This is the brand new website for Live After Five. All the information you need to know about us you can find on our website. If you would like a promotional kit please go to our contacts page and send us a request by email. We promise to get back with you shortly. Thanks. (Still Updating. . .Stay Tuned!)
Sandy Nitch – Vocalist
“Since I was old enough to stand on my own two feet--I've been singing.” Sandy has been involved in a variety of music programs from her elementary school years through college; although she majored in the Criminal Justice Program and achieved a degree in Liberal Arts. Sandy has been involved in musical production numbers in the Tampa Bay Area throughout the years and continues to grasp at the opportunities to sing when presented. Sandy recently formed “Live After Five” and plans to travel the Tampa Bay Area performing jazz standards and classics from Ella, Billie Holiday, Diana Krall, Elaine Elias, and many others. She has performed with The Boulevard Jazz Orchestra, Benny Boom-Boom and His Little Big Band, and sings at various churches.
Sandy is a very proud mother of one son, Ryan. And, now known as “Nana”, she is very proud of her grandson, a beautiful little baby boy by the name of Mason.
Sandy and her husband, Mike, strive very hard to help others through their business, "Just Brew It! Fundraising". It is a coffee company in which every customer has the opportunity to give to charitable and nonprofit organizations with every bag of coffee purchased. Because of her love for music, she has many high school choral, band, and string programs on their website at www.jbifonline.com. “When you are a musician you realize the importance of music and arts in our schools and you want to make a difference. Music to me is a way to express myself and to give joy to others . . . It takes you away if just for a moment or two!”
Jill Sentif – Pianist
Jill, as you can tell from her unusual surname, is married to the band, or, rather, the band leader of The Boulevard Jazz Orchestra. A native of Northern Ireland, she received her B. Mus. and MA in Compositional Studies from Queen's University, Belfast, and her teaching degree from University of Ulster. A classical pianist by training, but exposed to her father's recordings of Louis Armstrong, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday, etc. from the cradle onwards, she always longed to play jazz piano, but could find no one to teach her as all the jazz venues had been bombed during "the troubles" and all the jazz musicians had left for places where they could get through at least one set without a bomb alert. Eventually a kind person returned from a gig in the Catskills and showed her the basics. After a bit of work on the basics, she was getting gigs in Belfast, Dublin and London. She freely admits that she got many of these gigs because she is the perfect sidewoman - retiring, modest, punctual, doesn't get drunk, isn't offended by strong language (always a requirement in any Irish band) and, most important, doesn't take 20-chorus solos. Holding rehearsals in her own house, complete with lavish refreshments, didn't hurt either. She finally decided to get serious and took a year out from work to study jazz piano with Kenny Barron at Rutgers, NJ. She confesses that, most likely, she alone was responsible for Kenny's increased consumption of cigarettes and cognac during that year, but, at great cost to himself, he finally got her playing. When she returned to N. Ireland, she took a fatal attack of wanderlust and left a perfectly well-paid job as head of music at St. Mary's Christian Bros. Grammar School, to take a rather ill-paid job as a professor at the Jamaica School of Music, Kingston, Jamaica. She liked Jamaica, and the job, so much that she stayed for 8 years until, on a visit to Tampa, she met her future husband. She now teaches at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, and plays gigs in Tampa and environs.
Ryan Pillivant – Drums
Ryan has been playing drums and percussion for seven years studying with John Keon of Hudson, Fl. Throughout middle and high school he participated in various competitions. He made the All-County Concert band and the All-County Jazz band seventh through twelfth grade. He auditioned and made the All-State Symphonic band in seventh, eighth, and twelfth grade and the All-State Orchestra in tenth grade. He received superior ratings on solos at the district and state level and has played up to a grade seven solo--which is the highest-grade level for a solo. Ryan played with a Christian rock/blues band called the Skywire Project and recorded a CD called 3 days with them. He wrote the song The Tower that was recorded on the CD. Ryan has played with the Northend Jazz Band, the Mostly Pops Orchestra, the Boulevard Jazz Orchestra, and is the new drummer for Live After Five. He currently attends PHCC and will transfer to USF to major in music performance.
Jim Mara – Sax
Jim mara was born on a stormy Monday in 1972 in the Live Free or Die state of New Hampshire. His parents gave him up when he was young and he found himself raised by a pack of Howlin' wolves. He was fed a steady diet of chicken ala B.B. King, and studied under the great Professor Longhair. Jim always wanted to be a cool cat and hang with the jazz musicians on the sunny side of the street so his new family sent him to the crossroads. His new friend Robert Johnson suggested he take the A Train but Jim decided he would take the Coltrane instead.
Jim had traveled for miles and was getting quite dizzy and kind of blue from wandering. He was fortunate enough to meet The loneliest monk who invited him to a gig being held for the local royalty. They took Caloways cab to New York and started on a sentimental journey. Well, the Duke of Ellington and the Count of Basie were in town for the Woodchoppers Ball and Jim fell right in with all the cool cats. He was feeding the yard birds at the park when a thought came to him like a cannonball, why not go to Florida? He hopped a flight of the Foo Bird and ended up in Tampa. He found a quaint sandy nitch while sunny himself at the beach and has been traveling down the Boulevard of dreams and jazz ever since.
|
