Mala's music career has taken her all over the world, performing for international tours and festivals, as well in some of NYC's most prestigious stages, including the Iridium Jazz Club, the Blue Note, the Jazz Standard, the 55 Bar, and Brooklyn's BAM Café. Most recently she performed in Washington DC at the Kennedy Center. Mala […]
NEA Jazz Master Maria Schneider returns to NJPAC with her genre-defying orchestra. Widely acclaimed for her sophisticated large-ensemble recordings, Schneider is a gifted arranger and composer whose highly original work often blurs the lines between post-bop, classical and the avant-garde. Her GRAMMY® winning albums include 2005’s Concert in the Garden, 2008’s Sky Blue, and 2015’s The Thompson Fields. Schneider’s […]
Maria Schneider’s music has been hailed by critics as “evocative, majestic, magical, heart-stoppingly gorgeous, imaginative, revelatory, riveting, daring, and beyond categorization.” Blurring the lines between genres, her varied commissioners stretch from Jazz at Lincoln Center to The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra to the American Dance Festival, and include collaboration with David Bowie. She is among […]
Pianist, composer, producer and arranger Demetrius “Krayon” Nabors is well known and in demand in the Detroit area and on the national contemporary jazz scene. He is a two-time Detroit Music Award Winner in the Outstanding Gospel/Christian Musician category. His considerable talents caught the attention of numerous high-profile national artists, including R&B singer KEM, flutist […]
Paul Mutzabaugh is a multi-instrumentalist and composer from Chicago. Over the past 20 years, he has worked consistently in a wide range of musical styles with a variety of notable artists and ensembles, including: Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Heather Headley, Jason Robert Brown, Rufus Wainwright, Mannheim Steamroller, Robbie Fulks, Miguel Zenón, Spektral Quartet, John Elmquist’s HardArt Groop, […]
Conga player and composer Alberto Nacif and the superlative musicians who make up the sizzling Latin Jazz group Aguankó have a new, all original Latin Jazz recording titled “Unidad”, which was released at the July 2023 performance at Blue LLama. This recording features the core group of Aguanko musicians from the incredibly rich Detroit area […]
Eric Alexander is one of the most sought-after saxophonists on the modern jazz scene. "The people I listened to in college are still the cats that are influencing me today," says Alexander. "Monk, Dizzy, Sonny Stitt, Clifford Brown, Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean, Joe Henderson - the legacy left by Bird and all the bebop pioneers, […]
D'Rivera and Valdés: Together Again! These rare benefit concerts features Cuban jazz legends, clarinetist, saxophonist, author, composer and arranger Paquito D'Rivera and pianist, composer, and arranger Chucho Valdés first met in 1962. Both child prodigies and sons of musical families, the two worked together in Havana's Musical Theatre Orchestra and in the Cuban Orchestra of Modern […]
Eric Kennedy & Friends: Tribute to Lisa A Baltimore, Maryland native, Eric Kennedy is a drummer, vocalist, percussionist, educator, arranger and composer. He started performing at the age of three with a family band and encouraged by visiting local and national musicians. Eric was the 2004 runner-up in the Billie Holiday Vocal Competition and first-place band member […]