Ron Hinkle

​Ron has been playing the banjo since the age of 12. He and his sister, Linda Hall, learned from their father, Myron Hinkle, who was a long-time professional banjoist and pianist and is a 2009 inductee in the Four-String Banjo Hall of Fame. Ron has been the banjoist for several Trad Jazz groups, and a featured soloist and clinician at banjo shows and Trad Jazz fests throughout the U.S. and Germany. He is a career U. S. Army Bandsman (clarinet, sax, banjo, guitar, ukulele, and vocals), currently stationed at Fort Huachuca with the U.S. Military Army Intelligence Band, where he will soon retire. Today, Ron specializes in the English Parlour Banjo and early Harry Reser.

Evan Dain

A San Francisco native, multi-instrumentalist Evan Dain started at age 6 on the guitar and picked up the bass, banjo, and mandolin in high school. Evan studied music at Laney College in Oakland, California, and afterward served in the U.S. Navy. Evan launched a musical career that encompassed traditional, modern, and Latin jazz, rock n’ roll, bluegrass, pop, and country-western. His eclectic experience has taken him to theatre, cruise ships, and numerous recording sessions around the world. A founding member of the Arizona Banjo Blasters, Evan also performs regularly with The Hot Club of Tucson, The Wildcat Jazz Band, The Tucsonics, and Alex Mack Music.

Marj Scooros

​Washboard Marj has played dulcimer, guitar, piano, ukulele, and vocal cords. She is a perfect fit for the washboard for she has never been able to keep her feet from tapping nor her hands from beating out the rhythm. Washboard is an early rhythm instrument for trad jazz, when drums were unavailable. Marj has collected, combined and cobbled her various washboards, adding accoutrements as necessary. She figures a washboard is easier than hauling a drum set around.

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Jerry Taylor

Jerry Taylor plays several string instruments, including: guitar, mandolin, fiddle, bass, 5 string banjo and now the tenor banjo. He received his first guitar at age 12 from an uncle who played at the Renfro Valley Barn Dance in Kentucky. Since then he has played in several bluegrass, country and western swing bands including several years with the Texas Trailblazers of Fort Worth, Texas and the High Desert Band in Tucson. He is now enjoying playing and learning a new genre on his tenor banjo with the Blasters.

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Sly Slipetsky

​Daniel “Sly” Slipetsky is a jazz pianist/tuba player who has happily made Arizona his home since the summer of 1997. A native of Wilmington, Delaware, Sly began studying the piano at the ripe age of eight. When he picked up the tuba in high school, his maturity level plummeted. Sly started playing jazz and improvising at summer music camp. He further honed his musicianship skills at three universities (Delaware and Arizona). Sly is true professional performing musician who has embraced most musical genre and performance settings including wind ensembles, orchestras, solo jazz piano, piano/vocal duets, jazz trios & quartets, big bands, salsa bands, (“trad”) jazz bands, banjo bands, theatrical accompaniment, pop/Motown. He even took first place in a jazz tuba competition at the International Tuba/Euphonium Conference in Greensboro, North Carolina.

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Frank Brown

Frank started his musical training in fifth grade starting with the clarinet then later he moved on to the saxophone in high school and college. Along the way, he picked up playing the guitar and later the mandolin. While growing up on the East Coast he loved the ragtime/tradition jazz arrangements played by the string bands in Philadelphia’s Mummers New Year’s Parade. In 1978 he bought a banjo with the plan to learn how to play their style music. In 2016, while playing in a Bluegrass jam session, he was told about a local banjo band that played old time music. That’s how he came upon the Arizona Banjo Blasters. It was a match! A great group. Out came his banjo after being in a closet for almost 40 years. The Blasters helped Frank finally learn how to play the plectrum banjo and now he’s “a strummin’ and a hummin’.

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Dave Reimann

Dave has played guitar since high school, where he was part of a quartet performing folk and pop songs. He put himself through college by teaching group guitar classes on campus. He did a little performing over the years, but got back into playing regularly when he had the opportunity to perform all summer on an outdoor stage in Nauvoo, Illinois. He added the 4 string banjo to be able to accompany a wider variety of musical numbers on stage. Since he had to learn the banjo quickly, he tuned it to the guitar. Upon returning to Tucson, he played guitar and banjo at the VA Hospital Blind Center two nights a month. A fellow performer, Dallas Parker, invited him to join the Arizona Banjo Blasters. The Banjo Blasters is a fun group playing fun songs on a fun instrument.

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Jack Sheerin

Jack Sheerin is a cellist who also plays banjo. In the 1960’s, Jack sang with John Oakes and the New Brandywine Singers in Pennsylvania and Delaware. Since retiring some four decades later, he has been active in community theatre, orchestral and other musical performance. As an amateur luthier, Jack has constructed or rehabilitated three banjos, a violin, a hammered dulcimer, and an erhu. During his working career, he served as a U.S. diplomat and foreign affairs officer in the U.S. Department of State and more than 20 foreign countries. He was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Hong Kong. His Ph.D. is from the University of Colorado.

