The Rock and Rose Band is comprised of 7 members, some who have traveled the world to perform in more than 5 countries, two that have singles playing in multiple countries on satellite and FM radio stations, one who has a radio show, two with podcasts, and two with recording studios. We feature musicians who have been playing their instruments since childhood, and the love of music shows with every song in our expansive repertoire.
MGM National Harbor Casino and Hotel
in National Harbor, MD for
New Year's Eve
Private Show
Thank you for the MGM National Harbor staff for making this a great experience for us! Melonie, Christine, Erica, Andrea, Ben, Lee, Lisa (and more) were simply the best!!
Rock & Rose can't wait to go back to MGM National Harbor to perform again, stay tuned for details on the next show!
The Rock & Rose Band can be found playing all throughout the USA, with shows in Maryland, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Ohio, Mississippi and more!
Subscribe to the email below to stay in the loop for promotions, schedules, and exciting new happenings for band members as well as the band!
Al Ancar is a singer/songwriter/producer, orignially from New Orleans and based out of Kansas. Al's latests singles, Cool Cat, U Mean the World 2 Me, and You Go Your Way (And I'll Go Mine) followed the acclaimed jazz cover of KISS (Prince), all available on Spotify, iTunes, All songs are recorded with Mike Bass-Bailey at LARACNA RECORDS. Al leads Rock & Rose as well his solo act in performances throughout the country. Al has been featured in Break Thru Magazine, who titled him "The New Orleans Crooner" and is a regular featured artist on XLR Radio in the UK. Al Ancar's discography includes "A Very Ancar Christmans" 2022; “Please STAY,” (Windjammer-Carl Dennis) (2019) , "Wings" (The Mystic Krewe) (2016) "We've Come Too Far (To End it Now)" and "Baby, Come Close" (Smokey Robinson) (2015) "Damn U" (Prince-2014) "Let it Flo" (2015) and "Hopeless Romantic" (2008).
Al Ancar's individual style is reflective of the smooth sounds of the Motown era. Al has performed at various nightclubs and festivals in the New Orleans area, including the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, The Mahalia Jackson Theater of Performing Arts, the House of Blues, the World Trade Center of New Orleans, Sweet Lorraine's Jazz Club and the New Orleans French Quarter; many Casinos, including Bally's, The Treasure Chest, Boomtown and Harrah's. Internationally, Al Ancar has toured Japan three times, including the cities of Tokyo, Fukuoka, Yokohama, Nagasaki, and Nagoya.
Kelly Ancar started playing piano at age 4, on the old console piano that sits in her current home in Kansas. "I remember going through a phase where I didn't want to practice, and my mom made me play for at least 30 minutes, even through the tears and complaining. If she hadn't done that, I might not be where I am today!" Kelly started singing in church as a child, and was in her first band at age 12. Several bands and a thousand shows later, Kelly is still playing keyboards, singing, and recording singles that have received airpay in the UK, Spain, and Brazil. Kelly's discography includes covers of "Dreams," "Never Alone," both produced by Carl Dennis, Mike Bass=Bailey and Charles Prevost III, and an her ethereal arrangement of "Always" by Killswitch Engage, produced by Kelly Ancar with Mike Bass-Bailey. Kelly has plans for more arranging and producing, as well as more live performances across the country with Rock & Rose, her Rock band, RoxSLYDE and her hometown classic rock band, Flatspin.
Whether he’s performing at the House of Blues in New Orleans, The Under Ground in Atlanta, The Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, or The Byron Bay Blues Festival in Australia, As an accomplished Artist and musician, CHOO has entertained multitudes around the globe in a lengthy career-span sharing his love for music.
Moreover, CHOO has performed for many years either with, and/or as an opening act for so many great entertainers: such as, the likes of, Joe Tex, Irma Thomas, Allen Toussaint, The Drifters, Jon Cleary, Jean Knight, Aaron Neville, Dr. John, Stevie Wonder, Jeffrey Osborne, BB King, Al Green, The Temptations; Earth Wind & Fire; Kool and the Gang; and the list goes on with so many others..
CHOO has performed in over 40 of the 50 U.S. states, also doing shows up in Canada, down in Mexico, touching many Islands throughout the Caribbean, tours spreading through Europe, and all the way down under.
Spoiler Alert out there in music land. Hear it now and hear it good.
The party is nowhere near over.
CHOO is rolling stronger than ever and he’s out to bring his Soulful Sounds to a stage near you with The Rock & Rose Band!
Alfred Ballard III is an professional musician/producer/songwriter with 20+ years of experience in the music industry. He is a native of New Orleans, La but has traveled abroad, including tours in Europe with different musical artists. Alfred started playing music at the tender age of 5 and professionally by age 12, he pays homage to the early days as a young musician at his home church, Franklin Ave. Baptist Church. "Most musicians I've met through the years started playing in church" quoted by Ballard in an interview by a local journalist and he also shares this sentiment with musicians he meets while playing professionally. Alfred plays multiple genres of music from: Jazz, Gospel, R&B, Reggae, Neo-Soul and Blues just to name a few while also playing multiple instruments: Keyboard, Organ, Drums and Guitar. He continues to aspire to be the best musician he can be and plans to one day become a music teacher. Professionally known as "Boogie," Alfred joins The Rock and Rose Band, bringing a Jazz flavor to Rock and Pop covers, as well as originals in the future.
