Artists together for fun and a good cause

American jazz and gospel singer Lavelle McKinnie Duggan was born in Kankakee, near Chicago, in a musicians family. Her father played  the guitar in Nat King Cole's band, and her mother was a dancer and singer in the Cotton Club. After a career of lyric singer, she progressively went back to jazz and gospel. She appeared in the musical Hello Dolly in Broadway. She then toured across America, singing rhythm and blues with the greatest names in soul music such as Ray Charles or Sammy Davis Jr. She also contributed to great jazz bands of Lionel Hampton, Buddy Rich, Maynard Ferguson and Quincy Jones. 

Lavelle was as well Barbara's Wedding witness.

From an early age he was rocked by Negro Spirituals and Gospel Songs in the home and church of his father, the Reverend Arthur E. Jones.
He studied piano at "Peabody" Conservatory of  Music in Baltimore, then at "Morgan" State University. During all these years, he also studied Jazz.
Jerome began his professional career at the age of 16. 

Everett started playing drums and bass in high school at the age of 11. Later he took piano and composition lessons from Consuela Lee before attending Berklee College of Music in the summer of 1971 . In 1977 he moved to New York, where he initially played with Bill Lee and Clifford Jordan, with whom he also toured the Caribbean. 

Lightsey had piano instruction from the age of five and studied piano and clarinet through high school. He also worked with jazz musicians such as Yusef Lateef, Betty Carter, Pharaoh Sanders, Bobby Hutcherson, Sonny Stitt, Chet Baker, and Kenny Burrell. From 1979 to 1983 he toured with Dexter Gordon and was a member of The Leaders in the late 1980s. During the 1980s he led several sessions of his own, including duets with pianist Harold Danko. In the 1980s and since he has worked with Jimmy Raney, Clifford Jordan, Woody Shaw, David Murray, Joe Lee Wilson, Louis Stewart, Adam Taubitz, Harold Land and Gregory Porter.