Events

Come and listen to the Panhandlers perform you favorite classic and contemporary hit songs!  

Come and checkout the talented students from the Colorado Music Institute!  Enjoy a night of great music and good food!  

Owned by the Cottingham Family, The Colorado Music Institute has been serving  the greater Denver area since 1996 providing top-notch music lessons.  With over 65 teachers available, we are confident that we can find the perfect instructor to suit your needs.  Each of our teachers employs various methodologies to tailor lessons that work best for you.  Contact us at (303)347-9447.  

Dead Cat Bounce came together in 2019 with the idea of using music to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS). Band leader and drummer Rance McDougald, and keyboard player, John Reumann, both cancer survivors, were riding together on a cycling team, Team Survivor, that was already raising money for LLS.  One day, John mentioned that years ago he had played in a band who gigged on 6th Street in Austin Texas (They don’t just let anyone play on 6th Street), so it was pretty obvious he had chops. That gave Rance this crazy idea to form a band to raise even more money for LLS as Rance had played drums in a band in high school. So it was time to figure out if either of them had anything left in the tank, and find other friends and co-workers with musical talent. 

Enter lead singer, Lauren Mitchell and guitar player Steve Huffman. Rance, Steve and Lauren were co-workers at Charles Schwab, and Rance had seen Lauren and Steve playing in a band together where he would scream like a 16-year-old girl over Lauren‘s vocals and Steve’s tasty solos. And it just so happened that Lauren and Steve’s band had just broken up, so they were in.

Guitar player John Pedotto, and saxophone player, Greg Perkin, also Schwab coworkers, soon got conned into the project. Rance heard a rumor that John had played on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles when he was in high school, and after Rance saw a video of John stroking like Eddie Van Halen, John didn’t have a choice. And when Rance heard Greg played saxophone in college, and at that time, was training to play in bands on cruise ships, then decided to get into financial services instead, it was time to take the tenor and alto axes out of the attic and put them to good use.

When original Schwab coworker and bassist Craig Porazinski had to call it a day, the band was on shaky ground. But in that same week, Rance and his wife Diena went out for a sushi dinner that turned out to be destiny. In walks a guy with spiked hair and a shirt that says Austin City Limits, and Rance was thinking, “This guy has got to be a musician.” So Mike and his wife Claire and Diena and Rance started a conversation. The conversation between Mike and Rance went something like this. 

Rance: “You a musician?”

Mike: “Yeah.”

Rance: “What instrument?”

Mike: “Bass.”

Rance: “My bass player just quit, you wanna join my band, we’re 70’s cover?”

Mike: “Sounds good.”

Stepping to the stage was bassist Mike DeGroot, the Flying Dutchman, to round out the band and DCB has been playing Aretha, Toto, Chaka Khan, Chicago, Lenny Kravitz, and many others ever since. They hope you enjoy the show.

Essence of Jazz performs Jazz classics and standards.