produced over 10 months, features original compositions by Boone and disc jockey David Aus of campus radio station KFSR.

Besides Boone, the quartet is comprised of Aus playing keyboards; Nye Morton, a part-time music lecturer at Fresno City College, bass; and Steve Mitchell, a Grammy Award-winning percussionist. Mitchell’s credits include “Charlie Brown” TV specials and the movie “One Flew Over the Cukoo’s Nest.”

Eva Scow, a Brazilian and jazz performer, guest stars throughout the CD playing the electric mandolin.

Although Boone usually composes contemporary classical music, the motivation behind his jazz production was meeting Mitchell and performing with him and the quartet at the Rogue Performance Festival, an annual celebration of local performing arts in Fresno.

“When this group of musicians is together, it’s like the stars are aligned,” Boone says about the quartet’s performances. “Great music happens. I decided I would try and capture some of that magic by having it recorded.”

Boone says Aus’ compositions, “De Novo” and “Sissy’s Strut,” are the most popular tracks with listeners. The album features live performances recorded during the 2009 Rogue Festival.

Other participants in the album’s production include graphic designer and Fresno State alumnus J.T. Shaver of Fresno and mass communication and journalism alumni Joe Edgecomb, a photographer, and Vincent Keenan, a sound engineer who worked as a recording technician in the Fresno State Department of Music for six years.

In November, Boone begins recording a new composition by German composer Stefan Poetzsch for the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich, Germany.

(Copy by University Communication news intern Christy Patron)

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