Stephanie Jones

Freelance Writer and Editor

United States

Stephanie Jones is a writer, editor and educator with a background in feature stories, in-depth interviews, long-form copywriting and editorial management.

She works as features writer for DownBeat Magazine and has contributed interviews, narrative pieces and cover stories to a variety of local and national publications including The Detroit Free Press, NPR Music, JazzTimes, NAfME's Teaching Music Magazine, Hot House Jazz Guide and Jazz Speaks. She does not write reviews or critical essays.

In 2022, Jazz at Lincoln Center contracted Stephanie as a copywriter and Playbill editor. She has written liner notes, at the artist's request, for releases on Blue Note Records, Intakt Records and Cellar Live. Beginning as copy editor and proofreader, in 2016 she worked her way up to becoming editor of New Jersey Teachers Magazine.

Stephanie graduated from Wellesley College, having majored in English literature. A Phi Beta Kappa and Kaye Scholar, she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Jazz Performance from The City College of New York, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude. In 2019, The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music recruited Stephanie to teach an interview-driven undergraduate course in music business. Her poetic works have been published in New Reader Magazine, Poetic Sun, Stone Poetry Quarterly and 50-Word Stories.

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Portfolio

SAMPLING

DownBeat Magazine
05/01/2020
COVER STORY Our Ears Together: Thana Alexa + Antonio Sanchez

On a chilly January night in New York City, drummer-composer Antonio Sánchez plays a full-body phrase. He hangs back in the measures before repeating it—a provocation. Alongside saxophonist and EWI artist Chase Baird, vocalist Thana Alexa stretches vowels around quarter-tones...

JazzTimes
12/01/2021
COVER STORY She Dwells in Ambiguity: Veronica Swift

Counting off a tune as she steps to the mic, Veronica Swift holds tempo in her stride. In the living room of longtime collaborator, pianist Emmet Cohen, she engages those around her, and begins telling a story as only she can. That’s her truth on the bandstand. Away from it, Swift enters a state of artistic metacognition.

NPR Music
12/20/2021
When clubs shuttered, The Jazz Gallery emerged like a phoenix

The set broke around 9:15 on a Friday night in October. Narrow aisles bottlenecked with listeners. While Delta loomed outside, The Jazz Gallery hummed with pressurized excitement. Few wore masks. Many focused on cream puffs plated in the green room to celebrate the late Roy Hargrove's 52nd birthday.

Blue Note Records
Liner Notes: Gerald Clayton's Bells on Sand

Years ago, I asked Gerald what happens when he gets to the gig and the piano’s out of tune. Without hesitation, he answered. “You just embrace it. You have to. And sometimes, the dissonance is its own thing. It can be beautiful.” To Gerald, gesture matters more than any semblance of perfection. That’s why we love his music. It’s why we hear two takes of his ideal...

Playbill
Jazz at Lincoln Center Program Notes: Beyond Black Codes

This season, Jazz at Lincoln invites artists and fans to celebrate community in all its forms. In The House of Swing and throughout the world, JALC community members gather in person and across virtual spaces to practice and perform, to watch and listen, to influence and support each other in moments of triumph and in times of change.

DownBeat Magazine
07/02/2020
Georgia Anne Muldrow Finds 'The Sound Of Mixed Emotions'

Georgia Anne Muldrow once described understanding herself as a medic—an artist who heals. Throughout her career, the Grammy-nominated singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist has released music that defies genre, questions constructs and uplifts communities whose voices have been suppressed.

DownBeat Magazine
08/24/2021
Rising Stars Find Inspiration in the Collective

On a May afternoon, Angel Bat Dawid’s course on Great Black Composers bled into her next engagement. She hardly noticed. Offering musical accounts from generations past, the clarinetist, singer and composer entranced her students via Zoom. “They had a lot of questions about the past,” she said, pausing in thought. “If there’s not an educational element to my career, what am I doing?”

American Pianists Association blog
American Pianists Association Program Notes

Nothing summons bright moments like two pianos on a single stage. Nuance reigns. And subtle changes have resonating impact. While each may be part of a shared tradition that stretches from Hank Jones and Teddy Wilson through Chick and Herbie all the way to Craig Taborn and Kris Davis, no two-piano duo is comparable to another.

