| Rebecca Coupe Franks (2010) | |
|---|---|
| Rebecca Coupe Franks was destined to play the trumpet: her mother, brother, grandfather and great-uncle all played that same instrument. Growing up here in the Bay Area, she was a member of the Monterey Jazz Festival student all-star band at the same time as Santa Cruz-based saxophonist Donny McCaslin. Another saxophonist, the great Joe Henderson, who had relocated to the Bay Area in the 1970s, was her mentor while she was coming up.
Coupe, as she is known, got wanderlust out of her system first by working in a circus, and then by spending time in South America. On her return to the US, it was suggested by yet another Bay Area saxophonist, Virginia Mayhew (whom Coupe had known while both were playing in the Brazilian jazz group Chevere) that she join her in studying at Manhattan's New School. Coupe did so, and after receiving her BFA in Jazz studies there, she pursued graduate work in Composition at NYU. Since then, Coupe has been mostly based in and around New York City (as in the case of Virginia Mayhew, again the Bay Area's loss is the Big Apple's gain), recording a series of CDs, and touring the world with the likes of Lou Donaldson, Herb Ellis, Kenny Barron, Ben Riley and Victor Lewis. |
| Pick | Artist | Album | Song | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| # 1 | Count Basie | The Complete Atomic Basie | L'il' Darlin' | Roulette |
| # 2 | Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong | The Best of Ella and Louis | Stompin' at the Savoy | Verve |
| # 3 | Clifford Brown | Study in Brown | Cherokee | EmArcy |
| # 4 | Blue Mitchell | The Thing to Do | The Thing to Do | Blue Note |
| # 5 | Lee Morgan | The Sidewinder | The Sidewinder | Blue Note |
| # 6 | Jimmy and Stacy Rowles | Looking Back | You Don't Know What Love Is | Delos |
| # 7 | Rebecca Coupe Franks | Suit of Armor | Elephant Dreams | Justice |
| # 8 | Jaco Pastorius | The Essential Jaco Pastorius | The Dry Cleaner from des Moines | Legacy |
| Book | Jerry Franks, "1891: A Novel about Stanford University" | |||
| Luxury Item | A hot tub and a case of wine | |||