Keyboard specialist Chris Codish has steadily made himself a vital part of the Detroit musical community. A perennial winner at the Detroit Music Awards over the past fourteen years, he has received multiple honors for his vocal and songwriting skills as well as his keyboard mastery...

Michael Zaporski creates astonishing music that merges American jazz traditions with a West-African-influenced rhythmic dialogue. Serving as the pianist for the late Detroit saxophonist Sam Sanders, Zaporski traveled to West Africa, playing and teaching jazz through the U.S. State Department.

His roots are deep in Detroit, but when he sits in front of the keys, Jarrod Champion’s sound makes its way to the south, over in the dixieland and delta. Ask anyone, he’s one of the best in the city. If it’s top notch Detroit made music you seek, look no further.
Travis Wright, WDET

Influenced heavily by the great jazz, swing and soul crooners, Paul King has created a classic sound of his own. Known for his smooth tone and sophisticated style, Paul and his band have a gift for making your evening special. His interesting song choices and wonderful vocal phrasing have been making dancers, jazz heads and casual listeners happy for decades.

Paul VornHagen is an accomplished jazz saxophonist, flutist, and vocalist who has won Detroit Music Awards on six separate occasions and categories: Jazz Reeds, Talent Deserving Wider Recognition, Instrumentalist, World Music Recording (2) and Jazz Recording. Presently living in Ann Arbor, Michigan where Paul got his start on the flute in 1972. Mostly self-taught initially, he studied music at City College Of San Francisco in 1978-79.

Paul is well known for his associations with pianist/vocalist Diana Krall and guitarist Russell
Malone. Paul has performed with jazz greats Joe Williams, Cab Calloway, Marian McPartland,
Barry Harris, Jeff Hamilton, Benny Golson, Benny Green, Jon Hendricks, Wycliff Gordon,
Mulgrew Miller, Jay McShann and James Moody. He has played on over 50 CDs with artists
such as Larry Vuckovich, Eddie Higgins, and Marcus Belgrave.
Paul was honored by the West Michigan Jazz Society as their 2001 Jazz Musician of the Year
and by the Detroit Music Awards as the 2002 Outstanding Jazz Instrumentalist. Keller is on the
faculty of the Wayne State University jazz department in Detroit. He travels frequently, giving
jazz concerts, workshops and clinics and is well-respected as an innovative and enthusiastic
jazz educator.

Keyboard specialist Chris Codish has steadily made himself a vital part of the Detroit musical community. A perennial winner at the Detroit Music Awards over the past fourteen years, he has received multiple honors for his vocal and songwriting skills as well as his keyboard mastery. He formed the multi award winning funk/jazz/jam band The Brothers Groove, produced the last two albums for the late, great Detroit bluesman Johnnie Bassett on Sly Dog Records (Mack Ave. Records), and toured globally with Hiram Bullock, Harvey Mason, Alexander Zonjic, Larry McCray and Lucky Peterson. He's performed and/or recorded with Don Was, Roy Ayers, Ronnie Laws, Jim "Moose" Brown, Sponge, The Motor City Horns, The Dead String Brothers, Kenny Tudrick, Dave McMurray, Thornetta Davis, Kenny G, Bob James, Jeff Lorber, and countless others. When not on tour, Chris performs on piano, organ and keyboard throughout the Metro Detroit area, as well as at God Land Unity Church in Detroit every Sunday morning.

Duncan Williamson McMillan began studying piano at age 5. His musical studies continued with Frederic Dehaven at Christ Church in Grosse Ponte, singing in the boys choir (1980-1987). From 1989-1992, Duncan studied jazz piano and music theory with James Hohmeyer, Bess Bonnier and Matt Michaels. Upon graduation from Western Michigan University in 1997 (B.M. piano/jazz studies), Duncan has established a reputation as a versatile musician, working with such diverse artists as Jon Hendricks, Aretha Franklin, Rodney Whitaker, Ira Sullivan, Marcus Belgrave, Eric Marienthal, Nelson Rangell, Chris Standring, and The Four Freshman. In demand as both a pianist and organist,

Paul is well known for his associations with pianist/vocalist Diana Krall and guitarist Russell
Malone. Paul has performed with jazz greats Joe Williams, Cab Calloway...

Revered as both a torchbearer and a storyteller, jazz vocalist Vanessa Rubin possesses a voice hailed for crystalline clarity, hearth-like warmth and playful lioness sass. The Cleveland native brings a wealth of diverse influences to her vocal performance from both the Trinidadian/Caribbean roots of her mother and traditional jazz by way of her Louisiana-born father. Additional homespun influences include the melodic bell tone clarity of a young Capital Records recording artist, Nancy Wilson, the fire of Lambert, Hendricks & Ross, the sweet sounds of trumpeter Blue Mitchell as well as her love of the Motown Sound…especially girl groups like the Supremes.

Co-leading Detroit's little big band the Planet D Nonet since 2007 has kept James O’Donnell in the limelight of the music scene in Detroit. The band has garnered seven Motor City Music Awards for Outstanding Jazz Recording or Outstanding Traditional Jazz Ensemble. The band’s “Salute to Strayhorn”, a tribute to Duke Ellington collaborator Billy Strayhorn released on Detroit Music Factory, was considered for a Grammy Award in 2017 and received airplay throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. James has toured through 13 states in the Midwest and the deep South with PD9.