Photos by Don Berryman
"Sometimes you go to a club to play, and you're 19, and your entire audience is between 50 and 90, and it's like 'Wow! This is strange, I'm not playing for any of my peers whatsoever.'"

Young trumpeter Greg Paulus is not yet out of his teens but already is a veteran performer at St. Paul's Artists Quarter. On breaks from the Manhattan School of Music,  as long as he's in school, Twin Citians will likely have a few times each year to catch this monster-in-the-making when he has some down time in his studies, but don't wait. In another year or two, we'll probably have to travel to New York to hear him play.

The Phil Hey Quartet features Dave Hagedorn on vibes, Phil Aaron on piano, Tom Lewis on bass and Phil on drums and has been an Artists' Quarter favorite for the past 5 years. No surprise really. This is a no-nonsense, uncompromising band of local jazz greats regularly performing the tunes of Kenny Wheeler, Bobby Hutcherson, John Coltrane, and Wayne Shorter and others. Over the years they have attracted a loyal crowd of hardcore jazz fans and students who show up on the monthly Thursday night when they perform.

Given the breadth and depth of his experience, which includes studies at the National School of Arts in Havana, it was inevitable that Doug Little would bring yet another new project to the stage, in the form of a septet devoted to Cuban themes and rhythms. The still-nameless band (the original name, El Septeto, was dropped, said Little, following some ribbing from fellow musicians) debuted at the Dakota on September 9^th, featuring a last-minute substitution on bass and a small Thursday night audience. Not an auspicious beginning, it seemed, until the band took the stage. What happened next was nuclear fission.