LIVE EVENT COVERAGE

DownBeat Magazine
08/09/2022
Old Friends, New Listeners Celebrate Smoke's Grand Reopening

Thursdays have always set the vibe for weekends at Smoke. The first of a four-night run for headliners, Thursday would serve as a point of entry and rumination. Bandstand energy was hypnotic. Artists would intimate a shared sound they’d hone and stretch out over the next few nights. At the club’s grand reopening last month, Thursday felt no different.

DownBeat Magazine
08/09/2022
Newport Artists Talk Music, Working & Milestones

In stories and signage, the 2022 Newport Jazz Festival paid homage to beloved founder George Wein, who died last September at age 95. But the three-day event featuring vibrant performances from emerging and established artists honored his legacy in unspoken ways as well.

DownBeat Magazine
04/08/2019
'A Great Night in Harlem' Honors Belafonte, Bennett

Every April, a handful of artists find themselves center stage at the Apollo Theater in front of gold-painted balconies and red-upholstered seats. Their mission: Honor the architects of American music. On Sunday-the anniversary of...

DownBeat Magazine
01/22/2020
Generations Intersect at Winter JazzFest

Peer groups serve as vital incubators for artistic development, but equally critical are intergenerational relationships among artists. They provide new perspectives, as well as a means to hand down information and evolve the music. These relationships also manifest potently on the bandstand. Of the acts performing Jan. 8-18 from stages across Brooklyn and Manhattan...

DownBeat Magazine
08/07/2019
First-Time Leaders Preserve and Evolve Newport Legacy

By the time Paul Gonsalves shook up Fort Adams with 27 blistering choruses in 1956, the Newport Jazz Festival already had become a high-profile platform for expression and exchange. One weekend each year, its fabled grounds beckon artists to trace paths of those who came before them—many who serve as signposts for innovation and defiance.

COVER STORIES

DownBeat Magazine
05/01/2020
COVER STORY Our Ears Together: Thana Alexa + Antonio Sanchez

On a chilly January night in New York City, drummer-composer Antonio Sánchez plays a full-body phrase. He hangs back in the measures before repeating it—a provocation. Alongside saxophonist and EWI artist Chase Baird, vocalist Thana Alexa stretches vowels around quarter-tones...

JazzTimes
12/01/2021
COVER STORY She Dwells in Ambiguity: Veronica Swift

Counting off a tune as she steps to the mic, Veronica Swift holds tempo in her stride. In the living room of longtime collaborator, pianist Emmet Cohen, she engages those around her, and begins telling a story as only she can. That’s her truth on the bandstand. Away from it, Swift enters a state of artistic metacognition.

Teaching Music Magazine
COVER STORY Learning from the Process: All-National Honor Ensembles

Daylight wanes in Brunswick, Maine, as afternoon slips into evening. Ashley Albert locks eyes with her student for a moment, and together they begin recording the final take. For weeks, the Brunswick High School choral director has been burning the 3 p.m. oil straight through to 5 p.m...

New Jersey Teachers Magazine
COVER STORY Playing the Changes: Music in Classrooms (special report)

Above the hum radiating from 20 sets of hands busy scrawling, swiping and clicking, a familiar guitar line fades in through small classroom speakers fixed to either side of a SMART Board. As if instinctively, clusters of third-grade students unlock their eyes from iPad screens and kindles, tuck their devices in desks and rise, without a word, to meet cross-legged on a braided carpet at the front of the room. Once they’ve assembled, ears attuned to the recording, the students sit and listen as...

New Jersey Teachers Magazine
COVER STORY Under my Umbrella: Spotlight on Inclusive Education

An illuminated monitor hangs in front of a blackboard, flanked by dryerase easels on either side. Above the bookshelves, aluminum trays brim with purple and yellow sand. Standing desks and small conference tables scattered with white boards, gel boards and lighted pointers transform the traditional classroom into a cutting-edge, co-efficient, inclusive learning environment.

