The mission of the Napa Valley Jazz Society is to support the art of jazz in all its forms and historic breadth, and to cultivate interest in jazz through music presentations, youth education, scholarship opportunities, and community outreach throughout the Napa Valley and the greater Bay Area region.

Who We Are

The Napa Valley Jazz Society is made up of Jazz lovers, educators, producers, and performers. 

Board of Directors

Dick Danne

Richard Danne (pronounced DAY-nee) was born in Oklahoma, and attended OSU and the UCLA Graduate School of Design. He has headed his own graphic design firm for an entire career. 35 of those years were in New York City where he was consultant to notable clients including: NASA, Seagram, DuPont, Fashion Institute, Third Street Music School, AT&T, and Harvard Business School. While in NYC, he enjoyed most of the great jazz musicians of our time. 

He was elected President of the American Institute of Graphic Arts and, recently, AIGA honored Richard with an "Inspiration" Design Archive Collection on their web site. In 1974, he was elected to Alliance Graphique Internationale, an elite honorary organization, and served as President of AGI/USA for years. His firm has garnered countless awards, including the "Award for Design Excellence" from President Reagan.

Richard relocated his communications firm to Napa in 2006 and is very active in print, brand identity, and web (www.dannedesign.com).

For many of his younger years, he lived a double life as a professional musician performing on trumpet and piano (playing the works of Chet Baker, Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, and Stan Getz). Dick comments: “This NVJS represents my coming full circle in jazz, and I’m happy to be working with such a prolific group!”

Bill Hart

Bill Hart grew up with the jazz scene in New York City in the Fifties and Sixties.  “My first Jazz At The Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall was at age 16.  From the time I was old enough (18 in those days), I would sit at the bar at the Five Spot for the price of two beers and listen to the likes of Coltrane, Adderley, Coleman (Hawkins and Ornett), Mulligan, and Monk.  I only wish I had known Bruce Hopewell back then.” 

After successful careers in management consulting and venture capital, Bill and his wife, Margie, moved to St. Helena , where they own and manage a small vineyard.   Bill joined the Board of the Napa Valley Opera House in 2002, and has provided guidance to their jazz programming, and produced a jazz series tribute to the great bassist Ray Brown.

Bill continues to advise start-up ventures, and serves or has served on the boards of Robert Biale Vineyards, Duckhorn Vineyards and Trimble Navigation, and the advisory boards of the business schools at Dartmouth (the  Tuck School) and Rensselaer (the Lally School).  He holds degrees from both of these institutions.

Bruce Hopewell

Leo Bruce Hopewell, is a well known Jazz Concert Producer, who has represented many well known and seminal Jazz figures in a variety of productions dating back to the early 1950's. Currently owner of East~West Festival Productions (click for more information) consults with various Jazz festival producers and presenters as well as Jazz club owners and Jazz blues musicians to present classic jazz performances worldwide.

He is also the owner of a Tax Accounting and Small Business Consultant Advisory Firm, specializing in various business services for Individuals, Small Businesses and Artists. His firm has forty-year experience specializing in tax return preparation, financial estate planning, setting up tax exemption not-for-profit organizations and obtaining funding for art and music organizations.  Additionally his firm provides well known music artists with accounting services, financial planning and tax services in conjunction with attorneys, recording companies, personal managers, and agents.

In addition to the Financial and Accounting services listed, Mr. Hopewell was an ADVISOR to the New York State Council of the Arts, responsible for setting up and distributing $25M annually to many Tax Exempt Performing Arts Organizations from 1968 through 1970. He audited various funded organizations for the New York Council of the Arts to verify that their programs met mandated guidelines.

Bruce was appointed by President Jimmy Carter in 1980 as one of two New York Representatives to The White House Conferences on Small Business.  In 1981 he was alsoappointed as a Member of the Advisory Council to the United States Senate Committee on Small Business. Assisted in proposing new tax legislation which was passed by the U.S. Senate and The House of Representatives. This is listed in the Congressional Record and Library of Congress. (1986)

Democratic National Committee, Executive Treasury Committee Delegate to the Presidential convention in San Francisco, California 1983 and Atlanta Georgia, in 1987. 

