Reg Watkin's Page

In 2003 Reggie was selected as one of only eleven semi-finalists to perform at the prestigious 2003 Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Competition in Washington D.C. There he was accompanied by an all-star jazz group consisting of pianist Eric Reed, bassist Bob Hurst, and drummer Carl Allen.

  In 2004 Watkins released his first solo CD as Band Leader, Trombonist, Composer, Arranger, and Producer entitled A-LIST. The album features sixteen musicians, all original compositions and arrangements, and is part of The Maynard Ferguson Presents series.

In 2006 Watkins co-produced "MF VI Live at Ronnie Scott's"  with Maynard Ferguson and Ed Sargent. That same year he was also honored as Outstanding Alumnus from Wheeling Park High School and delivered the commencement address to the graduating class and an audience of many. He was the first person in the performing arts to be chosen in the school's history of thirty years.

In 2007 Watkins traveled to Thailand for the fifth time at the request of The King of Thailand to perform for The King and the Thai people in celebration of his 80th birthday. Also featured on this concert was Urbie Green, Ricky Woodard, Patrick Hession and many others.

In 2008 he joined the Grooveline Horns and they are currently on the road with Jason Mraz. Last year the group played Saturday Night Live, NBC's The Today Show, Radio City Music Hall, Royal Albert Hall in London, The Hollywood Bowl, The Java Jazz Festival in Jakarta, Oxygen Festival in Dublin, Farm Aid, "The Tonight Show with Conan O'brien"  and an extensive world tour.

Grooveline Horns Release Their Debut EP

The Grooveline Horns have just independently released their debut EP featuring two original songs titled, “Copchase” (included on Jason Mraz’s most recent live album release) and “I’m Done.” The EP also features two covers, “One the Serious Side” a new twist to Tower of Powers 1975 release and one of Con Funk Shun’s greatest hits “Ffun.”

Go to http://groovelinehorns.bandcamp.com/ to order a limited edition physical copy of the EP for $5 or digital download for only $4.

Trombonist Reggie Watkins has learned lessons about music and life in the business in his five years with always-on-the-road trumpet star Maynard Ferguson. 

"I want to present this band -- and this album -- as a jazz product," Watkins says. "But there are elements of rock and funk in it, too."

In that way, it has a lot of the same approach of the Ferguson band, which is rooted in the 76-year-old trumpeter's jazz history but also borrows rhythms from rock and hip-hop.

Watkins is a Wheeling, W.Va., native who studied music at West Virginia University. He was a semi-finalist in 2002 in the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition, has toured with the Temptations, led his own quintet in New Zealand, and has performed on Princess cruises.

He also is the brother of Olga Watkins, the Coraopolis singer-chef who blends food with music to make parties out of catered get-togethers.

The trombonist is part of a long line of area musicians who have spent time with Ferguson's band. They include drummer Throckmorton, bassists Paul Thompson and Brian Stahurski and trombonist Randy Purcell, who was a star in the group in the '70s.

Pittsburgh City Paper, September 1, 2004

Reggie Watkins
A-List
JiveFam Productions

Writer: JUSTIN HOPPER

Internationally acclaimed jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson’s targeted poaching of talent from the Pittsburgh area has had a profound impact on the young jazz scene around town. Much the way that earlier big-name players and high-profile local clubs circulated musical blood in and out of Pittsburgh, Ferguson has taken musicians such as drummer Dave Throckmorton and bassist Paul Thompson (of Beam and Thoth Trio, amongst others) and bassist Nathan Peck (of Pittsburgh’s Peck jazz family), and given them immeasurable experience, which the musicians have faithfully brought back to the ’Burgh. The latest result of the Ferguson-Pittsburgh connection is A-List, the debut solo album by trombonist/composer/arranger Reggie Watkins. And while A-List speaks volumes about Watkins’ own accomplishments as a musician and composer, it simultaneously acts as a rallying point for a young, vibrant set of jazz musicians around the city -- the top names and top players of a new generation who make up the first-choice list of the title.

First and foremost, of course, is Watkins himself, a remarkably pure trombonist whose strong tones range from laid-back harmonies (“December Twentieth”) to bop sectionals (“Weight for Six”) to funky, fusion-inspired soloing (“Three Girls on Two Chairs”), reggae rhythms (“Molero”), and Fred Wesley-ish percussive kinetic action. Watkins’ trademark throughout A-List, though, is confidence: He plays with the cool ease and subtle machismo of a veteran, both of the tour spotlight of Ferguson’s band and of the smoky eclecticism of the Quiet Storm Coffeehouse sessions by the Jive Family, from which some of A-List’s musical chairs are drawn. Similarly, Watkins’ own compositions, such as the subdued “Two Colors” and the slingshot “Weight For Six,” stand up as full-fledged jazz-standard contenders without reeking of puffed-chest, gunslinger’s bravado.

But A-List is really about collaboration, and if it comes across as a showoff in any way, it’s in the size of that roster -- too many cooks (16 musicians contribute to the disc) come close to troubling Watkins’ master plan. What saves it from falling apart under the weight of its own musical diversity, besides Watkins’ own determination as a bandleader, is the quality of most players on that list. Throckmorton and Peck; keyboardist Howie Alexander; veteran trumpeter Ian Gordon plus Ken Robinson, Patrick Hession and Jamie Moore; guitarist Craig “Izzy” Arlet -- all contribute bop, big-band, and smooth jazz experience tempered with the experimentalism of vast musical backgrounds. So a track like “Star Jive,” with a rhythm based on drum-and-bass, hard-and-fast syncopations, works alongside Thelonious Monk’s swooning “Ask Me Now.” Pittsburgh-to-Chicago transplant Gene Stovall contributes vocals to three tracks, including one of his own compositions, the funk-jazz jam “Sittin’ Here in My Room,” complete with Stovall’s signature borderline psychosis lyrics and turntable-scratch scat.

As with his first solo disc, A-List marks an important moment for Reggie Watkins. But as a showcase for Pittsburgh’s family of young musicians working in the ever more loosely defined field of “jazz,” this album could hopefully someday be seen as a point when these musicians were still mostly lesser-knowns. If so, A-List will likely stand as a worthy marker.