New Jersey Teachers Magazine
COVER STORY Autism: Piecing Together the Puzzle

Every day across New Jersey, one in 41 children might struggle to sit still during read aloud. One in 41 children might recoil when another’s backpack brushes against hers. One in 41 children might trace a perfect butterfly, from memory, without saying a word. And one in 41 children might pace back and forth, reciting the five physical properties of an ocean liner. These, and countless other behaviors, comprise the unique habits of 2.5 percent of New Jersey’s children – the 2.5 percent who...

New Jersey Teachers Magazine
COVER STORY Reading at the Speed of Swipe

So why is this push so popular? What about screenage students – other than a Snapchat addiction that seems to require an hourly fix – demands increased access to physical books inside the classroom every single day? One word comes to Dr. Connie Hebert’s mind: experience.

FEATURES, Q&As & BEAT PIECES

Jazz Speaks
12/14/2023
Gestures Unlimited: Yuhan Su Speaks

Yuhan Su invites contradictions of daily life into her creative process. She seeks freedom in confinement. A tight 10 days in Europe unlocked new entryways through the music on her new release Liberated Gesture , performed first as a four-movement suite inspired by German-French...

DownBeat Magazine
10/10/2023
Samora Pinderhughes: The Healing Project

In his Harlem apartment, Samora Pinderhughes presides over his contradictions. Handwritten pages splay across his Yamaha piano as his face fixes on a thought. He smiles, then winces. “Living is being inside of seven different things at once,” says the pianist, singer and composer. “Society is built around [each of us] being one thing, having one emotion, relating to another person in one way...

Jazz Speaks
12/07/2022
Painting with Sound: Patricia Brennan Speaks

Blocks from the Gulf of Mexico, Patricia Brennan's childhood home hummed with distant melodies. In her native city of Veracruz, the artist and composer encountered profound cultural exchange among immigrants from all over the world, with Afro-Cuban music behind every dune. "It was everywhere,” says Brennan, “particularly in the ports...

DownBeat Magazine
05/30/2023
Lucy Yeghiazaryan’s Raw Solitude

Nearly three years after the world locked down, artists continue exploring resonances of solitude in their music. On her February release Lonely House (La Reserve), Lucy Yeghiazaryan probes acute feelings of disbelief, exhaustion, boredom and sadness, as well as profound changes in self-acceptance, perspectives on aloneness and how she approaches her craft.

DownBeat Magazine
05/31/2022
Catherine Russell: An Artist Prepares

The energy at New York’s Birdland felt restless and distracted. When the band started playing “Honeysuckle Rose,” entire tables lifted up their phones. Some rose from their seats to find a better angle. But as Catherine Russell entered the room, the mood shifted. Listeners listened. Between bursts of applause, even the bar fell silent.

NPR Music
12/20/2021
When clubs shuttered, The Jazz Gallery emerged like a phoenix

The set broke around 9:15 on a Friday night in October. Narrow aisles bottlenecked with listeners. While Delta loomed outside, The Jazz Gallery hummed with pressurized excitement. Few wore masks. Many focused on cream puffs plated in the green room to celebrate the late Roy Hargrove's 52nd birthday.

DownBeat Magazine
04/01/2022
Claire Dickson's Valley of Sound

Claire Dickson stepped onto a gently bobbing deck and lost track of her perspective. Shadows and perimeters dissolved into expanse. But singing into darkness, she felt closer to her voice than she ever had: “There are no acoustics in the Arctic. So your voice sounds really, really close to you. Frighteningly close. Like it’s a secret that you’re singing.”

Downbeat Magazine
02/22/2022
Caroline Davis Explores the Nature of Grief

When she entered Oktaven Audio in 2020, Caroline Davis brought with her the enormity of a shapeshifting grief. The saxophonist and composer lost her father in the months before lockdown, and had taken up artistic residence at MacDowell...

Jazz Speaks
04/20/2022
Community Outreach: Hannah Marks Speaks

Hannah Marks arrived in New York uncertain where she might fit in among the downtown clubs and emerging Brooklyn venues. Sure of very little, she reached out to her mentors. "I am someone who really leans on my mentors in times of doubt," says the DesMoines native. “My first two weeks in New York, I shadowed Marcus Printup at some Jazz at Lincoln Center...

