John Ricci & Friends - A Farewell Concert at Blue Jay Listening Room

***Doors at 6. Show at 7.***

Seating is first come first served. Ages 18+.

Tickets increased by $10 at the door.

John Ricci & Friends – A Farewell Concert

John Ricci – tenor sax

Joshua Bowlus – piano

Thomas Milovac – bass

Stefan Klein – drums

and many special guests…

Professor John Ricci has been a pivotal and influential teacher and performer in the Jacksonville and Southeast region for nearly three decades. His unique voice on the tenor saxophone, deep knowledge & passion for the music, and his encouraging and uplifting spirit has had a profound impact on a myriad of students, professionals, and listeners alike. Now, he looks forward to new endeavors and will be moving up north with his family to Cincinnati by year end. He will be terribly missed by all of his friends and the music community in North Florida. We would love to use this opportunity to wish Ricci a warm farewell on his journey ahead. The band will perform some of John’s compositions and favorite tunes in the first set and will then invite multiple special guests and friends to join on stage throughout the second set. This will be a love-filled hang and joyful celebration of our friend John and all that he has done for the music community. We hope you will join us for this beautiful and special occasion.

More about John Ricci:

John Ricci has been a performer, jazz educator, composer, and clinician in the North Florida area for nearly three decades. John attended the jazz studies program at the University of Tennessee Knoxville where he was mentored directly by internationally recognized saxophonist and jazz pedagogue Jerry Coker and former Art Blakey Jazz Messenger Donald Brown. He then attended Florida State University earning a Masters of Music in Jazz Studies under a teaching assistantship. In that time he performed with Blue Note Trumpeter Marcus Printup and at Preservation Hall in New Orleans. He has received many awards including a Downbeat Magazine award in 1995. John has since performed with a myriad of top recording artists and regularly in numerous club dates spanning from New York to Savannah, He’s performed locally as a tenor saxophone soloist with the Jacksonville Symphony Pops Orchestra, the Four Tops, The Temptations, and in festivals including Chijazz Festival in Singapore, as a regular performer in the Jacksonville Jazz Festival, the Savannah Jazz Festival, as a guest artist with pianist/composer Donald Brown in the Knoxville Jazz Festival, and was invited to headline the Inaugural Jacksonville Jazz Series with his own quartet.

John’s album Holding Time received high critical acclaim, and is a debut release of some of his own very inspired compositions and arrangements and includes some of the finest musicians in the southeast. And in January 2009, John was judged the winner of the jazz song category of the 8th Annual Independent Music Awards. John has taught at the University of North Florida assisting legendary saxophonist Bunky Green, and from 2004 – 2025 he served as Director of Jazz Studies at Jacksonville University in Jacksonville, FL. He can be found performing regularly as an independent artist in the Northeast Florida region through the end of 2025, and will then relocate with his family to the Cincinnati area.