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J. Lynn Kronk

During High School Lynn played bass guitar with a Rock Band on a 1963 Jazz Fender Bass which she still has. She learned banjo in the ’70s and, with her family, played for the Seattle Banjo Band. She became club president in the ’70s. They traveled to banjo festivals in Idaho, Montana, and California. Her trombonist husband, Jerry, introduced her to traditional jazz. Together they play with Uptown Lowdown and Duwamish Dixieland bands in Seattle. Their son and daughter also played in a Junior Dixieland Band. Before they left Seattle in 1986, they played for the Microsoft-Going-Public company party. They played with traditional jazz groups for wine festivals in Washington, Oregon and California during the ’90s. During their time in Washington, DC, they played with a tubist friend with dance bands and did trio jobs for shopping centers (trombone, tuba and banjo.) Lynn played with the EPA volunteer Dixieland band for the 50th anniversary of Voice of America that was broadcast worldwide.

They have also played with street musicians In New Orleans and jammed at their Bed & Breakfast in Tennessee. Lynn has played her bass guitar with a church team for the last 20 years. The Arizona Banjo Blasters are very happy that Lynn and her husband have moved to Tucson to be closer to family and enjoy Jazz on Wednesday evenings at the Century Room in Hotel Congress. They are welcome additions to Tucson and the Blasters.

Jerry Kronk

The grade school I attended had an exceptional music program. I started playing the trombone during the last part of the third grade. While in grade school, I took privet lessons, played in brass ensembles, played in concert bands, and played solos in amateur contests. While in high school, I played in various dance bands, combos, concert bands, and high school-level activities at the State of Illinois level. Entering the US Navy after high school as a musician, I graduated from the Navy School of Music. While in the Navy, I played in concert bands, dance bands, combos, and marching bands throughout the United States.

Since being discharged from the Navy, I have played with many groups, including the Brass Strings, Barcelona Brass, Uptown-Lo-Down band, Warren Covington Dance Band, Concordia Concert Band, the German Embassy Concert Band, and pit bands backing professional singers in and around New Jersy and Philadelphia. My wife Lynn and I have played in numerous groups throughout the US. While playing with the Uptown-Lo-Down Jazz Band, we played for Bill Gates when Microsoft went public. See J. Lynn Kronk’s bio, for additional information.

John Hughes

John Hughes, of Tucson, AZ, began his music education in the Hillsborough County Schools system in his hometown of Tampa, FL. “I was listening to my dad’s big band records and wanted to be another Benny Goodman,” he says, choosing the clarinet as his principal instrument. He began playing clarinet at age 13, at the beginning of his middle-school years. At 28, in Shreveport, LA, he began playing clarinet again in order to relieve the stress and strain of a managerial job. He also began playing alto saxophone, his first saxophone being a Christmas gift. He began using what he knew about playing clarinet to begin teaching himself this new instrument. Then in 2000 he began his formal music training at Hillsborough Community College (HCC)-Ybor City in Tampa, FL. Here is where he met his mentors, Mr. Jim Burge and Mr. Ken Hanks, who co-chaired the school’s music department. With these two mentors, especially Mr. Burge as his saxophone and Jazz Band instructor, he began to flourish as a musician and composer/arranger. He then transferred to The University of Tampa, where he completed his formal studies, graduating in 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts in Music.

In 2021, he and his wife, Pamela, decided to move to Tucson to live in “semi-retirement” and enjoy being around family and the sights and sounds of Arizona. During the past year, he has found work as a musician playing clarinet and saxophone at Villa Peru in Tucson, AZ, as well as various retirement communities and restaurants in Tucson, and wineries in southern and northern Arizona. Dallas Parker introduced him to the Arizona Banjo Blasters, and he’s discovered that “playing positive old music with positive old(er) people keeps me young.”

Arlene Tomlison

​Arlene played clarinet during her school days. At age 60, she decided that it was time to do some of the fun stuff and took piano lessons for a few years. On a trip to Honolulu, she bought her first ukulele and starting playing. When the Kala Company came out with the UBass, Arlene started playing the bass ukulele. She now plays tenor and bass ukuleles with The Ukesters. She bought a stand up bass and named it “Big Ben”. You will find Arlene and Big Ben at the Desert Bluegrass workshop on Monday nights. She just recently joined the Arizona Banjo Blasters and is very excited to be playing bass.

Jim McKeen

​Jim played the clarinet from 5th grade through high school. In high school he played in the marching band, the concert band, and the pep band. Loved every minute of it. Sadly, after high school, he laid the clarinet down and did absolutely nothing musically for 45 years.

