Daryll King

 

Daryll King, a native of Toledo, Ohio, has been singing and playing music all his life.  His father was a singer in a men’s gospel chorale and occasionally would let Daryll sing with the group.  His parents wanted all of their 8 children to be educated in more than just the 3 “R’s”, and made each of them learn an instrument and take art classes at the local museum.

 

When Daryll was 14, a friend handed him a bass guitar and said “I’ll show you what to do with that in a little while,” and later taught Daryll a few bass lines.  That was the start of a music career that has spanned more than 40 years with many bands.

 

Daryll enjoys playing all kinds of music, but his first love is jazz.  Among his influences are Stanley Clark, Charles Mingus, Abraham Laboriel, and Ron Carter.  Daryll and Mike Peters have been playing music together for 20 years, originally in jam sessions and later as the founding members of Standing 8 Count.

 

Tim Hancock

 

Tim Hancock is a native of Ohio, who started playing drums at a very young age in a church group that included his mother and older brother.

Tim played in church for years but eventually ventured off into other styles of music. In recent years Tim started exploring Jazz and formed the group Abnique with some talented friends released a CD.  He is more than just a drummer, he is a promoter of several Jazz Festivals and events in the Tampa Bay area, which is how he came to be the drummer for Standing 8 Count after we lost our original drummer.  Tim volunteered to sit in on one gig with us, and has been with the group ever since.  His style is smooth and versatile; he is a solid addition to the band.

 

Julius James

 

Julius James has been in music since he was 5 years old.  He sang in choirs, took lessons in classical music and music theory&composition through high school, formed dance bands and singing groups in high school and college, and  functioned as the director of his university 's Black Choir.   Today, Julius teaches piano lessons to both children and adults and is the music director for the contemporary service at his church.

 

When asked who influenced his drive to make music, Julius states it was his sister's influence, herself an accomplished pianist and singer, along with the likes of Donny Hathaway, her college classmate, the Edwin Hawkins Singers, and Earth, Wind, and Fire, and Stevie Wonder that showed him what it means to speak to the soul in the universal language of music.

Mike Peters

 

Mike Peters is Standing 8 Count's guitarist and is also a vocalist. Mike has been playing guitar since age 13. Born and raised in New York City, he began playing Rock and Roll, Blue Eyed Soul, and R&B, did studio work and gravitated toward Jazz and Bossa Nova in the late 70’s.

 

You can hear the influence of Wes Montgomery in his style, the love of bebop and straight ahead jazz. He has been playing jazz in the Greater Tampa Bay Area for over 30 years, performing as a solo, act and with combos and big bands.

 

David Marcial

 

David was born in England to an English war bride and a Puerto Rican/American immigrant GI father, and spent the first 7 years of life in New York City. That city, for better or worse is in his blood. He is father to a beautiful daughter now living in Seattle.

 

Professionally and/or semi-professionally he has been a part of groups beginning in ’75 in Colorado Springs. Always politically conscious and active, a high point of his stay in Seattle was soloing as part of an African American dance and spoken word performance group called the Choreopoets while opening for Angela Davis at the University of Washington.

 

He has played and sang as part of an Afro-Cuban folklore group called Olu Meji in Seattle, played Surdo in Manhattan Samba in New York and was part of an Afro Caribbean folklore group called Iyabakoso here in the Tampa bay area.

 

His musical tastes and inspirations are too broad or numerous to mention all of them, but range from Jackie Wilson and Smokey Robinson to Giovanni Hidalgo and Bobby Sanabria; L Subramanian and Nusrat to Tupac and Prince; Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Alice Coltrane to Eddie Palmieri and Ray Barretto; The Beatles, Stones and Santana to Mongo Santamaria, Francisco Aguabella, Armando Peraza and on and on (including the Bulgarian Women’s choir and Mongolian Tuva Throat Singers).

 

David is a devotee, practitioner, and always a student of this world of music and is thrilled now to be a part of Standing 8 Count.