Get ready for a swingin' good time when the Dave D'Angelo Jazz Quartet comes to town Friday, March 2, as the headliner for the Unity Church of Rockdale's First Friday Concert Series.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m. and the concert starts at 8 p.m.at Unity Church of Rockdale, 933 Commercial Street in Olde Town Conyers, which has seating for 50 people.

Tickets are $15 each; $25 for couples and $5 for children under the age of 18. Donations of canned goods and winter coats will be accepted at the church.

The First Friday Concert Series runs monthly throughout the year with a variety of genres and selections intended to uplift and inspire the listener. Proceeds will benefit the church's music department.

The band will play a selection of jazz standards from the bebop and swing eras. Band leader Dave D'Angelo plays the alto saxophone and is joined by Chris Enghauser on bass, Justin Chesarek on drums and Rick Roler on guitar.

D'Angelo, a Grammy nominee who has shared the stage with the likes of Reba McIntyre, James Brown and Sammy Davis Jr. and has performed in orchestras for more than 60 Broadway shows. D'Angelo, an Athens resident, grew up in a musical family and studied music in college before dropping out of graduate school to tour with the great bandleader and jazz drummer Buddy Rich. He and the other contributors to a two-CD set tribute to Buddy Rich were nominated for two Grammys in 1996.
D'Angelo developed his performance style from Rich, who would call out the song he wanted to play during the show, with no warning to his band, sending them fumbling through a book of 260 selections.

Now when he plays his own shows, D'Angelo likes to take a similar approach.
"You go with the flow of the audience and see how the audience responds to certain things," he said."You want to connect with the people and break up the styles to keep it interesting."

D'Angelo is currently a musician in residence at the University of Georgia and an adjunct professor at Jacksonville State University. He recently performed with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra at a concet headlined by Bernadette Peters and will next play in a national touring company production of "Fiddler on the Roof" at the Classic Center in Athens.

For more information, contact Robert Porter, unitychurchofrockdale@gmail.com or Denise D'Angelo Jones, dangelodc@aol.com, 706-410-5179.