JASON HAINSWORTH

Jason Hainsworth is in demand both as a saxophonist and as a composer/arranger. As a performer, Jason has led his own quartet throughout the world to critical acclaim, most recently headlining the Suriname Jazz Festival. He is a current touring member of Ed Calle’s Mamblue (2016 Latin Grammy Winner), Tito Puente Jr’s Latin Jazz All Stars, and Melton Mustafa Jazz Orchestra. He has performed extensively throughout the United States and South America. He also serves as Associate Dean, and Executive Director Roots, Jazz, and American Music program, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

As a composer/arranger, Jason’s works have been commissioned and performed by Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Michigan State University, San Francisco Symphony Chamber Players, and many others.

A native of Houston, Texas, Jason studied music at the University of New Orleans with legendary jazz educator Ellis Marsalis and saxophonist Victor Goines, earned a bachelor’s from William Paterson University while touring the east coast, and a master’s from Florida State University.

Jason’s debut album, Kaleidoscope, features original compositions and arrangements for big bands, and his latest album, Third Ward Stories, features jazz heavyweights Michael Dease, Josh Evans, Johnathan Blake to name a few.

Tickets: $47.81

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RAVI COLTRANE

Just days before John Coltrane would have turned 100 his oldest surviving son, saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, presents a blazing young band to mark the milestone.

While Ravi spent the first quarter century of his career focusing on acquiring a diverse array of experience as a sideman and then honing his own lustrous, harmonically ambiguous compositions, he’s taken up the family mantle in recent years. With a variety of ensembles, projects and initiatives on and off the bandstand, he’s championed the legacy of his parents (including with his 2025 stint as an SFJAZZ Resident Artistic Director).

For this celebration he performs with trumpeter Jonathan Finlayson, a longtime collaborator who graduated from Berkeley High and spent years touring and recording with alto sax great and MBASE conceptualist Steve Coleman. A teenage prodigy, Israeli pianist/keyboardist Gadi Lehavi made his Village Vanguard debut with Ravi at 15. Now 30, he’s more than lived up to his enormous potential, playing with consummate technique and capacious imagination. Powering the quartet is Bay Area-reared drum sensation Elé Howell, 28, a supremely musical accompanist who gained national attention when Coltrane started hiring him in 2021 for various projects, including Cosmic Music: Revisiting the Music of John and Alice Coltrane. Though John Coltrane ascended in 1967 at the age of 40, his presence continues to illuminate new directors for exploration.

Tickets: $60.00 ~ $95.00

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BRANFORD MARSALIS & DIANNE REEVES

Saxophone great and NEA Jazz Master Branford Marsalis and his superlative quartet are joined by fellow NEA Jazz Master and jazz’s greatest vocalist, Dianne Reeves, for a week devoted to the immortal music of John Coltrane, in honor of the centennial of his birth.

Saxophonist Branford Marsalis is one of the most influential and revered figures in contemporary music. The NEA Jazz master, three-time Grammy Award winner, and Tony and EMMY Award nominee is equally at home performing concertos with symphony orchestras and sitting in with members of the Grateful Dead, but the core of his musical universe remains the Branford Marsalis Quartet. After more than three decades of existence with minimal personnel changes, this celebrated ensemble is revered for its uncompromising interpretation of a kaleidoscopic range of both original compositions and jazz and popular classics.

The Branford Marsalis Quartet and Dianne Reeves will release a tribute album which revisits Coltrane’s seminal 1963 collaboration with Johnny Hartman. Originally recorded at Rudy Van Gelder’s studio in March of 1963, John Coltrane and Johnny Hartman was a sublime showcase for Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones, who gave remarkable depth and sensitivity to a selection of standards including Irving Berlin’s “They Say It’s Wonderful,” Guy Wood’s “My One and Only Love,” and the definitive version of Billy Strayhorn’s “Lush Life.” Bringing the songs to life was the distinctive, evocative baritone of crooner Johnny Hartman, who was the only vocalist Coltrane ever collaborated with.

Interpreting the songs with her own singular gifts, Reeves is a five-time GRAMMY winner who is accurately called “The most admired jazz diva since the heyday of Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday” (NY Times). She is an artist who embodies the music’s enduring values of elegance, class, and improvisational poise, with an innate feel for swing.

Personnel:
Branford Marsalis ~ tenor saxophone
Dianne Reeves ~ vocals
Joey Calderazzo ~ piano
Eric Revis ~ bass
Justin Faulkner ~ drums

Tickets: $50.00 ~ $165.00

Thursday: Sold Out | Friday: Tickets Available | Saturday: Almost Sold Out | Sunday: Tickets Available

Showtimes: Thursday ~ Saturday @ 7:30pm | Sunday: 3:00pm

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CHRISTIAN MCBRIDE’S URSA MAJOR

Bassist and composer Christian McBride’s most recent project is a quintet showcasing several of the most exciting young players on the scene. Returning to the Miner Auditorium stage for two nights, the cast features tenor saxophonist Nicole Glover, who has toured with Wynton Marsalis and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, performed with veteran masters such as drummer Al Foster, vocalist Dee Dee Bridgewater, and bassist Reggie Workman, and recorded with pianist Aaron Diehl’s Grammy-nominated 2023 Mary Lou Williams project Zodiac Suite.

Ely Perlman is an exciting young guitarist who has collaborated with Terreon Gully and Braxton Cook, and Chicago pianist Mike King has been touring with Dee Dee Bridgewater, and trumpeters Marquis Hill, Theo Croker, and Marcus Printup. Powering the band is Oakland native Savannah Harris, a remarkably poised young drummer who has made a major impact with the likes of vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant, Kenny Barron, and Immanuel Wilkins.

Tickets: $40.00 ~ $125.00

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Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Tineke Postma was born on August 31, 1978 in Heereveen, The Netherlands. At the age of eleven she began playing the saxophone and studied at the Amsterdam Conservatory. Graduating the conservatory in 2003, Tineke received a Masters from the Manhattan School of Music in New York and during this period of her education Tineke was taught by David Liebman, Dick Oatts and Chris Potter. She has been teaching at the Amsterdam Conservatory since 2005.

Performing internationally the saxophonist and composer has worked with Esperanza Spaulding, Terri Lyne Carrington and Wayne Shorter; she has received numerous recognitions from Down Beat Poll, won the Dutch Edison Award, the Jazz Juan Revelations Award, the Midem International Jazz Revelation of the Year Award and The Sisters in Jazz All Star Award.

Postma leads the Tineke Postma Quartet and The Tineke Postma International Quartet featuring Geri Allen on piano, Scott Colley on bass and Terri Lyne Carrington on drums. They have played festivals around the globe and recorded five albums under the leaders name. Postma has recorded as a sideman and collaborator and continues to compose, perform and tour.

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