Marcos Varela started playing bass in his native Houston, TX while attending the highly acclaimed High School for the Performing & Visual Arts. He quickly gained recognition and by the age of 18 was one of the top honorees of the NFAA International Jazz award and a IAJE Clifford Brown/Stan Getz All-Star fellow. Later he was invited to participate in the IASJ in Frieburg, Germany, a program featuring top students from jazz programs worldwide led by Dave Liebman and George Gruntz. He was also a member of the prestigious Kennedy Centers “Betty Carter Jazz Ahead” Program held in Washington, D. C., and Ravinia-Steans Institute, held in Chicago, Illinois.
After attending the New School University/Mannes School of Music in NYC on scholarship, Marcos quickly became part of the New York and World music scene collaborating and performing with a wide variety of world class musicians including Billy Hart, Charli Persip, Martha Wainwright, The Last Poets (Umar Bin Hassan), The Mingus Big Band, Jason Moran, Yosvany Terry, Larry John McNally, Lee Curreri, Bill Lee, Manuel Valera, Brad Leali, George Cables, Billy Harper, Orrin Evans, Bob Mover, Frank Lacy, Mike Moreno, Logan Richardson, Greg Bandy, Winard Harper, Clifton Anderson, Edsel Gomez, Aaron Goldberg, Mark Shim, Phoenix Rivera, Steve Williams, Rudy Royston, Ron Afif, E.J Strickland, David Budway, David Weiss, Lauren Sevian, Bruce Barth, Bruce Cox, Andre Hayward, Tyshawn Sorey, Jacob Sacks, Junior Mance, Wayne Escoffery, Thomas Heberer, Logan Richardson, Dayna Stevens, Helen Sung, Ohad Talmor, Donald Vega, Michael Attias, Antonio Hart, Miles Okazaki, Nir Felder, Sam Barsh, Allan Harris, Robert Glasper, George Colligan, Victor Jones, Kendrick Scott, Lew Tabackin and Geri Allen. - See more at: http://originarts.com/artists/artist.php?Artist_ID=304#sthash.I2PA5pkn.dpuf

William “Billy” Hart (born November 29, 1940 in Washington, D.C.) is a jazz drummer and educator who has performed with some of the most important jazz musicians in history. Early on Hart performed in Washington, D.C. with soul artists such as Otis Redding and Sam and Dave, and then later with Buck Hill and Shirley Horn, and was a sideman with the Montgomery Brothers (1961), Jimmy Smith (1964–1966), and Wes Montgomery (1966–1968). Following Montgomery’s death in 1968, Hart moved to New York, where he recorded with McCoy Tyner, Wayne Shorter, and Joe Zawinul, and played with Eddie Harris, Pharoah Sanders, and Marian McPartland. Hart was a member of Herbie Hancock’s sextet (1969–1973), and played with McCoy Tyner (1973–1974), Stan Getz (1974–1977), and Quest (1980s), in addition to extensive freelance playing (including recording with Miles Davis on 1972’s On the Corner). At age 74, Billy Hart works steadily and teaches widely. Since the early 1990s Hart spends considerable time at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and is adjunct faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music and Western Michigan University. He also conducts private lessons through The New School and New York University. Hart often contributes to the Stokes Forest Music Camp and the Dworp Summer Jazz Clinic in Belgium. He leads the Billy Hart Quartet with Mark Turner, Ethan Iverson, and Ben Street, which has released two albums on ECM Records.
Hart resides in Montclair, New Jersey.

As a 2003 graduate of the Thelonious Monk Institute, Stephens had the opportunity to work with the likes of Dave Holland, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock, who helped strengthen his complex sensibility as a composer and improviser.
In recent years Dayna has appeared with the likes of Carlos Santana, Kenny Barron, Terence Blanchard, Gretchen Parlato and many others.