STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
Paul Tillotson’s close musical friends, who played with the late jazz pianist here in Sun Valley as part of the Paul Tillotson New York Connection, will throw a concert in Tillotson’s memory from 8 to 11 p.m. Friday, June 23, at Ketchum’s Limelight Hotel on Main Street.
Tickets are $20 purchased online at www.brownpapertickets.com. They will be $25 at the door.
The money from ticket sales will go towards a Paul Tillotson Music Scholarship for a student who plans to study music following high school.
Those who will perform are Grammy-nominated Bill Sims Jr., a blues guitarist and vocalist, and Grammy-nominated pianist Brian Charette. Also, Mike Merritt, a bass player for the Basic Cable Band of “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” fame.
James Wormworth, who plays alongside Merritt in the Basic Cable Band, will play drums. Peter Petersen and Craig Dreyer will play sax and Jake Stigers will play guitar, drums and provide vocals.
The musicians plan to perform many of Tillotson’s original compositions.
The group will perform a second concert from 4 to 7 p.m. Saturday, June 24, at Sandy Point Amphitheater at Boise’s Lucky Peak Reservoir.
Tillotson, who passed away of cancer in June 2016, grew up in Boise where his first gig was playing juice harp with his guitar-playing mother at their Catholic church. He and a young saxophone player named Curtis Stigers began sitting in on jazz pianist Gene Harris’s regular gigs at the Idanha Hotel. And on Harris’s advice, Tillotson moved to New York City in 1989 where he penned more than a hundred songs and recorded 10 albums, including “Duck Callin’ Man.”
He and his wife Jane moved back to Idaho in 2010, settling in Sun Valley where he had long played après ski jazz in Sun Valley’s Duchin Room.