Ray Rideout Jazz Quartet

media release: Join us for Saturday Jazz! This month, we welcome the Ray Rideout Jazz Quartet.

The Ray Rideout Jazz Quartet plays post-bop jazz, including compositions by Wayne Shorter, Cedar Walton, Jimmy Heath, Oliver Nelson and John Coltrane, as well as standards from the “Great American Songbook” by Cole Porter, Oscar Hammerstein, Richard Rodgers and others. 

Saxophonist Ray Rideout has been performing in Madison and Milwaukee since the 1960s. During the 1970s and 1980s, Ray’s quartet and sextet appeared at all the major jazz venues and festivals in Milwaukee. Ray has shared the bandstand with Mel Rhyne, Gerald Cannon, David Hazeltine, Ted Jackson, Manty Ellis, Barry Velleman, Steve Houghton, Frank Rosolino, and Sadik Hakim.

Ray has a versatile background in music that includes recording, film scoring, and music technology. In 1995, Ray released La Paz en el Corazon (“Peace in the Heart”), a compact disc recording of his compositions and performance. In 1998, he completed the music score for the documentary film, The Making of Monona Terrace: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Last Public Building. An earlier film-scoring project was Links to Hope, a film for the World Health Organization. Ray holds a master’s degree in Music Theory and Composition from the University of Northern Colorado.

The Ray Rideout Quartet features

• Ray Rideout, alto and soprano sax
• Paul Hastil, keyboard
• John Mesoloras, bass
• Sam Belton, drums

Jazz at Sequoya features local musicians on the third Saturday of every month. The series is generously funded by the Friends of Sequoya Library.