The board of Stage Time consists of musicians with decades of professional performance, band leader, booking, and other related experience. We've all come up hustling gigs from Bellingham and Seattle to Hong Kong. Throughout the years we've run jam sessions, worked with venues on marketing and wages for musicians, put on clinics, and visited schools and other organizations to help musicians get gigs, get paid well, and help younger musicians get on the right track to becoming pros.
We're always on the lookout for people who are passionate about live music and have experience with non profit organizations. Feel free to reach out if you want to work with us.
Scot Ranney - Piano
Scot worked at a regional talent agency in the mid 1980s and learned how the business side of music worked while also starting his career as a jazz pianist. In 1991 he had the opportunity to play music in Seoul, South Korea. That first gig was six nights a week, four hours a night, and lasted nearly a year and a half. The band leader was a seasoned professional named James Curly Cooke and although Curly was only there for four months, the mentorship Scot received from Curly taught him lessons about how to be a performer on stage and how to work with venues that are still with him.
Scot has always said that stage time is more important than talent and the long term house gigs he had the opportunity to work over the years gives even more weight to the idea. Having experience on stage playing in front of a live audience is what gives a musician that edge.
In the late 1990's Scot put together one of the web's first online jazz piano discussion boards at LearnJazzPiano.com (LJP) where he put up a series of free jazz piano lessons. Scot and other experienced pros also answered questions from pianists and musicians of all levels regarding jazz piano since it's inception. When it first opened it was as busy as central station because the web didn't have sites dedicated to forums. As sites like Reddit and others grew LJP's forums slowed down, but the information on the site is still free and invaluable. Over the years quite a few pianists have reached out to Scot letting him know how LJP gave them their start. Travelling pros, jazz department heads at universities, a couple people opened their own schools, and some of the folks Scot has hired out as subs for his own gigs.
Stage Time is a natural extension of the ideas behind LJP. Provide good information for people to get ahead in their music, period.
Over the years Scot has organized jazz jam sessions in Bellingham and other places because not only are jam sessions simply fun, they also play an important role as students of music learn from seasoned pros on stage in front of a live audience. This is one of the reasons Stage Time was born and we're excited to see how far we can go with it.
Scot brings a spark of creativity energy, dogged obsession with making dreams happen, a passion for playing and teaching jazz, along with some computer geek wizardry to the Stage Time crew.
Andrew Simmons - Bass
Andrew's story is similar to Scot's in some ways. He played his first long term gig overseas, worked other other long terms gigs, has decades of experience working with venues as an agent and as a musician, and knows the business of music as well as anyone. He has created several bands, plays with many different people, has had opportunities to play with iconic musicians such as Willie Nelson, Larry Carlton, and others.
Andy brings a level head that can see the big picture along with networking and administrative skills to the group.
Travis Ranney - Sax and Winds
Travis is a Seattle pro jazzer and is on many peoples first call list for tenor sax. He plays with the Seattle Jazz Repertory Orchestra (SRJO), the Seattle Symphony, has been a sideman with more bands than you can count, was on the road with Rusty Cebella for several years, and is one of the regions premiere saxophone repair guys.
Travis knows just about everyone in the Western Washington music scene and has relationships and contact with donors, venue owners, festival organizers, and other movers in the music world in the Pacific Northwest. He is able to bring Stage Time to the attention of a lot of people who can help us with the things we're trying to do.