DownBeat Magazine
08/16/2022
The Art of Instilling Joy

His left hand on the bass, Christian McBride spoke with playful conviction: "You're out of your mind." Norah Jones smiled. From her duo mate, she coaxed a reluctant solo out front as the two artists opened their set at the Ralph Pucci Gallery on West 18th Street. A moment later, blowing his charming self-effacement into oblivion, McBride delivered a brief and greasy solo before they...

DownBeat Magazine
08/23/2022
Thana Alexa's Long Game

In 2018, Thana Alexa began booking a modest tour for ONA, the self-produced, self-released record that would earn a GRAMMY nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album. DownBeat profiled her artistic process during a 2020 interview alongside her...

Teaching Music Magazine
Culturally-Responsive Teaching

When students see their cultural lineage reflected in classroom activities, that inclusion leads to empowerment. A steady increase in students emigrating from South Asia spotlights the growing need for lessons that include repertoire from Sri Lanka and...

Metropolitan Magazine
Rising to the Challenge: Robert Frank Discusses the New Frontier for Non-profit

Last year, the video-tagging phenomenon known as The Ice Bucket Challenge raised awareness for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). According to the foundation’s website, the campaign’s unprecedented popularity allowed the ALS Association to double its annual operating budget from around $20 million to around $40 million.

DownBeat Magazine
07/02/2020
Georgia Anne Muldrow Finds 'The Sound Of Mixed Emotions'

Georgia Anne Muldrow once described understanding herself as a medic—an artist who heals. Throughout her career, the Grammy-nominated singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist has released music that defies genre, questions constructs and uplifts communities whose voices have been suppressed.

DownBeat Magazine
08/24/2021
Rising Stars Find Inspiration in the Collective

On a May afternoon, Angel Bat Dawid’s course on Great Black Composers bled into her next engagement. She hardly noticed. Offering musical accounts from generations past, the clarinetist, singer and composer entranced her students via Zoom. “They had a lot of questions about the past,” she said, pausing in thought. “If there’s not an educational element to my career, what am I doing?”

DownBeat Magazine
09/10/2020
Sparks Of Wonder, Discovery Propel Rising Stars

In 2019, five artists received pages of music with an express direction: "Learn these parts." Comprising bass lines and horn parts, the charts would be transformed into potent music in the studio, following heady conversations among...

DownBeat Magazine
08/03/2021
Willie Jones III: Ode to Fallen Heroes

Sheltered in his music room, Willie Jones III adjusts the volume on a Billy Taylor record. He swivels around to face his Yamaha Maple Custom drum set. Since March 2020, the soundproof corner of his Brooklyn apartment has served as practice...

Jazz Speaks
02/19/2022
Devices of Expression: Firas Zreik Speaks

In late 2019, instrumentalist and composer Firas Zreik moved from Boston to New York where, for many years, he'd dreamed of living as a working artist. And then the world shut down. "I had so many questions," he says. "'Should I stay? Should I leave?

DownBeat Magazine
01/12/2021
Mariel Bildsten Delivers Sturdy 'Backbone'

Trombonist Mariel Bildsten began developing ideas for her debut album in 2019, aiming to reflect different dimensions of her artistry, particularly her skills as an arranger. “I’m not super interested in just playing tunes for the tune’s sake,” said Bildsten, referencing the impetus for crafting Backbone (Outside In).

DownBeat Magazine
10/22/2020
Morgan Guerin Refines Nuances Of His Expression

Morgan Guerin conjures earthbound grooves and then releases them into the cosmos. At 22, the multi-instrumentalist, mixing engineer and first-call collaborator recently issued The Saga III, the final installment of an autobiographical album trilogy, having received critical acclaim for both I (2016) and II (2017). With each self-produced release...

DownBeat Magazine
04/01/2020
Emerging Musicians Eye Album-Release Schedule Amid Pandemic

Inside Bronx Music House, standing lamps bloom like roses. Percussion instruments hang like ivy on the walls. A stone's throw from Yankee Stadium, the apartment and practice space provides emerging artists a place to shed and session together — and now, a place to quarantine.

