1105 Treasure Island Road
Webster, MA 01570
508-949-8526
tlada3b@aol.com

TONY LADA: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

For the past 38 years, Tony Lada has been a Professor of Performance Studies and Trombone at Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. Besides his undergraduate teaching duties, Tony donates one thousand dollars each year for the Tony Lada Award for Excellence in Performance Studies, given to a student who has demonstrated both academic and creative excellence in the study of jazz improvisation at Berklee. Tony has been playing professionally for the past forty-six years and therefore it is no surprise that he is well known to Boston Jazz audiences and the international music community as one of the most prominent jazz trombonists on the scene today.

In addition to leading his own quartet at local jazz clubs, Tony can be heard every Saturday for afternoon jazz at the Caravan in Revere, Massachusetts.

Tony is especially pleased about his yearly weeklong summer association with JAZZ VERMONT where he directs improvisation workshops and leads and performs with the JAZZ VERMONT SEXTET.

Prior to becoming a Berklee faculty member, Tony played with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, with Woody Herman, and with Buddy Rich.

His recordings have been critically acclaimed both locally and internationally.
THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU, on Sterling Bell Records, was a Boston Music Awards nominee for best jazz album in 1988.

The Tony Lada Quartet:

Steeped in the rich tradition of the post-Bebop style, The Tony Lada Quartet blends the discipline of jazz composition with the freedom and flexibility of improvisation.
Following the musical tradition established by the likes of Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, the quartet offers original compositions and arrangements that integrate Blues, Swing, Latin, and other diverse musical elements.

The Tony Lada Quartet performs in many of the Boston area Jazz clubs, including Ryles, the Regattabar, and Scullers. Piano, bass, and drums accompany Tony, who plays trombone.

The group’s first album was The Very Thought of You on Sterling Bell Records.
Ray Murphy of the Boston Globe says, “Tony Lada, a local hero …favors a full aggressive sound on his horn and plays with fire and energy and a broad aggressive tone”. This style of trombone playing, paired up with a creative rhythm section makes for a winning team.

The Tony Lada Quartet delights audiences for whom form, structure, and interpretation are prerequisites for the enjoyment of jazz. A blend of post-bebop and jazz standards, The Tony Lada Quartet offers traditional and original compositions and arrangements.
With crisp dexterity, Tony Lada takes his audience on a journey through sound, imagination and musical fluency. Tony’s musicianship is based not only in the tradition of post-Bebop jazz, but every aspect of his playing is also a tribute to the jazz masters who came before him.

Supported by the artistic and tasteful skills of Ray Santisi on piano, Dave Zox on bass and Joe Hunt on drums, this group will insure an evening of music that is melodically coherent, harmonically textured, and rhythmically hard swinging.

The Tony Lada Quartet—for your listening pleasure.