Janice King

Jazz always meant good times in her childhood household.  Growing up in Michigan there was always and abundance of music but when Dad put on the jazz that meant "party time". These fond memories brought Janice to volunteer for the Sonoma Valley Jazz Society where she served as Treasurer for her first year and then President for the past 12 years.  She has produced over 300+ jazz events (mostly Free to the community) in the Sonoma Valley.  She has helped to bring many amazing jazz artists to Sonoma including Chuchito Valdez, Mose Allison, Omar Sosa, Brubeck Brothers, Brian Nova, Eddie Duran and many many others.  Janice will use this jazz  production expertise and experience for the jazz lovers of Napa Valley. 

Janice also has 25 years experience in the software industry working in Quality Assurance and Software Developement at startups and larger corporations. Janice has an Accounting degree from Golden Gate Universary, San Francisco. 

What We Do

• Present programs of various mainstream and local jazz artists through a variety of outreach and inter-related activities  
• Present jazz programs in concert halls, outdoor spaces, wineries and various other venues that are suitable for audiences to experience jazz performances
• Present workshops, panels, residencies, master classes, and meet the artist events
• Collaborate with other local arts and jazz organizations in Napa, Sonoma, and other Bay Area locations
• Present a fall, spring, summer, and winter series of jazz presentations
• Create and implement educational outreach programs for Napa Valley families and students

NVJS Artistic Advisory Council

Craig Bond

St. Helena Choral Society

Jazz at Seven

St. Helena High School Jazz Choir

Mike Greensill

After graduating in 1972 from Leeds College of Leeds College of Music in England, Mike toured Europe and the Far East and lived in Hong Kong for 4 years before finally settling into his adopted home, San Francisco, in 1977.

Larry Vuckovich

Larry Vuckovichhas won acclaim from critics and jazz audiences for his deeply imaginative style and repertoire heard at prestigious North American and European jazz clubs, concert halls and festivals. He is equally at home in world music and classically influenced modal jazz as he is with hard-swinging bebop, post-bop, contemporary jazz, and down-home blues. The New York Times notes that his unique outlook and collection of influences “set him apart from most pianists who are heard regularly in New York."

Born in Kotor, a small Montenegrin coastal town in the former Yugoslavia, the pianist was classically trained as a child, but was also drawn to jazz music he heard on Armed Forces Radio and Voice of America during World War II and the Communist regime that followed. After the war, Tito’s communists took his home, including the family piano, and imprisoned his father and brother. Jazz came to symbolize freedom. Finally, in 1951, when he was 14, his family was granted political asylum in the United States, arriving in San Francisco at the height of a flourishing jazz scene.  

In San Francisco, he met Cal Tjader pianist, Vince Guaraldi  who agreed to engage him as his only piano student.  Mr. Guaraldi later featured Mr. Vuckovich in a two-piano quintet and sent him to substitute as accompanist for vocalists Irene Kral, David Allyn, and Mel Tormé, for whom Mr. Vuckovich became first-call pianist in San Francisco.  Larry has also had a 25-year association with vocalist-lyricist Jon Hendricks, which included performances in Hendricks’ long-running musical Evolution of the Blues and two Hendricks recordings.  In addition to his long association with San Francisco, Larry has worked the jazz scenes in Europe and New York where he appeared at all of the major jazz clubs.

Larry’s more recent performances range from solo piano to leader of his 18-piece band.  His Blue Balkan ensemble has won praise from critics as a pioneer in world music jazz fusion.  His other bands include the two-tenor Young at Heart sextet, a Dexter Gordon-Sonny Clarktribute quintet and the Latin-based La Orquesta El Vuko. He has developed several clinics, including: the History of Jazz Piano, the Art of the Ballad, and a Study of Bebop and Post-bop Pianists that was presented at the 2005 IAJE (International Association for Jazz Education) conference.

Larry was acknowledged as a "Jazz Legend" for the Fillmore Jazz Heritage Center in San Francisco. He was honored along with Eddy and Vernon Alley, Willie Bobo, Vince Guaraldi, Paul Desmond, Bop City’s Jimbo Edwards, John Handy, Noel Jewkes, Frank Jackson, Jon Hendricks, Bobby Hutcherson, Pat Nacey, Cal Tjader, Allen Smith, and others who contributed to the greatness of the San Francisco jazz scene.  Larry Vuckovich Day, December 8th was proclaimed in San Francisco on his birthday.

Mr. Vuckovich lives in Calistoga with his wife, vocalist-percussionist and co-producer, Sanna Craig.