DownBeat Magazine
11/15/2019
How Musicians Are Evolving the Legacy of Resistance

Long before Nina Simone told a Carnegie Hall audience in 1964 that she meant every word of "Mississippi Goddam," artists had been engaging in activism, creating music that confronts. Decades after John Coltrane wrote "Alabama" and Marvin Gaye told an entire generation What's Going On, contemporary performers are evolving the legacy of their activist predecessors.

DownBeat Magazine
02/19/2020
Loueke, Biolcati and Nemeth Knit Together Identities as Gilfema

Gilfema-the trio of guitarist and vocalist Lionel Loueke, bassist Massimo Biolcati and drummer Ferenc Nemeth-is set to issue Three, the group's long-awaited followup to 2008's Gilfema + 2. Released on Sounderscore, Biolcati's new...

DownBeat Magazine
10/31/2019
Marquis Hill Celebrates Enduring Rhythms of Love

Before composing new music for Love Tape, Marquis Hill set out to explore existing concepts of love. The trumpet and flugelhorn player out of Chicago, who's now based in New York, pored over hours of recorded interviews, selecting excerpts from Abbey Lincoln, Phylicia Rashad, Eartha Kitt and Ayesha K.

DownBeat Magazine
Andy Biskin Reinterprets Alan Lomax Folk Anthology

Colleagues balked at clarinet player and composer Andy Biskin's plan for a project featuring three trumpets, drums and a clarinet. But the artist persisted. In 2015, Biskin assembled 16 Tons with drummer...

DownBeat Magazine
05/15/2019
Now's the Time for Brandee Younger

Harpist and composer Brandee Younger often faces a curiously inexhaustible question: What kind of music do you play? And she's given it a lot of thought: "I dislike [genre labels] for a number of reasons. [What I play is] such a...

DownBeat Magazine
Kassa Overall's Disc Defies Playlist Culture

In a small hotel room in Paris, Kassa Overall lay across an unmade bed, praying for a sign. For months he’d been sitting on an album’s worth of new music, passively finding reasons not to go into production. The next day, Roy Hargrove passed away.

DownBeat Magazine
07/16/2019
Angelika Niescier Dwells in Possibility

Improvisers craft their expression around the question, “What does the music need right now?” And saxophonist-composer Angelika Niescier creates opportunities to explore the answers. Niescier, who’s based in Cologne, Germany, issued her past two recordings on Swiss imprint Intakt, and with her latest...

DownBeat Magazine
10/11/2019
On 'Fly Or Die II,' Jaimie Branch Lets the Music Breathe

Jaimie Branch wants to hear music that breathes. The trumpeter-composer out of Chicago, and now based in New York, presents strong musical concepts primed for exploration and peer input. With each release...

DownBeat Magazine
07/03/2019
Maja S. K. Ratkje, Fumi Tomita Interpret Works of Literature

Artistic disciplines inform one another, cross-pollinating inspiration and conception. In recent years, poetry has emerged as a preferred vehicle among musicians who have collaborated with noted contemporary writers Dr. Sonia Sanchez, Aja Monet and scores more.

DownBeat Magazine
08/01/2019
Lauren Sevian: Working Beyond 'Bliss'

How do accomplished artists find new ways to expand their sound? Lauren Sevian has a few ideas. Frequently saying “yes” to collaborative situations and creating opportunities to play and compose, the baritone saxophonist continues to push her music in new directions.

DownBeat Magazine
07/09/2019
Romain Collin's 'Tiny Lights' Projects Audio-Visual Narrative

Romain Collin often recalls an enduring maxim from Terence Blanchard: "All complicated things are created from an interaction among simple things." Those words locked in his mind, the pianist set out to create a mixed-media release reflective of a journey toward transcendence.

LINER NOTES

Blue Note Records
Bells on Sand: Gerald Clayton

Years ago, I asked Gerald what happens when he gets to the gig and the piano’s out of tune. Without hesitation, he answered. “You just embrace it. You have to. And sometimes, the dissonance is its own thing. It can be beautiful.” To Gerald, gesture matters more than any semblance of perfection. That’s why we love his music. It’s why we hear two takes of his ideal on this recording. And it’s why his vision for a duos project wasn’t ever going to be literal. During lockdown, he revealed his...