And then — in his early sixties, at a “white elephant” holiday gift exchange, he received a $40.00 soprano ukulele. The rest is history — He practiced, practiced, practiced; joined a uke group; and acquired multiple ukuleles. A musical virtuoso (not)! He progressed from rank beginner to advanced beginner in only a few years!!!

A stroke of good luck brought him to the Arizona Banjo Blasters where he currently plays a “banjolele” and enjoys performing publicly. He believes that any music that brings happiness to others is good music. The Arizona Banjo Blasters play very good music.

Jim Caldwell

Jim started his musical journey with piano and voice lessons at age 6 with “Miss Lily” in Amarillo, Texas. During junior high, while living in Sitka, Alaska, he learned to play the baritone horn and became the school band percussionist. He moved to the Navajo Reservation in Arizona for high school and played trombone in marching band, concert band “Taco Band” (Herb Albert music) and sang in the choir.

Jim moved to Tucson in 1973, earning degrees in psychology and education from U of A and then a masters in psychiatric social work from ASU. To get back into music after all those years of education, he chose to learn the mandolin. Over the years he has played in praise bands in churches, played solos and in ad hoc groups of gospel music. He has also performed duets playing classical music for weddings with his wife who plays flute.

Sometimes their daughter, who plays piano would join them. He initiated the music therapy programs for patients of the psychiatric acute senior care and acute adult care units at Banner South and over 4 years saw the positive effects music had on their mental health.
Since retiring in 2021, he remains active singing tenor in his church choir and performing special music. He discovered the Arizona Banjo Blasters in May 2024 and has enjoyed learning new music with a fun and supportive group of talented performers.

Joe Gallardo

Bio incoming soon!

Joe Yearego

Bio incoming soon!

Jill Sooy

Jill took voice and music lessons early in life and played Hootenanny in her teens. She took up the Baritone and Soprano Ukulele in 2010. She then joined a local ukulele band the Ukesters and enjoys performing with them. Shortly after, she bought a Ukulele Banjo and started playing with the Desert Bluegrass Association. Recently, Jill became active member of the Arizona Banjo Blasters and loves their Dixieland Happy Banjo Music. She’s excited to be playing with the Blasters and with the opportunity to expand her musical horizons into the Banjo Band genre!

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Reuben Narramore

Reuben learned rhythm guitar as a youth, playing country western music with family and cousins in some small performances in the Buckeye Valley (west of Phoenix). His father played a plectrum banjo sometimes, which Reuben always thought was pretty neat. Circa 2004 Reuben bought a plectrum banjo on a whim, but neglected it until 2013, when he discovered the Banjo Blasters. As the Blasters are a friendly group that plays a lot of the early jazz and popular music that he likes, he performs and practices with them whenever he can.

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Rudy Jimenez

Rudy is a retired Professor of Civil Engineering from Eureka, Illinois. After he retired from the University of Arizona he started playing music and the tenor banjo. He chose the banjo because he liked the sound of the banjo playing of team drivers in the early westerns.

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Bud Johnson

Bud, dabbled with the guitar on and off for most of his life and for his own pleasure. He and his wife, Debb, attended the first Arizona Banjo Blast in 2006 and was amazed at the music he heard. What even made more of an impression on him was how much fun everyone was having. A year later Paul Blumentritt of the Folk Shop mentioned that Rob Wright of The Arizona Banjo Blast was looking for some Banjo Players to start a Host Banjo Band to help put on the 2008 Blast. Bud contacted Rob Wright, bought a Plectrum banjo and started learning to play. From that day on Bud has been playing the Plectrum with the Arizona Banjo Blasters and having a fun time learning to play the banjo.

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Debb Johnson

Debb took piano lessons for about 5 years as a child. She enjoyed making music but did not like to play if anyone was listening, so she did not practice much. When her husband Bud started playing in the Banjo Blasters, she often sat and listened, singing along with the group. At the Banjo Rendezvous in New Orleans May 2009, she was so impressed with Peter Babcock, the washboard player from the YOUR FATHERS MUSTACHE reunion group that she put together her own washboard and joined the band. Besides the washboard, she provides other sound effects to enhance the fun songs the Banjo Blasters perform.

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Emmett Gundy

Emmett got his first banjo in 1934 at the age of 14 after learning to read music on the violin. His first banjo was a Gibson Tenor Banjo which he still has. He did not play much for the next 40 years. In 1982 Emmett moved to Tucson, met other retired people who liked to have jam sessions. For the past 14 years, he has played with the Southern Arizona Old Timer Fiddlers.

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Rick Blackmar

Rick passed away October 5th, 2021, and his work with the group will always be fondly remembered. You may view his obituary on the website Legacy.com and leave a message or memory of Rick.

Denny Walsh

Denny enjoyed singing “Sweet Georgia Brown” with us. He played with us for a number of years.

Lulu Nicolosi

Lulu played mandolin for many years. We enjoyed having him play his mandolin with us. It added a new dimension.