Dwaine Spurlin

Dwaine Spurlin is an American jazz musician who leads The Dwaine Spurlin Band (DSB) and the production outfit DSB Productions.^[1][2]

Background

His official website presents him as a composer, saxophonist, flutist and bandleader. His CV page gives his name as Dwaine A. Spurlin, calls him "The Sax Man", and says he comes from Indianapolis, Indiana.^[1][3] The CV lists study at the Jordan College of Music at Butler University, the Army Element School of Music, the University of Maryland, City College of San Francisco and San Francisco State University. It also lists a role as "Joe Henderson Understudy", a reference to the jazz tenor saxophonist.^[3] Discogs describes him as a composer, saxophonist, flutist and bandleader in San Francisco.^[4] The website also has sections for original compositions, a "one man band" project and a "Best Pop Song Award". The pages checked do not give details of the award.^[1]

San Francisco State and the 1980s

In November 1984 the San Francisco State student paper, Phoenix, reviewed a McKenna Theatre concert by the SF State Jazz Ensemble and Cirrus, a five-piece student band led by Spurlin. The reviewer described Spurlin taking the stage with three saxophones. The review called him an exceptional performer but said his horn overpowered the rest of the band.^[5] Phoenix advertised campus concerts by "Dwaine Spurlin and Cirrus" in February and May 1985.^[6][7] In September 1985 his quartet, Dwaine Spurlin and Friends, played at the tenth-anniversary celebration of the SF State Student Union.^[8]

He also played with the flutist and composer Karlton Hester's Contemporary Jazz Art Movement. A 1984 listing in the San Francisco paper Coming Up! names him on saxophone in the group for a show at Kimball's.^[9] Discogs credits him on soprano and tenor saxophone on the group's 1981 LP Karlton Hester and the Contemporary Jazz Art Movement (Hesteria Records), recorded at Hyde Street Studio in San Francisco.^[10] Hester's second LP, Hesterian Musicism, was reviewed in DownBeat's September 1983 "Waxing On" column on self-produced records. The reviewer wrote that the tenor saxophonist Dwaine Spurlin leads the ensemble in a "pointedly baroque fugue" on "Visiter From The Outside", and named him among the soloists.^[11] The 1986 New Music Distribution Service catalog also singled him out as a strong tenor soloist on the record.^[12] Discogs also credits him on soprano saxophone on Kwaku Dadey's 1983 album Heritage II (African Heritage Records).^[4][13]

The Dwaine Spurlin Band

Listings in the San Francisco Bay Guardian show his groups playing Bay Area venues from the late 1980s. They include the Dwaine Spurlin Group at Bajone's on Valencia Street in 1988, the Dwaine Spurlin Band at the Western Addition Cultural Center in 1989, and dates at Picante Taqueria in Berkeley in 1990 and 1991.^{[14][15][16][17]} In 1988 the Bay Area music paper BAM carried a classified advertisement offering the Dwaine Spurlin Band for weddings, parties and club dates, playing jazz, funk and fusion,^[18] and its calendar for late October 1988 listed the band at the Miramar Beach Inn in Half Moon Bay.^[19] Later listings place the Dwaine Spurlin Band at Bliss Bar in San Francisco in 2012 and the Dwaine Spurlin Quintet at the Bird & Beckett bookstore in 2014.^[20][21][22]

Recordings

In 2017 he released four digital singles: "California Wish", "Dwaine's Groove", "Ocb" and "Yoga Sunrise".^[23] The band's ReverbNation page lists it as a jazz act from San Francisco and hosts tracks including "OCB".^[2][24]