Intakt Records
Soul in Plain Sight: Angelika Niescier & Alex Hawkins

Often I hear artists reveal how exposed they feel playing solo performances, alone with their ideas and, for many, an awareness of tendencies. Wittingly they embrace or resist what’s habitual — or simply observe it. But what’s compelling about duo context is the exposure of a relationship. As listeners, we revel in the ways relationships among ensemble members affect us. But there’s something elemental...

Intakt Records
Blood Moon: Ingrid Laubrock & Kris Davis

More than a decade ago, saxophonist-composer Ingrid Laubrock met pianist- composer Kris Davis at the recently shuttered historic hang Cornelia Street Cafe in downtown Manhattan, before Laubrock had moved to New York. Introduced that night by mutual collaborators and friends Tom Rainey and Tony Malaby, the two artists soon played a session with Tyshawn Sorey that promptly developed into their then-working trio Paradoxical Frog. Over the next 12 years, Laubrock and Davis would inspire and...

Cellar Live
Dearly Beloved: Naama Gheber

Conceiving her debut album, vocalist Naama Gheber summoned inspiration from an intimate life on the New York bandstand. Among tapering red curtains, maple bar tops, snares and brushes, the Be’er Sheva-born artist nightly explored selections from the canon of American standards with her fellow artists – music that would become the centerpiece for Dearly Beloved. As tracks materialized one by one, she observed a lyrical theme emerging, one that presents triumphs, challenges and ultimately...

COPY & CONTENT

Wingspan Arts
Wingspan Arts web copy

Wingspan Arts aims to enrich the lives of young people in and around New York City through multi-disciplinary arts education programs both in and out of the classroom.

Jazz at Lincoln Center
Dizzy's Club newsletter sample

Sample of weekly offerings newsletter for Dizzy's Club, Jazz at Lincoln Center's intimate venue in Manhattan's Columbus Circle. "This week at Dizzy's Club... Jones & Cannon: In the Spirit of Roy..."

New Jersey Teachers Magazine
The College of New Jersey: Authentic Learning through iSTEM

Inclusion, in the broader sense of the term, garners special attention in the iSTEM model. Because scaffolding is a built-in attribute of design-centric learning, special educators and inclusive general education teachers who implement iSTEM activities...

New Jersey Teachers Magazine
Ramapo College: #EdTech...the future continues

A woman standing beneath an enormous arched doorway in Northern Italy rushes out to meet an American man arriving in a taxi. As the man emerges from the back seat, the woman flings her arms about him with the force of a forlorn friend reuniting with the soulmate she hasn’t seen in years. But before this moment, the two had never met.

City College CUNY
The City College of New York: Jazz Studies web copy

A conservatory caliber music education at an affordable tuition: The CCNY Jazz Studies program offers students a unique, well rounded and affordable jazz curriculum that fosters their confidence and creativity as players, while each pursues an integrated Liberal Arts education that prepares them for a sustainable career in the modern music world.

American Pianists Association blog
American Pianists Association: Exploring two-piano duo

Nothing summons bright moments like two pianos on a single stage. Nuance reigns. And subtle changes have resonating impact. While each may be part of a shared tradition that stretches from Hank Jones and Teddy Wilson through Chick and Herbie all the way to Craig Taborn and Kris Davis, no two-piano duo is comparable to another.

Organic Lifestyle Foods
Organic Lifestyle Foods: Steps to Consistent, Healthy Eating

When examining personal wellness, many people already know regular exercise and healthy eating habits form a powerful defense against weight gain. While fitness routines tend to be straightforward, healthy eating habits might be a bit more obscured.

PODCASTS

Hot House Jazz Guide via SoundCloud
12/19/2016
"After the Call" the official podcast of Hot House Jazz Guide

Episode "6" (sort of) of After the Call features an unreleased show from roughly 2-and-a-half years ago with guests Melissa Aldana and Cecile McLorin Salvant. They discuss different personal and artistic transitions including moving around for their music, benefits and limitations of the working band, reconciling reverence and understanding for those artists who no longer "directly influence" their sound, and examining colonialism at different phases of their artistic development.

PROFESSIONAL BIOS

Josanne Francis
Josanne Francis Professional Bio

DC-based award-winning artist, composer and educator Josanne Francis began playing steelpan at age 9 in her native Trinidad & Tobago. She delivers unmatched technical mastery and an energetic and emotional complexity that enchants listeners across the world. Josanne approaches steelpan with great reverence for its versatility...

