Known as a forward-thinking musician with a passion for the jazz tradition, guitarist Randy Napoleon is an Associate Professor at Michigan State University. He is currently touring as a leader after twenty years of road apprenticeship with some of the most celebrated musicians and groups of our time. 

Napoleon cut his teeth touring with pianist Benny Green, The Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, Michael Buble, and a thirteen year tenure with Freddy Cole. He has also performed with artists across the jazz spectrum such as Bill Charlap, Natalie Cole, Monty Alexander, Rodney Whitaker and John Pizzarelli. 

Napoleon has performed or arranged on over seventy records. He arranged as well as performed on Freddy Coles seven most recent records including the Grammy-nominated releases, Freddy Cole Sings Mr. B and My Mood Is You. He performed on The Clayton Hamilton Orchestra: Live at MCG. Napoleon is featured on Bubles Grammy-nominated CD/DVD Caught in the Act.

Napoleon has played on The Tonight Show, Late Night With David Letterman, The View, The Today Show, and The Ellen DeGeneres show as well as TV shows in South America, Europe and Asia. He has performed across the globe at notable venues including Royal Albert Hall, The Sydney Opera House, The Hollywood Bowl, and Lincoln Center. 

Guitarist George Benson calls Napoleon sensational. Detroit Free Press critic Mark Stryker says Napoleon plays with a gentle, purring tone that makes you lean in close to hear its range of color and articulation. Washington Post critic Mike Joyce praises his exceptionally nimble finger-style technique. Comparing him to Wes Montgomery, music critic Michael G. Nastos says, he displays an even balance of swing, soul, and single-line or chord elements that mark an emerging voice dedicated to tradition and universally accessible jazz values.

Napoleon has four records as a band leader with a fifth, Common Tones, released Oct 4, 2019 on the Detroit Music Factory label. 

Guitarist and pianist Ariel Kasler holds a Master of Music in Jazz Performance from Bowling Green State University, a Bachelor of Music from Berklee College of Music, and an Alexander Technique Teaching Certificate from the Toronto School of the Alexander Technique.

Kasler is a versatile performer and educator. His career has included activities ranging from releasing an album, Above the Sound (2015), which includes original jazz compositions and arrangements of jazz standards, to performing and commissioning contemporary music for electric guitar and saxophone with his wife, saxophonist Bobbi Thompson.

His proficiency as an improviser and sight-reader on both guitar and piano have enabled him to perform at venues and events as diverse as the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, the Detroit Jazz Festival, the Grand Theatre in London, ON, the Clore Center for Music and Dance in Israel, New Music from Bowling Green, the NASA regional conference in Urbana-Champaign, the Victorian College of Arts in Australia, and Rutman’s Violins in Boston. In addition to performing as a solo guitarist and pianist, he has performed with the BGSU Jazz Faculty ensemble, the Peter Hysen Octet, the London Jazz Orchestra, Hollywood: Tribute to Michael Buble, Hughes & Mac and the Barry Usher Ensemble, and has directed cruise ship show-bands, accompanying artists such as Ian Finkel, Nathan Foley and Jim Curry.

Ariel Kasler has been teaching guitar and piano in various institutions in Israel, the United States and Canada since 2001.

Joining the faculty at Bowling Green State University in 2015, Ariel has been teaching Applied Jazz Guitar, Applied Guitar, Applied Jazz Piano, Jazz Lab II, Jazz Pedagogy, Guitar Pedagogy, Chamber Jazz Ensemble, Jazz Guitar Ensemble, and Classical Guitar Ensemble.

Double bassist, electric bassist, and composer Aidan Plank has performed for the past 27 years in the broad and diverse circumstances required of a jazz musician.

Since 2013 Plank has served as the bassist for the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra where he has collaborated with guest artists including Gerald Clayton, Joe Lovano, Maria Schneider, Michael Philip Mossman, Bobby Sanabria, Tierney Sutton, Regina Carter, Ken Peplowski, Bria Skonberg, and many others.

Plank’s own collaborative ensemble Pulse features saxophonist Brad Wagner, pianist Anthony Fuoco, and drummer Dustin May. Pulse explores new compositions by its members and also works to cultivate a midwestern sound drawing influence from the music of Pat Metheny and Charlie Haden.

Plank is also active as a jazz composer. His compositions and arrangements are performed by the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra as well as the Third Law Collective, a composers collective in residency at The Bop Stop in Cleveland, OH that focuses solely on new works by jazz composers. Third Law also featured guest trumpeter Russ Johnson in the spring of 2024.

Plank’s work as a bassist has seen him collaborating with a wide range of musicians including Dan Wall, Joe Lovano, Carmen Castaldi, Jamey Haddad, Dave Berkman, Terrance Blanchard, Dominick Farinacci, Bill Dobbins, Vanessa Rubin, John Fedchock, Steve Davis, Joe Maneri, Joshua Breakstone, Tim Armacost, Martha Kato, Diego Figueiredo, Sean Jones, Yoron Israel, and the Cleveland Orchestra.

