The Dan DeWalt/Steve Sonntag Quintet plays a combination of standard and original jazz and Latin jazz music. The band performs original compositions by pianist Dan DeWalt and trumpet/flugelhorn player Sonntag.
DeWalt has been performing regionally for the past 30 years on trombone and steel pan as well as piano. His venues have included the Clinton White House and the Newfane Common.
Sonntag is a member of the Amherst Jazz Orchestra, the Jeff Holmes Big Band, the VJC Big Band, and the Al Alessi Band. He currently is a music professor at Westfield State College and at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
The other member of the horn section is Clayton DeWalt, a rising star in the trombone world, who is currently based in Boston, and Pittsburgh. He started recording professionally in his early teens and comfortably plays jazz, classical, rock, R&B, and Afro-Caribbean.
The rhythm section features Wim Auer on bass, along with either Julian Gerstin on congas or Ben James on the drums.
Auer first met DeWalt and Draa Hobbs in 1980 when he returned from England and performed with Prime Rib Band and he has been performing extensively with them since. Auer initially played electric bass with Antares, a regional jazz collective, through the 1970s.
Gerstin’s percussive explorations have led him from the folk traditions of Ghana and Cuba to popular music from Nigeria to Brazil, as well as jazz styles from New Orleans brass bands to avant-garde experimentalism.
James is familiar to many since he grew up in Guilford, playing drums and continued playing during his moves to Boston, New York, and San Francisco before coming back to the Northeast. He currently plays drums and percussions throughout the region with various music groups.
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