04/09/2024
MARK YOUR CALENDAR!!
Our next free Jazz Vespers concert will be:
April 28th, 4pm, 1213 Pacific Avenue, AC 08401, 4pm! Dru Coley, Percussionist and friends. ABOUT DRU COLEY:
- Andrew Coley, got his start in music while living in a family of musicians. Dru grew up on piano, percussion, drums, guitar and bass guitar. One day, his mother said, "You can play any instrument, but do not touch my bass!" So like a good kid, the first thing he did was to pick up his Mama's bass! One day his mother heard him play something he had heard, a Stevie Wonder song and came downstairs and said, "Do that again!" His mom then proceeded to play a tune on the piano and said, "Play that on the bass!" He did. At that point, she knew he had an ear. From that day on Dru started to
experiment with different instruments.
One day the famous Leonard Gibbs, known as "Gibbs" was at his house. As a left-handed percussionist he was playing the Kunga and Andrew attempted to duplicate what Gibbs was doing and he did. He recreated one of the most difficult sounds that you can get out of a conga drum which is called the slap and was able to do it with both hands right off the bat. By the time Dru reached high school he was able to play bass, drums, trumpet, trombone, French horn and tuba. Andrew "Dru" Coley has had the opportunity to play with the late greats Daryl Coley, Tito Puente, Grover Washington Jr, and don’t forget Harvey Drew Dawson as well as all of our jazz vespers musicians.
