SDSU Brookings Optimist Jazz Festival

Nicole McCabe is a saxophonist, composer and educator who works and lives in Los Angeles. Her new album, "A Song to Sing," marks her vibrant debut on Colorfield Records. It follows "What Is My Porpoise?", the latest from her electro-jazz duo Dolphin Hyperspace, on Dox Records, and "Mosaic," her fourth album as a bandleader, on Ghost Note Records. A prolific performer and creative force in the local jazz scene, McCabe’s recent collaborators include Jeff Parker, Justin Brown, Louis Cole, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ari Hoenig, Dan Weiss, Sasha Berliner and more.

David Thorne Scott is a jazz singer, songwriter, composer and teacher. His current creative project is "Animal Spirits," a new musical about economist John Maynard Keynes, which examines the role of love and art in a world of war, ideological polarization and economic inequality. Scott wrote the book, music and lyrics.

Scott’s album "Thornewood" explores the boundary between Jazz and Americana. Collaborators on the album include Grammy-award winners Paula Cole, Peter Eldridge and Sara Caswell, as well as jazz luminaries Jason Palmer and Walter Smith III. Eponymous Review wrote that Scott “explores the intersection of Jazz and Americana, city and country, instrumentation and lyrics to create lush compositions and covers that are unifying, and healing, in their beauty.”

Scott’s album "Shade" was named a "Top 5 CD of the Year" by the Jazz Education Journal. Cadence Magazine said, "He phrases like a saxophone player and is as slippery and hip as the young Mel Tormé." Critic Herb Wong wrote, “I haven’t been this moved by a performance of ‘For All We Know’ since Carmen McRae.”

Scott sings and plays piano on his jazz/rock crossover album "Hopeful Romantic,” produced by multiplatinum producer Anthony Resta.

Scott is the producer and host of Songwriters in the Round, a Boston-area live performance series that has showcased over 100 singer/songwriters.

His composition “I See You” was featured in the television show "The Blacklist" on NBC. 

Scott has been a soloist with the Boston Pops, the Capital Jazz Orchestra, the Melrose Symphony and the Cape Symphony. 

Scott is the bassist and founder of the Vintage Vocal Quartet, comprised of singer/instrumentalists who harmonize while playing bass, guitar, piano and drums. The group's repertoire is drawn from swing hits of the 1930s and 1940s by artists like Glenn Miller, the Nat King Cole Trio, the Andrews Sisters and the Pied Pipers.

OnWeGo is a jazz collective that explores the creative vision of its four members: Scott (vocals and bass), Mark Shilansky (piano and vocals), Sara Caswell (violin) and Eric Byers (guitar). They play original jazz/Americana songs with mythological overtones and plenty of collective improvisation.

As a member of the vocal quartet Syncopation, called "a 21st-century Manhattan Transfer‚" by the Boston Globe, he sang and played trumpet. Scott was an arranger, performer and founder of the vocal group Vocalogy. And he did two tours with the legendary vocal group the Four Freshmen, where he sang the high lead part and played bass.

Scott is professor of voice at Berklee College of Music.