The Dan Miller Quartet appears at the Roadhouse Cafe Florida every Tuesday night beginning at 7:00 PM during the Florida tourist season October through April. The band is now on hiatus and will resume their Tuesday run in October 2017. In the meantime, find jazz listings for other Southwest Florida venues featuring these artists here.
Dan Miller
Jazz trumpeter Dan Miller is one of Southwest Florida’s most accomplished musicians. A native of Chicago, Miller began his illustrious career in the early 1990s, playing in bands led by Woody Herman, Maynard Ferguson, Wynton Marsalis and Harry Connick Jr., the latter association comprising of over a decade of touring and recording. He also appeared frequently in Las Vegas with pop music star Tom Jones.
Dan has spent 2000 through today free-lancing in New York City and throughout Florida. In 2004, Dan began to split his time between NYC and Florida. He started performing at Ellington’s Jazz Bar and Restaurant on Sanibel Island, FL where he led his own groups as well as worked with Jimmy McGriff, David “Fathead” Newman, Jimmy Norman, Lew DelGatto, Jon Weber, Davell Crawford and Danny Sinoff. From 2005-2009, Dan was a member of the Danny Sinoff Quartet, recording three CDs for E.S.P. (the third featured tenor saxophonist David “Fathead” Newman).
Since 2010, Dan has been a member of the Naples Philharmonic Jazz Orchestra.
Dan continues to perform regularly in NYC, appearing frequently at Smalls and Fat Cat as a leader or as a member of Ned Goold or Tim McCall’s groups. He often finds himself playing in NYC with musicians like his brother David Miller, Ben Wolfe, Neal Caine, Anthony Pinciotti, Spike Wilner, Ned Goold, Stephen Riley, Tim McCall and Carlos DeRosa.
Dan Miller’s musical influences include Fats Navarro, Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, Kenny Dorham, Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Thelonious Monk and Curtis Fuller.
Joe Delaney
Pianist Joe Delaney was born in Brockton, Mass. and grew up in Whitman, just south of Boston. Joe’s father Ed Delaney was also a pianist. Joe started playing at age 3, learning by ear from records, family parties and his father’s band rehearsals. Joe says, “I picked it up and still play about 90% by ear.”
Joe started formal instruction and began performing in pubic at the age of 5. Joe says, “Once we started little kid tunes, I’d hear the teacher play it and put about 15 minutes into my lesson and just mimic it back.” He was soon spending hours a day learning popular tunes and George Shearing hits he heard during the band rehearsals.
Later, Joe studied briefly with Kurt Wenzel, Charlie Banocos, Kenny Barron and Berklee piano professor Paul Schmeling. During his formative years Joe absorbed the musical influences of George Shearing, Erroll Garner, Ahmad Jamal, Ramsey Lewis, Sergio Mendes, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Bill Evans, Dave McKenna, Oscar Peterson and Herbie Hancock.
Joe first met the great Cape Cod jazz pianist Dave McKenna at the age of 12. They became life-long musical and personal friends. Joe says, “Even now there isn’t a time that I sit down to play solo piano that I don’t think of Dave.” McKenna said about Joe Delaney, “He gets better every time I hear him and he’s been around since he was barely a teenager.”
Delaney worked in the Boston and Cape Cod areas until 1981, when he moved to the US Virgin Islands, where he worked for most of the ’80s.
From 1989-2009 Joe returned to New England, based in Cape Cod, mostly in Hyannis. He had a long association with reedman Dick Johnson, who led the Artie Shaw Orchestra during this period. Joe traveled with the Shaw Orchestra for six years, sometimes playing alongside trumpet great Lou Colombo. While not touring with the Shaw band or his own groups (on 5 continents), Delaney played extended residencies in virtually every live music venue on Cape Cod. He spent 7 years leading the house trio at the Black Cat Tavern at Hyannis Harbor, now owned and operated by David Colombo.
Don Mopsick © Ken Franckling
Bassist Don Mopsick hails from New Jersey. He attended the Manhattan School of Music, and upon graduation moved to Ft. Myers Florida in 1977. After a move to Orlando in 1983 he found himself in demand statewide playing jazz concerts in Orlando, Tallahassee, Gainesville, Jacksonville, Sarasota, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Daytona and elsewhere. In 1991 he joined the Jim Cullum Jazz Band in San Antonio, TX and appeared weekly on the Riverwalk Jazz series on public radio. While with Cullum, Mopsick recorded shows with Dick Hyman, John and Bucky Pizzarelli, Clark Terry, Kenny Davern, Linda Hopkins, Benny Carter, Bob Wilber, Milt Hinton, Ralph Sutton, Harry Allen, Ken Peplowski, Joe Williams, “Sweets” Edison, Shelly Berg, Stephanie Nakasian and many other greats of jazz.
Don currently lives in Cape Coral, FL and enjoys an active free-lance playing career: in recent years he played concert dates with Ira Sullivan, Aaron Weinstein, Lainie Cook, Stephanie Nakasian. Hod OBrien and daughter Veronica Swift, Dave Bennett, Johnny Varro, Cynthia Sayer, Giacomo Gates, Wycliff Gordon, Russell Malone, Bucky Pizzarelli, Joshua Breakstone, and at the Sarasota Opera House featuring the movie scores of Dick Hyman.
Tony Vigilante
Jazz drummer Tony Vigilante is a native of Philadelphia. Since his recent move to Naples, FL he has become in demand throughout the Southwest Florida region for his wonderfully bouyant, driving swing feel and impeccable time.
During a long career, Tony has backed up many singers and entertainers such as Della Reese, Billy Eckstine, Maureen McGovern and Perry Como. He’s recorded with Buddy De Franco, the Al Raymond Orchestra and the Brian Pastor Big Band. Vigilante was a member of Ben Vereen’s touring band performing in Las Vegas, Reno and Tahoe casinos, as well as numerous theater performances on the East Coast. In television, Tony worked in live studio bands for shows such as Good Morning America, The Mike Douglas Show, The Phil Donahue Show and an HBO special, Ben Vereen Live from The Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas.
Tony also appears Saturday nights at the Roadhouse Cafe FL with Danny Sinoff Quartet.
The Roadhouse Cafe Florida
Randy Brecker, Charles McPherson, Ira Sullivan, Dennis Rowland and Bobby Shew.
Joe Delaney, a gifted and highly original jazz pianist, appears frequently at The Roadhouse Cafe in Ft. Myers, Florida.
Roadhouse Cafe Florida 