Anat Cohen
Ever charismatic, prolific and inspired, Grammy-nominated clarinetist-saxophonist Anat Cohen has won hearts and minds the world over with her expressive virtuosity and delightful stage presence. As The Wall Street Journal says, “What’s not to love about a young clarinetist and saxophonist who plays everything we love – modern jazz, world music, “hot” New Orleans style jazz – and does it all brilliantly?”
The perennial winner of “Clarinetist of the Year” titles from DownBeat, JazzTimes, and the Jazz Journalists Association, Fresh Air’s Terry Gross credits Cohen with “bringing the clarinet to the world” and The New York Times hails her a “Master.”
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Avishai Cohen
Avishai Cohen is globally recognized as a musician with an individual sound and a questing spirit, an ever-creative player-composer open to multiple strains of jazz and active as a leader, co-leader and sideman. Aside from the acclaimed work with his quartet over the last several years, and previously his trio work under the moniker Triveni, the trumpeter has also recorded and toured the world as part of the Mark Turner Quartet, the SFJAZZ Collective, Jazz100, Zakir Hussain, and the 3 Cohens Sextet – with his sister, clarinetist-saxophonist Anat, and brother, saxophonist Yuval. Named as the Artistic Director of the International Jerusalem Festival, Cohen has also been voted a Rising Star on three consecutive occasions in the DownBeat Critics Poll.
Ben Wendel
Grammy nominated saxophonist Ben Wendel was born in Vancouver, Canada and raised in Los Angeles. Currently living in Brooklyn, NY, he has enjoyed a varied career as a performer, composer and producer. Highlights include tours, performances and/or recordings with artists such as Tigran Hamasyan, Antonio Sanchez, Gerald Clayton, Eric Harland, Taylor Eigsti, Linda May Han Oh, Moonchild, Louis Cole, Daedelus, Snoop Dogg and the artist formerly known as Prince. Ben is a founding member of the Grammy nominated group Kneebody.
Cécile McLorin Salvant
Cécile McLorin Salvant, is a composer, singer, and visual artist. The late Jessye Norman described Salvant as “a unique voice supported by an intelligence and full-fledged musicality, which light up every note she sings”. Salvant has developed a passion for storytelling and finding the connections between vaudeville, blues, folk traditions from around the world, theater, jazz, and baroque music. Salvant is an eclectic curator, unearthing rarely recorded, forgotten songs with strong narratives, interesting power dynamics, unexpected twists, and humor. Salvant won the Thelonious Monk competition in 2010. She has received Grammy Awards for Best Jazz Vocal Album for three consecutive albums, “The Window”, “Dreams and Daggers”, and “For One To Love”. In 2020, Salvant received the MacArthur fellowship and the Doris Duke Artist Award. Nonesuch Records released “Ghost Song” in March 2022.
Gerald Clayton
Six-time GRAMMY nominated pianist-composer and Blue Note recording artist Gerald Clayton began formal studies at Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Piano Performance at USC’s Thornton School of Music under the instruction of Billy Childs, following a year of intensive study with NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron at The Manhattan School of Music. In 2006, Clayton won second place in the Monk Institute of Jazz Piano Competition. In the years since, Clayton has collaborated with such distinctive artists as Diana Krall, Roy Hargrove, Dianne Reeves, Terence Blanchard, John Scofield, Terri Lyne Carrington, Peter Bernstein, Ambrose Akinmusire, Gretchen Parlato, Ben Wendel, the Clayton Brothers Quintet and legendary band leader Charles Lloyd. He currently serves as Director of Next Generation Jazz Orchestra and has served as Musical Director for Monterey Jazz Festival On Tour. Over the years, Clayton’s playing and original works have received GRAMMY recognition for Best Improvised Jazz Solo, Best Jazz Instrumental Composition and Best Jazz Instrumental Album — a nomination he earned most recently for his debut release on Blue Note Records Happening: Live at the Village Vanguard.
Kneebody
In their almost two-decade history, the Grammy-nominated band Kneebody has created a genre and style all its own. Their sound is explosive rock energy and high-level nuanced chamber ensemble playing set within the frames of highly wrought compositions that are balanced with adventurous no-holds-barred improvising.
Kneebody is keyboardist Adam Benjamin, trumpeter Shane Endsley, saxophonist Ben Wendel and drummer/bassist Nate Wood. The band has no leader or rather, each member is the leader; they’ve developed their own musical language, inventing a unique cuing system that allows them each to change the tempo, key, style, and more in an instant.
Mark Guiliana
Hailed by The New York Times as “a drummer around whom a cult of admiration has formed,” Grammy-nominated superstar drummer & composer Mark Guiliana (David Bowie, St. Vincent, Brad Mehldau) brings an adventurous spirit, eclectic palette and gift for spontaneous invention to a staggering range of styles. Equally virtuosic playing acoustic jazz, boundary-stretching electronic music, or next-level rock, he’s become a key collaborator with such original sonic thinkers as St. Vincent, Pearl Jam, Matt Cameron, Brad Mehldau, Meshell Ndegeocello, Matisyahu, and the late, great David Bowie.
Following his acclaimed quartet albums ‘Jersey’ and ‘Family First’, Mark Guiliana’s latest release is everything you’d expect from him, whilst taking the music in new directions we’ve never seen from him before. In complete contrast to his latest BEAT MUSIC! work, ‘the sound of listening’ (intentionally lower case) is a deeply honest and expressive album by a musician who knows where he’s headed and what he wants to say with people he deeply trusts. The album will be released in October 2022.
Michael Mayo
Whether Michael Mayo is performing with his band, as a guest, or alone with a looper pedal, the LA native’s commanding and other worldly vocalese is quickly gathering critical and commercial acclaim around the globe. Mayo attended the acclaimed Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Performance, only the third vocalist to be accepted into the 20-year-old program, where he learned from the likes of Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. Now living in Brooklyn, Mayo is a veteran international performer whose highlights include singing at the White House, the Kennedy Center and Renée Fleming’s American Voices Festival, as well as the Panama Jazz Festival. Most recently he has recorded and performed with Herbie Hancock, Jacob Collier, Kneebody, Gretchen Parlato, Josh Groban, Ben Wendel, and Becca Stevens among many others. His own band performance was a standout at the 2019 Playboy Jazz Festival, Atlanta Jazz Festival, and Monterey Jazz Festival. Signed to Mack Avenue/Artistry Records, Mayo’s debut record BONES, produced by Grammy Award-winning producer Eli Wolf (Norah Jones, Al Green, The Roots) was released on June 4th, 2021.
Tigran Hamasyan
Tigran Hamasyan began playing piano at the age of three and started performing in festivals and competitions when he was eleven, winning the Montreux Jazz Festival’s piano competition in 2003. He released his debut album, World Passion, in 2005 at the age of seventeen. The following year, he won the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition. Additional albums include New Era; Red Hail; A Fable, for which he was awarded a Victoires de la Musique (the equivalent of a Grammy Award in France); Shadow Theater; and Luys i Luso. His Nonesuch debut, Mockroot (2015), won the Echo Jazz Award for International Piano Instrumentalist of the Year; subsequent records for the label include An Ancient Observer (2017) the companion EP, For Gymuri (2018), Revisiting the Film (2021) and most recently StandArt (2022). Hamasyan was awarded the Deutscher Jazzpreis international category in Piano/Keyboards in 2021. In addition to awards and critical praise, Hamasyan has built a dedicated following, as well as praise from Herbie Hancock, Brad Mehldau and the late Chick Corea.