Joseph Bruster jr aka Jo .B Drummer better know as Jojo Bruster was born on July 12 1992 . He began playing drums at church when he was just two years old. From that point on, he began playing drums regularly in churches and other genres of music around the city of New Orleans. Now at age 31 he is a seasoned Musician with a humble Spirit that can blow your mind with his amazing ENERGY on stage... no matter how big the stage he gives 100 percent every show. "I'm extremely blessed to be able to share a connection with people through amazing music. I'm thankful for every opportunity I get to make people dance. I been touring musicians for some time. I been to Italy, Switzerland, and Jamaica, and all over the united states sharing my musician talents. Professional Bands I work with include Jasper Smitty Trio, Sweet Funk Band, Chapel Hart, Sam FORSHEY Blues, Micki James, Bo Dollis Jr and The Wild Magnolias, Flag boy Giz, Ed Wills and Blues for sale, Andre Lovett Band, BRW Show Band, Escalade Show and Dance band, Piano Man G Band, Geroge Brown Band, Hash Cabbage, Triple threat Band, Good People ,Zena Moses & Rue Fiya, All Star , CJS Organ Trio, Red Afro Queen, St Julien X, Keith Stone and Stone Again, The Pentones, Sierra Green, Kev And Holiday Soul, Hot Boy, Ronald Mark Barrett, Ariee, Hotline, Southern Spice, Jenerator Bishop, Retro Punkz Band, Stacy Weaver Band , Lady T, Time Zone, Dewayne James and the Pottas, Natalie Cris, Kyante, Lolly Maraih, Indys Blu, Odd The artist, Julie Elody, Deelow Diamond Man, Kris Batiste, Tajh and Funky Sole, Big Mike and R&B Kings, John Pierre, Marvin Sapp, The Harvey Spirituals, and The Crown Seekers Influences: Aaron Spears , Jerome Flood, Chris Coleman, Chris Dave, Spanky McCurdy, Calvin Rodgers, Eddie Christmas , Eric Moore, Terrance Houston , Russel Batiste and so many others
"You're so progressive, but you're so simple. You got jazzy, you got traditional, you got a little bluesy. You went out to left field for just a second to make everybody notice and then brought everybody right back into the song."
Those words, used by legendary New Orleans jazz guitarist, educator and raconteur Danny Barker to describe the playing of his student Harry Sterling, are a perfect summation of Sterling's musical palette. From his early days as Barker's protégé in the Fairview Baptist church band, through his decades-long career as a professional musician, Sterling has embraced a panorama of musical styles. Regardless of whether he is playing contemporary R&B, New Orleans standards and jazz, or down-home blues, his approach to the music stays rooted, direct, and expressive.
This CD is Sterling's debut recording as an artist, and the music contained within is informed by his 30-plus years on the bandstand. While his breadth of experience gives depth to the performances, Sterling chose to go back to the beginning, his beginning: the music he knew and loved during the time that he came into adulthood as a working musician.
"Most of those songs were done in the latter part of the seventies, early eighties. It was during the time that they had composers actually writing good music," attests Sterling. "Some of these were my very favorites, and I've always wanted to do them."
These songs, with their inclination towards smooth sophistication, show a very different side of Sterling than most fans have experienced. For the better part of the last fifteen years, he has performed over two hundred and fifty shows a year as a member of Big Al Carson and the Bluesmasters. In the Bluesmasters, Sterling anchors a lean and tight 3 piece band behind vocal acrobat and master crowd-pleaser Carson, laying down hard-edged blues and old-school R&B classics. The number of people who have seen Sterling tearing into Muddy Waters, Elmore James and Otis Redding's material must push well into the hundreds of thousands, but far fewer have heard him as he is here: playing lush jazzy chords and silky clean lines, singing lead and driving a larger band.
This is Sterling returning to his core. Although his education and career would take him down many musical paths, the music he chose for this project, the music of Quincy Jones, the Brothers Johnson, the Meters, Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, is the soundtrack of his life as a young man.
"I was a working musician, student during the daytime, and playing music at night with a group called High Voltage," recalled Sterling. "During that time in New Orleans the music scene was pretty good. I was working every weekend, every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and then I would do little spots over at the Famous Door."
Playing with that degree of frequency, as well as studying composition at Xavier University and meeting the demands of cover bands that required he learn all the newest hits as they came out, left him with a unique view of how to approach other people's songs:
"Don't analyze it, feel it. Understand the composer for just a second. Why did he do that?"
This gut-level, emotion-first sensibility is evident all over these recordings. Nearly all of the tracks were cut live in the studio, and Sterling gives the players and singers plenty of room to feel and interpret the songs. Nothing is rushed or contrived. His relationship to all of the players in his band stretches back many years, and the album itself was more than a decade in the making.
The first seeds for the recordings were planted in 1996, but the project was derailed first by the death of his mother, and then one of his older brothers, before tracking could begin. When Sterling finally got back in the studio things progressed smoothly until Katrina washed away several years of work. Sterling was left to reconvene his band, which had been scattered around the country by the post–storm diaspora, and start from scratch.
"After the storm, we lost everything in the studio, so we went back in. We went to Audiophile, and it came out so much better."
So here it is, Side 1 of the Four Sides of Sterling. The listener is invited to take a step back in time and understand the artist for just a second. Sterling and his Hoodlum Friends create a soulful time-capsule, a snapshot into the youth of a man, a musical self-portrait enhanced by his well-honed skills and knowledge. Dig this first look at the Four Sides of Sterling, and we'll meet again on Side 2.
- Marc Stone, host of the Soul Serenade WWOZ 90.7-fm, New Orleans. July, 2008
Bio coming soon, Mike has 20 years of international touring experience, so....
this could take ahwile!
Copyright © 2024 The Rock and Rose Band - All Rights Reserved.
Powered by GoDaddy