Guitarist, composer, producer, and arranger Chieli Minucci is longtime leader of the Grammy-nominated jazz-fusion group SPECIAL EFX featuring Chieli Minucci, a major force on the jazz and world music scene for over 40 years. He has just released 3 brand new projects – “Return to Budapest With Love”, the archived, 1990 live concert recording of Special EFX from their early days on tour in Europe, solo project, and mainly acoustic “Someone’s Singing”, as well as his 40 th anniversary Special EFX CD, “Twenty Twenty 2” (both ChieliMusic). Chieli & Special EFX’s previous release saw title track, “Deep as the Night”, win Billboard Magazine’s 2018 top honors, best-song-of-the-year.

Saxophonist Eric Marienthal started his professional career in 1980 with famed New Orleans trumpeter Al Hirt. After returning to Los Angeles, Eric became a member of the Chick Corea Elektric Band. He recorded six albums with that band and two of them won Grammy Awards. Six of the songs that Marienthal has recorded have made it to the top 10 of the National Contemporary Jazz Radio Charts and two have made it to No. 1. His Oasis album hit the top 5 on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz Chart. Shortly after that, he was voted one of the year’s “Favorite Alto Sax Players” in Jazziz magazine’s Readers’ Poll. Marienthal has also written instructional books, including Comprehensive Jazz Studies & Exercises, The Ultimate Jazz Play Along, and The Music of Eric Marienthal and instructional videos, including Play Sax From Day One, Modern Sax and Tricks of the Trade.