Biography

Drummer David Rokeach has been working primarily in the San Francisco and Los Angeles areas for more than 20 years. David toured nationally and internationally with Ray Charles

Ray Charles

Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...

 from 1990-91. This included concert videos and many television appearances, including an appearance on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson

Johnny Carson

John William "Johnny" Carson was an American television host and comedian, known as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 30 years . Carson received six Emmy Awards including the Governor Award and a 1985 Peabody Award; he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987...

 and the Doc Severinson Orchestra. In recent years he has performed/recorded with Patti LaBelle

Patti LaBelle

Patricia Louise Holte-Edwards , better known under the stage name, Patti LaBelle, is a Grammy Award winning American singer, author and actress who has spent over 50 years in the music industry...

, Aaron Neville

Aaron Neville

Aaron Neville is an American soul and R&B singer and musician. He has had four top-20 hits in the United States along with four platinum-certified albums...

, Mavis Staples

Mavis Staples

Mavis Staples is an American rhythm and blues and gospel singer, actress and civil rights activist who recorded with The Staple Singers, her family's band.-Biography:...

, Lou Rawls

Lou Rawls

Louis Allen "Lou" Rawls was an American soul, jazz, and blues singer. He was known for his smooth vocal style: Frank Sinatra once said that Rawls had "the classiest singing and silkiest chops in the singing game"...

, Grammy winner Joe Henderson

Joe Henderson

Joe Henderson was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. In a career spanning more than forty years Henderson played with many of the leading American players of his day and recorded for several prominent labels, including Blue Note.-Early life:From a very large family with five sisters and nine...

, Down Beat Poll winner Mark Murphy

Mark Murphy (singer)

Mark Murphy is an American jazz singer based in New York. He is most noted for his definitive and unique vocalese and vocal improvisations with both melody and lyrics...

, Bluesman Charlie Musselwhite

Charlie Musselwhite

Charlie Musselwhite is an American electric blues harmonica player and bandleader, one of the non-black bluesmen who came to prominence in the early 1960s, along with Mike Bloomfield and Paul Butterfield. Though he has often been identified as a "white bluesman", he claims Native American heritage...

, The George Brooks-Zakir Hussain

Zakir Hussain (musician)

Zakir Hussain , , is an Indian tabla player, musical producer, film actor and composer.-Early life:Hussain was born in Mumbai, India to the legendary tabla player Alla Rakha. He attended St...

 Group, Wilson Pickett

Wilson Pickett

Wilson Pickett was an American R&B/Soul singer and songwriter.A major figure in the development of American soul music, Pickett recorded over 50 songs which made the US R&B charts, and frequently crossed over to the US Billboard Hot 100...

, Linda Tillery

Linda Tillery

Linda Tillery is an American singer and percussionist from San Francisco.-History:Tillery first came to prominence as the lead singer in San Francisco group The Loading Zone in 1968-69...

, Steve Miller

Steve Miller (musician)

Steven H. "Steve" Miller is an American guitarist and singer-songwriter who began his career in blues and blues rock and evolved to a more popular-oriented sound which, from the mid 1970s through the early 1980s, resulted in a series of successful singles and albums.-Early years:Born in Milwaukee,...

, Joe Satriani

Joe Satriani

Joseph "Joe" Satriani is an American instrumental rock guitarist and multi-instrumentalist, with multiple Grammy Award nominations...

, Joyce Cooling

Joyce Cooling

Joyce Cooling, a San Francisco based jazz guitarist, vocalist and songwriter, has recorded seven albums - five of which charted on Billboard. She has to her credit two #1 singles, six Top-10 and 13 charting radio singles in all and has garnered multiple music awards including the Gibson Best Jazz...

, Maria Muldaur

Maria Muldaur

Maria Muldaur is a folk-blues singer who was part of the American folk music revival in the early 1960s...

, Calvin Keys, Barry Finnerty, Merl Saunders

Merl Saunders

Merl Saunders, was an American multi-genre musician who played piano and keyboards, favoring the Hammond B-3 console organ.-Biography:...

, David Grisman

David Grisman

David Grisman is an American bluegrass/newgrass mandolinist and composer of acoustic music. In the early 1990s, he started the Acoustic Disc record label in an effort to preserve and spread acoustic or instrumental music.-Biography:Grisman grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey...

, Melvin Seals

Melvin Seals

Melvin Seals is an American musician, best known as a long time member of the Jerry Garcia Band.-Early life and career:...

, The Rubinoos

The Rubinoos

The Rubinoos are an American power pop band that formed in 1970 in Berkeley, California. They are perhaps best known for their singles "I Think We're Alone Now" , "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" , and for the theme song to the 1984 film Revenge of the Nerds...

