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Ray Scro

Ray Scro has performed, studied and taught music for nearly fifty years in his home of Staten Island and throughout New York City. At age seven Scro began playing clarinet, which continues to share space on his bandstand next to tenor and soprano saxophones. Ray studied music at Brooklyn College in the early seventies, and received private instruction under saxophonist and guru Lee Konitz. He has played with Jimmy Knepper, Chuck Wayne, Charlie Persip, Chico Hamilton and many others.

After twenty years as a professional musician, Scro began a second career as music educator. He taught music in a Brooklyn middle school for three years before joining the music department at Curtis High School in Staten Island. Scro served as head of the Performing Arts Department for six years and has served as band director to this day. He directs the Curtis jazz band, where his experience and insight as a professional musician inform the next generation of jazz artists. Scro’s work as an educator has been acknowledged with an International Association of Jazz Educators scholarship, as well as an Arts Educator's award from the Council of Arts and Humanities of Staten Island.

Scro also keeps an active performing schedule. He performs regularly with bassist Paul Daloia and singer/guitarist Greg Stier in the jazz, blues, folk and pop trio This Old House, and is a quadruple threat as saxophonist, arranger, composer and co-director of The Ray Scro/Mike Morreale Big Band. He also leads several small groups, often working with bass legend and jazz scribe Bill Crow. His influences include Louis Armstrong, Sidney Bechet, Duke Ellington, Gil Evans, Charlie Parker and Lester Young.

Ray lives in Staten Island, and includes baseball among his other passions, with plans to visit every ballpark in the United States.

Awards

International Association of Jazz Educators scholarship
Arts Educator's award from the Council of Arts and Humanities of Staten Island


Tags

44
Album Review

Santi Debriano & Arkestra Bembe: Ashanti

Read "Ashanti" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Panama-born bassist Santi Debriano's Arkestra Bembe is a nonet whose centerpiece is the bembe music of west Africa. During the Coronavirus pandemic, Debriano began hosting weekly bembes (musical celebrations) in the basement of his Staten Island, New York home, gradually assembling a group of musicians who would comprise the Arkestra and perform Debriano's compositions and arrangements. The result is Ashanti, an impressive studio recording whose framework is jazz but whose heart and soul are clearly in bembe. ...

244
Interview

Ray Scro: What Jazz Education Means

Read "Ray Scro: What Jazz Education Means" reviewed by Andrew J. Sammut


For Ray Scro, music education is a redundancy. He's been performing, studying and teaching music for nearly fifty years in his home of Staten Island, and throughout New York City. In the early seventies Scro studied under saxophonist and guru Lee Konitz, and he's played with Jimmy Knepper, Chuck Wayne, Charlie Persip, and Chico Hamilton, among others. In addition to his own groups, he works regularly alongside bass legend and jazz scribe Bill Crow. For fifteen years, Scro has also ...

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Primary Instrument

Saxophone

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Ashanti

Jojo Records
2023

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Live Adobe Blues...

Self Produced
2007

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