Door County Entertainment: Make Time for Playtime Jazz

Wisconsin-area contemporary jazz group, Playtime, artfully blends smooth jazz, R&B and more. Their widely ranging repertoire will be on display during their appearance at Third Avenue Playhouse on Saturday, March 7 at 7:30 pm.

From the most traditional jazz to alternative rock, the accomplished members of Playtime represent a diversity of disciplines. Established musicians and solo artists, they have recorded and toured in the U.S. and Europe with well-known jazz and rock acts and have also opened for numerous national and international performers.

Helen Exner is a classically trained pianist who started playing jazz after graduating from Lawrence University with a history degree. Her love of history informs her repertoire, which spans the entire 20th century. Her style ranges from little-known blues performed in the 1920s to familiar popular songs of the 1930s and ‘40s, Motown, Top 40 pop and straight-ahead jazz piano. Helen also is a songwriter who released her first album of gospel-and classical-influenced original tunes in 2006.

Guitarist Chris White hails from Los Angeles but now resides in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. Chris has studied all disciplines of guitar. While majoring in music at St. Mary’s in Winona, Minnesota, he studied jazz harmonies and improvisation with Chris Rosenberg, from The Manhattan School of Music and Ornette Coleman Group. Now having lived all over America and Central Europe, White has developed a unique jazz style, drawing from several influences. White’s debut CD Hideaway was greeted as a powerful work in contemporary jazz.

Ticket prices for Playtime are $15 for adults, $12 for seniors and students and $8 for children under 12. Tickets are on sale at the theater box office, 239 N. Third Avenue, Sturgeon Bay, 920.743.1760. Box office hours are 10 am – 3 pm, Monday through Friday, and one hour prior to performances. Tickets are also available at Dancing Bear, 13 N. Third Avenue and on-line at http://www.ThirdAvenuePlayhouse.com.