, The Family Stone Experience, Louis Bellson, Wayne Wallace, The Nelson Riddle

Nelson Riddle

Nelson Smock Riddle, Jr. was an American arranger, composer, bandleader and orchestrator whose career stretched from the late 1940s to the mid 1980s...

 Orchestra, Paula West

Paula West

Paula West is an American jazz and cabaret singer known for her rich, powerful contralto voice and for her sensitive interpretations of an extraordinarily eclectic selection of songs ranging far beyond jazz standards and cabaret chestnuts.-Early career:...

, Brazilian Master Marcos Silva, Bluegrass Grammy winner Alison Brown

Alison Brown

Alison Brown is an American banjo player and guitarist known for a soft nylon-string banjo sound. She has won and has been nominated on several Grammy awards and is often compared to another banjo prodigy, Béla Fleck for her unique style of playing...

, Ernestine Anderson

Ernestine Anderson

Ernestine Anderson is an American jazz and blues singer. In a career spanning more than five decades, she has recorded over 30 albums. She was nominated four times for a Grammy Award. She has sung at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Monterey Jazz Festival , as well as at jazz festivals all...

, Oscar Brown Jr., award-winning trumpeter Ingrid Jensen

Ingrid Jensen

Ingrid Jensen is a Canadian jazz trumpet player.Jensen is a graduate of the Berklee College of Music and Malaspina University in Nanaimo, British Columbia. She has been nominated for several Juno awards, winning one with her first release, Vernal Fields...

, acclaimed composer and Grammy winner, Maria Schneider

Maria Schneider (musician)

Maria Schneider is an American arranger, composer, and big-band leader who has won multiple awards. In 2005, her album Concert in the Garden won a Grammy for "Best Large Ensemble Album"...

, composer & pianist Brian Kelly

Brian Kelly (composer & pianist)

Brian Kelly is an American composer, pianist, and producer creating music in the jazz fusion, smooth jazz, New Age genres.- Career:...

, and many more.

Since 1998 David has had the honor of playing with the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin

Aretha Franklin

Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...

. In addition to live concerts, this has included television appearances on The Rosie O'Donnell Show

The Rosie O'Donnell Show

The Rosie O'Donnell Show is an Emmy Award-winning American daytime television talk show hosted and produced by actress and comedian Rosie O'Donnell. It aired for six seasons from 1996 to 2002...

, The View, Good Morning America

Good Morning America

Good Morning America is an American morning news and talk show that is broadcast on the ABC television network; it debuted on November 3, 1975. The weekday program airs for two hours; a third hour aired between 2007 and 2008 exclusively on ABC News Now...

, and VH1's Divas Live 1998, where he also performed with Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and actress. She made her recording debut with the release of her eponymous studio album in 1990, under the guidance of Columbia Records executive Tommy Mottola, whom she later married in 1993...

, Celine Dion

Celine Dion

Céline Marie Claudette Dion, , , is a Canadian singer. Born to a large family from Charlemagne, Quebec, Dion emerged as a teen star in the French-speaking world after her manager and future husband René Angélil mortgaged his home to finance her first record...

, Gloria Estefan

Gloria Estefan

Gloria María Milagrosa Fajardo García de Estefan; known professionally as Gloria Estefan is a Cuban-born American singer, songwriter, and actress. Known as the "Queen Of Latin Pop", she is in the top 100 best selling music artists with over 100 million albums sold worldwide, 31.5 million of those...

, Shania Twain

Shania Twain

Shania Twain, OC is a Canadian country pop singer-songwriter. Her album The Woman in Me , brought her fame and her 1997 album Come On Over, became the best-selling album of all time by a female musician in any genre, and the best-selling country album of all time. It has sold over 40 million...

, and Carole King

Carole King

Carole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King had an album, Tapestry, top the U.S...

 for the show's finale.

For the past few years, David has been working with Bay Area Composer Joel Evans. Their recordings have appeared in numerous motion pictures and television shows, including Universal's For the Love of the Game, Paramount's What Women Want

What Women Want

What Women Want is a 2000 American romantic comedy film, directed by Nancy Meyers and starring Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt. The movie was a box office success with a domestic gross of $182,811,707 and a worldwide gross of $374,111,707, against a budget of $70 million.-Plot:Nick Marshall, a Chicago...

, Showtime's Seventeen Again

Seventeen Again

Seventeen Again is a fantasy–comedy film. It first aired on Showtime on November 12, 2000, and was released on DVD on April 9, 2002. The films stars Sister Sisters Tia & Tamera, and their brother Tahj Mowry from Smart Guy.-Plot:...

