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Randy Sutin

I was born in Great Falls, Montana. Both my parents taught music privately in the home. I studied piano starting at age 4 and guitar starting at age 8. At age 10 I began my study of the drums. By that time, I had moved to Rouses Point, New York which is a small border town on Lake Champlain about 40 miles from Montreal, Quebec.

I began playing music professionally (mostly rock and some country) with local groups at age 13. When I became of age to go to college, I decided to study music, thus I had to broaden my knowledge of the rest of the instruments of the percussion family. At age 20, I began to study mallet percussion, in particular the vibraphone, which has now become the main staple of my professional life as a musician. After graduating from the Crane School of Music in Potsdam, New York, I worked for several years in Lake Placid at the Lake Placid Club Resort as one of the staff musicians.

In 1985, I relocated with Marianne, my wife, to Trenton NJ, where I began working as a civil service employee for the state of New Jersey. It proved to be a very musically liberating move. I no longer had to rely on commercial music to pay my bills. Within a year, I was playing in the house rhythm section at IshKabibble’s night club in Long Branch, NJ where I worked with a wonderful group of soloists who would be occasionally hired to play there including Cecil Payne, Big Nick Nicholas, Charles Davis, Benny Powell, Tom Harrel, Bill Hardman and Junior Cook. I moved closer to Philadelphia in 1989 so I could be closer to that community of musicians. I was a regular member of Bill Hollis’s quartet and soon began working regularly and recording with the Barry Sames Jazz Ensemble, with whom I still perform. More recently, I was a regular member of the late pianist Eddie Green’s group and was featured on Eddie’s last CD, "Shades of Green" which is available on the Dreambox Media label (see my links page).

My recent work has focused on several efforts. First, I have been recording and performing with Tyrone Brown's String Ensemble, a wonderful colaboration of jazz quartet and string quartet featuring Tyrone's compositions and arrangements which I love. Also, there is another project which attempts to create a whole new genre of music I am exploring which I call Balanced American Music.

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Jazz Bridge Presents Vibraphonist Randy Sutin at the Collingswood Community Center on May 5th

Jazz Bridge Presents Vibraphonist Randy Sutin  at the Collingswood Community Center on May 5th

Source: Suzanne Cloud

To close out the 2010/2011 Jazz Bridge Neighborhood Concerts Series in Collingswood, vibraphonist and composer Randy Sutin will be appearing at the Collingswood Community Center, 30 E. Collings Ave, in Collingswood, NJ, on May 5th with percussionist Gabriel Globus-Hoenich, guitarist Dan Hanrahan, and bassist Justin Sekelewski. Vibes player Randy Sutin was born in Great Falls, Montana, but by age 13 he was playing drums professionally in a small border town on Lake Champlain. After graduating from the Crane School of ...

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