Known as a forward-thinking musician with a passion for the jazz tradition, guitarist Randy Napoleon is an Associate Professor at Michigan State University. He is currently touring as a leader after twenty years of road apprenticeship with some of the most celebrated musicians and groups of our time. Napoleon cut his teeth touring with pianist Benny Green, The Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, Michael Bublé, and a thirteen year tenure with Freddy Cole. He has also performed with artists across the jazz spectrum such as Bill Charlap, Natalie Cole, Monty Alexander, Rodney Whitaker and John Pizzarelli. Napoleon has performed or arranged on over seventy records. He arranged as well as performed on Freddy Cole's seven most recent records including the Grammy-nominated releases, Freddy Cole Sings Mr. B and My Mood Is You. He performed on The Clayton Hamilton Orchestra: Live at MCG. Napoleon is featured on Bublé's Grammy-nominated CD/DVD Caught in the Act.
Napoleon has played on The Tonight Show, Late Night With David Letterman, The View, The Today Show, and The Ellen DeGeneres show as well as TV shows in South America, Europe and Asia. He has performed across the globe at notable venues including Royal Albert Hall, The Sydney Opera House, The Hollywood Bowl, and Lincoln Center.
Guitarist George Benson calls Napoleon "sensational." Detroit Free Press critic Mark Stryker says Napoleon "plays with a gentle, purring tone that makes you lean in close to hear its range of color and articulation." Washington Post critic Mike Joyce praises his "exceptionally nimble finger-style technique." Comparing him to Wes Montgomery, music critic Michael G. Nastos says, "he displays an even balance of swing, soul, and single-line or chord elements that mark an emerging voice dedicated to tradition and universally accessible jazz values." The Door is Open marks Napoleon's eighth record as a bandleader and his second to feature music by the prolific jazz composer Gregg Hill.

Hailing from Wichita, Kansas, Nathan Borton is a Michigan-based Jazz guitar player who draws heavily from the midwestern tradition of bebop and the blues. His studies and performances have taken him across the United States from Brevard, North Carolina to East Lansing, Michigan, and everywhere in-between. Nathan served as the Teaching Assistant for the nationally acclaimed Jazz Studies program at Michigan State University under the direction of Rodney Whitaker during his Graduate Degree. There he studied guitar under the tutelage of the great Randy Napoleon.
Nathan has played with and alongside names such as: Rodney Whitaker, Michael Dease, Paul Keller, Diego Rivera, and Tom Knific. He has also performed at various music festivals including: the Detroit Jazz Festival, the Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival, the East Lansing Jazz Festival, the Michigan Jazz Festival, and the Wichita Jazz Festival.
Recently, Nathan was a winner of the 2019 Wilson Center International Guitar Competition located in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as well as placing as a finalist in 2018. He won two Downbeat awards in 2019 for Best Graduate Jazz Soloist and Best Live Engineering/Production, as well as winning the Paul Carr Discovery Act Award in 2020 with the Sencalar/Glassman Quintet.
Nathan is also an avid educator of music. He currently teaches at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, MI and at Hope College, in Holland, MI. Nathan has also taught and mentored at various camps around the nation such as: The Brevard Jazz Institute in Brevard, North Carolina and The Spectrum Music Camp in East Lansing, Michigan.
Nathan is a proud endorser of Benedetto Guitars in Savannah, GA.