Plank was featured on NPR’s “Jazz Night in America” radio show on their May 16, 2019 broadcast: “Cleveland’s Joe Lovano Comes Home”. Plank also plays on “Time to Mind the Mystics” by Dan Bruce’s Beta Collective (Shifting Paradigm Records) and “Off Brand” by Collage Project (Panoramic/New Focus Recordings).

Plank has performed at Carnegie Hall, Severance Hall, The Knitting Factory (NYC), Spectrum (NYC), Elastic Arts (Chicago), and Blossom Music Center.

As an educator Plank served as an instructor at the Tri C Jazzfest Academy in Cleveland, OH from 2015 to 2021 and as the jazz bass instructor at Kent State University from 2016 to 2024. Aidan has served as an adjudicator at The Maple Rock Jazz Festival and The Lakeland Jazz Festival, as well as offering masterclasses at the Chicago School of the Arts and Bowling Green State University. 

Plank holds a Master of Music in Jazz Studies from Youngstown State University and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from Cleveland State University. He studied double bass with Dave Morgan of Youngstown State University and with Kevin Switalski of the Cleveland Orchestra.

Percussionist Dan Piccolo has performed, taught, and studied internationally during his twenty-year professional career. He is currently Associate Professor of Percussion in Bowling Green State University’s College of Musical Arts.

Dan holds both a DMA and BM in Percussion Performance from the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, and during his master’s studies in U of M’s Jazz Department he focused on improvisation. He has studied concert percussion with Michael Udow, Salvatore Rabbio, Joseph Gramley and Jonathan Ovalle, among others, and his drum set and improvisation teachers have included Michael Gould, Steve Curry, and Ed Sarath. Dan is also skilled in several forms of non-Western percussion, having studied frame drumming with Jamey Haddad and tabla with Pandit Kuber Nath Mishra in multiple visits to Varanasi, India. A grant from the University of Michigan’s International Institute funded the first of these visits, and he returned to Varanasi in the winter of 2015 thanks to an award from the Presser Foundation. An additional award from U of M’s International Institute made it possible for Dan to begin formal studies of West African music in Ghana in the summer of 2014.

Dan’s debut solo recording, Monobot, was released on the Equilibrium Recordings label in December 2020. In October 2019 Dan gave the world premiere of Evan Ziporyn’s concerto for drum set and wind ensemble, Impulse Control, which written was written for Dan and for which he led the commissioning consortium. Dan has also premiered works by composers including Aaron Kernis, Christopher Dietz, Emma O’Halloran, and Adam Silverman, as well as his own compositions, and he continues to work actively with composers to commission new solo and ensemble works for percussion.

Dan has appeared as a soloist with groups including the Toledo Symphony Orchestra and the University of Michigan Percussion Ensemble, and as a guest artist at colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada. As a chamber musician he has enjoyed collaborations with notable artists including Third Coast Percussion, composer/pianist Harold Budd, percussionists Ji Hye Jung and Joseph Gramley, the arx duo, pianist Sonya Belaya, and the Detroit Chamber Winds. Dan also remains active as a jazz drummer, working with musicians such as John Scofield, Regina Carter, Mike Stern, and Stanley Cowell. For six years Dan was the drummer with Nomo, with whom he toured internationally and recorded three albums for Ubiquity Records. Dan has also toured and recorded as a member of Cloud Nine Music, The Ragbirds, His Name is Alive, and others. Dan continues to perform regularly with symphony orchestras, rock bands, Indian classical music ensembles, jazz groups, and in various chamber music configurations. This busy performance schedule has earned him invitations to perform at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention and the annual conference of the International Society for Improvised Music.

In addition to his busy professional schedule, Dan is a dynamic educator, teaching a broad range of percussion instruments in private and classroom settings. He has presented workshops and masterclasses at universities throughout the United States, and has twice been selected as a clinician at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention. Dan spent six years as the coordinator of the percussion program at Ann Arbor’s Pioneer High School, during which time the school was twice named a Grammy Signature School. In 2016 Dan joined the faculty of the College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio. Prior to this appointment Dan was Assistant Director of Percussion at the University of Tennessee at Martin, and he previously served as Head of the Percussion Area at New England Music Camp in Sidney, Maine.

An active member of the Percussive Arts Society, Dan served as a member of the World Percussion Committee from 2014 to 2019, and he currently serves as Associate Editor for Professional Development for the Society’s journal, Percussive Notes. In 2021 he began his first term as President of PAS’s Ohio Chapter.

Dan proudly endorses Cooperman Frame Drums, Zildjian Cymbals, Innovative Percussion sticks and mallets, Pearl/Adams percussion instruments, and Remo drumheads. For more information please visitwww.danpiccolo.com.