, Fox's Say It Isn't So, The Young and the Restless

The Young and the Restless

The Young and the Restless is an American television soap opera created by William J. Bell and Lee Phillip Bell for CBS. The show is set in a fictional Wisconsin town called Genoa City, which is unlike and unrelated to the real life village of the same name, Genoa City, Wisconsin...

, All My Children

All My Children

All My Children is an American television soap opera that aired on ABC from January 5, 1970 to September 23, 2011. Created by Agnes Nixon, All My Children is set in Pine Valley, Pennsylvania, a fictitious suburb of Philadelphia. The show features Susan Lucci as Erica Kane, one of daytime's most...

, Nash Bridges

Nash Bridges

Nash Bridges is an American television police drama created by Carlton Cuse. The show starred Don Johnson and Cheech Marin as two Inspectors with the San Francisco Police Department's Special Investigations Unit. The show ran for six seasons on CBS from March 29, 1996 to May 4, 2001 with a total of...

, The District

The District

The District is a television police drama which aired on CBS from October 7, 2000 to May 1, 2004. The show followed the work and personal life of the chief of Washington, D.C.'s Police Department .-Premise:...

, The X-Files

The X-Files

The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...

, Sex and the City

Sex and the City

Sex and the City is an American television comedy-drama series created by Darren Star and produced by HBO. Broadcast from 1998 until 2004, the original run of the show had a total of ninety-four episodes...

, Frasier

Frasier

Frasier is an American sitcom that was broadcast on NBC for eleven seasons, from September 16, 1993, to May 13, 2004. The program was created and produced by David Angell, Peter Casey, and David Lee in association with Grammnet and Paramount Network Television.A spin-off of Cheers, Frasier stars...

, The Osbournes

The Osbournes

The Osbournes is an American reality television program featuring the domestic life of heavy metal singer Ozzy Osbourne and his family. The series premiered on MTV on March 5, 2002, and in its first season, was cited as the most-viewed series ever on MTV...

, Desperate Housewives

Desperate Housewives

Desperate Housewives is an American television comedy-drama series created by Marc Cherry and produced by ABC Studios and Cherry Productions. Executive producer Cherry serves as Showrunner. Other executive producers since the fourth season include Marc Cherry, Bob Daily, George W...

, The West Wing, The O.C.

The O.C.

The O.C. is an American teen drama television series that originally aired on the Fox television network in the United States from August 5, 2003, to February 21, 2007, running a total of four seasons...

, LA Doctors, The Chris Isaak Show

The Chris Isaak Show

The Chris Isaak Show is a television sitcom which follows a fictionalized version of the life of American rock musician Chris Isaak. The show portrays Isaak and his band members as everyday people with everyday problems...

, and many others.

David currently teaches at the Berkeley Jazz School, and has also been a regular faculty member at the Stanford Jazz Workshop

Stanford Jazz Workshop

Stanford Jazz Workshop was founded in 1972 by saxophonist and educator Jim Nadel to create an environment conducive to learning, experiencing and appreciating jazz...

 and at the Rhythmic Concepts Jazz Camp West. Recently he played the Broadway shows Jersey Boys

Jersey Boys

Jersey Boys is a jukebox musical with music by Bob Gaudio, lyrics by Bob Crewe and book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice. It is a documentary-style musical, based on one of the most successful 1960s rock 'n roll groups, the Four Seasons...

(with three different companies), Les Misérables

Les Misérables (musical)

Les Misérables , colloquially known as Les Mis or Les Miz , is a musical by Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on the novel of the same name by Victor Hugo....

, Ragtime

Ragtime (musical)

Ragtime is a musical with a book by Terrence McNally, lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, and music by Stephen Flaherty.Based on the 1975 novel by E. L. Doctorow, Ragtime tells the story of three groups in America, represented by Coalhouse Walker Jr., a Harlem musician; Mother, the matriarch of a WASP family in...

, and the Janis Joplin show Love, Janis

Love, Janis

Love, Janis is a collection, released in 2001, of Janis Joplin's performances interspersed with readings of her personal letters to her family throughout her career...

during their San Francisco runs. He has played the Broadway show It Ain't Nothin' but the Blues at Theaterworks

TheatreWorks (Silicon Valley)

TheatreWorks is a non-profit, professional theater company based in Menlo Park, California and founded in July, 1970. The company is a member of the League of Resident Theatres and employs some 300 artists annually, including Equity and non-Equity actors, directors, designers and specialty artists...

in Palo Alto. He also plays on many commercial jingles, and film and television soundtracks, both in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.