Playtime Trio with opening set by Steve Kenny Quartet at KJs

Headliner : Playtime Trio

Matt Peterson – Bass

Bryan Nichols – Piano

Pete James Johnson – Drums

Matt Peterson, K-5 elementary music teacher by day and bassist by night, takes his turn as a band leader in this new project, the Playtime Trio. Inspired by his day job, the band performs children’s songs reimagined for a jazz piano trio. Pieces include nursery rhymes, folk songs, material from the Orff volumes and other childhood classics. The band features Bryan Nichols on piano and Pete James Johnson on drums. Matt Peterson grew up in Hopkins and fell in love with jazz under the direction of his high school band director Don Bates. He followed this passion and studied music at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, then moved back to the Twin Cities in 2004, quickly becoming an in-demand bassist. His solid melodic and rhythmic approach to playing the bass have made him an important fixture on the Twin Cities jazz scene. He regularly plays with Zacc Harris’ American Reverie, the Explosion Big Band, Fuzzy Math, the Ted Godbout Trio and the Twin Cities Hot Club. When not playing with these groups, Peterson stays busy freelancing around the Twin Cities with many of the area’s top players. Peterson is also a music educator, teaching elementary K-5 aged students in the Edina Public Schools.

Opening Set: Steve Kenny Quartet

Steve Kenny – Trumpet

Dean Granros – Guitar

Dan Carpel – Bass

Jack Schabert – Drums

The Steve Kenny Quartet is a flexible membership ensemble that focuses on select Original Compositions by Steve Kenny and a number of crowd-pleasing innovative arrangements of Jazz standards. The group has been performing on Twin Cities Jazz Club stages for 10 years and has toured the Midwest and appeared on the music series at Drake University, the Eau Clair Jazz festival, and the Twin Cities Jazz Festival.  Steve Kenny is active in the Minnesota Jazz community as a Performer, Composer, and Curator. Steve is a founding member of ‘the illicit sextet’, “Group 47”, “What Would Monk Do?” and his own “Quartets”, and he curates and produces a weekly Saturday Jazz series at kj’s hideaway.  His latest recording, “Quartets”, includes original compositions played by 4 separate ensembles of Twin Cities Jazz musicians, including a Live version of Steve Kenny’s Ghost Suite. in 2019 the national Jazz Journalists Association named Steve as a “Minnesota Jazz Hero” for his work in the Jazz community and lifelong devotion to the Idiom.