Summer 2026
LMR Jazz Orchestra brings Greenwich Village to Wine Country
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At first glance, Napa Valley’s sun-drenched vineyards and the subterranean intimacy of the Village Vanguard — the legendary Greenwich Village jazz club — seem worlds apart. But those two musical universes meet when the LMR Jazz Orchestra returns to Festival Napa Valley on July 7 for a performance at CIA at Copia.
The unlikely bridge between downtown New York’s jazz history and the Northern California Wine Country is Ted Hall, co-founder of Long Meadow Ranch. Before launching his agricultural and culinary empire, which encompasses premium wine, olives, grass-fed beef and lamb, fruit orchards, and vegetables, Hall was a young jazz trombonist — accomplished enough to sit in with the Vanguard’s famed house band, the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra.
The band was founded in 1966 at the Vanguard, which had entered international jazz lore via a stream of epochal live recordings by Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, and John Coltrane. They became a Monday-night institution. The off-night slot drew leading musicians from across the New York jazz scene into charts by Thad Jones, a powerhouse trumpeter whose arrangements played a key role in defining the sound of the “New Testament” Count Basie Orchestra in the 1950s.
That lineage remains central to the LMR Jazz Orchestra. Founded in 2013, they have become one of Northern California’s most celebrated jazz ensembles. Under music director and trumpeter Niel Levonius, the band has collected a hard-swinging book of tunes. They draw deeply from classic big-band repertoire, including Jones’s Basie charts, while also commissioning new works from contemporary composers such as Rick Walsh, Chris Walden, and Aaron Lington, who holds down LMR’s baritone sax chair.
What makes the LMR Jazz Orchestra such a formidable ensemble is its personnel. Hall and Levonius have assembled a remarkably consistent, all-star roster drawn from the Bay Area and Los Angeles jazz scenes. Regular members include saxophonist and flutist Mary Fettig, trumpeter John Worley Jr., trombonist Dan Gordon, drummer Gary Novak, known for his work with the Chick Corea Elektric Band, and, most recently, pianist Shelly Berg, who spent two decades as dean of University of Miami's Frost School of Music.
“The band has always been a mix of the best available players and friends,” Levonius said. “With my network and Ted’s, we’re one degree of separation from just about anyone. An all-star band like this means we can play just about anything.”
The Vanguard connection comes full circle this summer when guest artist Jon Faddis joins the band at Festival Napa Valley. A protégé of Dizzy Gillespie, the Oakland-born trumpet virtuoso rose to prominence as a teenage sensation. He performed briefly with Lionel Hampton’s big band before joining the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra in 1972, taking over the lead trumpet chair at just 18.
Though he left the band in 1975, Faddis has remained a commanding presence in large-ensemble jazz, directing the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band for a decade and leading his own Jon Faddis Jazz Orchestra since 2003. Hall typically emcees LMR performances from the trombone section. But, given that Faddis’s skills as a raconteur rival his high-note runs, this time he expects to share the spotlight.
“I expect he’ll be telling some stories,” Hall quipped, “and I won’t have much time on the mic.”
LMR Jazz Orchestra
Tuesday, July 7, 2026
6:30pm at CIA at Copia