Joy Lapps
Joy Lapps Professional Bio

Internationally lauded artist and composer Joy Lapps activates spaces for community building and creative expression. The award-winning instrumentalist of Antiguan and Barbudan descent treats the steelpan as a tool for engagement, anchoring her artistry in a profound, community-centered musical tradition. She aims to amplify women’s contributions in every facet of her work, giving nuanced attention to women of the steelband movement.

Joel Ross
Joel Ross Professional Bio

For the past several years, Joel Ross has been refining an expression that’s true to his sound and his generation. In 2019, the vibraphonist-composer released his anticipated Blue Note debut KingMaker to eruptive critical acclaim. He’s topped the DownBeat Critics Poll Rising Star category for vibraphone and in 2017, he became one of the youngest artists to receive a coveted Residency Commission from The Jazz Gallery. With the release of Who Are You? (Blue Note, 2020), Ross shares the...

Gabrielle Cavassa
Gabrielle Cavassa Professional Bio

"A very distinctive voice" - WBGO Vocalist-composer and master song interpreter Gabrielle Cavassa performs with clarity and command. An emerging talent out of New Orleans, the California-raised artist earned her position as a Sarah Vaughan Vocal Competition Finalist in 2018 at age 24, and has received spotlight recognition from JazzIz, OffBeat Magazine, WBGO's "Singers Unlimited"...

China Moses
China Moses Professional Bio

Singer, songwriter and producer China Moses evolves her artistry in truth. Defiantly real, her music resists what so many labels and critics desire: category. She captivates listeners with her deep pocket, sensitivity and wit, drawing inspiration from endless styles in the expansive lineage of Black American music. Frank and fearless, China’s songs document fleeting emotional states and extended narratives, often leaning into self-reflection both in lyric and phrasing. Her voice is a...

Gerald Clayton
Gerald Clayton Professional Bio

Gerald Clayton searches for honest expression in every note he plays. With harmonic curiosity and critical awareness, he develops musical narratives that unfold as a result of both deliberate searching and chance uncovering. The four-time GRAMMY-nominated pianist/composer formally began his musical journey at the prestigious Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, where he received the 2002 Presidential Scholar of the Arts Award. Continuing his scholarly pursuits, he earned a Bachelor of...

Firas Zreik
Firas Zreik Professional Bio

A sonic revolutionary, the Palestine-born New Yorker has transformed global perception of the Kanun. His treatment of the instrument preserves its identity as a vital part of the Maqam tradition, and stretches its potential as a cultural chameleon enhancing a range of fresh, evolving sounds. He views the Maqam’s improvisation-driven legacy as a vessel for unbound creative expression across musical styles. Zreik’s music is honest and authentic. His nuanced approach translates the kanun’s...

Michelle Welchons
Michelle Welchons Professional Bio

Raised in North Carolina, New Orleans-based artist and composer Michelle Welchons seeks inspiration from a confluence of cultures and musical lineages. She began studying European classical music as a child, before transitioning into a vast exploration of West African and Latin American traditions. Deep reverence for...

Dayna Stephens
Dayna Stephens Professional Bio

Recent recipient of the number-two spot for the 2017 DownBeat Critics Poll in the category "Rising Star-Tenor Saxophone", Dayna Stephens has garnered critical acclaim over the years for his playing, compositions and arrangements. DownBeat's James Hale describes JazzTimes Editor's Pick, writing, "His big, warm lines are full of notes and intent but also gusts of wind, bodies of water."

Aaron Diehl
Aaron Diehl Professional Bio

Since his debut release on Mack Avenue Records in 2013, pianist-composer Aaron Diehl has mystified listeners with his layered artistry. He reaches into expansion. At once temporal and ethereal - deliberate in touch and texture - his expression transforms the piano into an orchestral vessel in the spirit of beloved predecessors Ahmad Jamal, Erroll Garner, Art Tatum and Jelly Roll Morton.

Sullivan Fortner
Sullivan Fortner Professional Bio

For the past decade, Sullivan Fortner has been stretching deep-rooted talents as a pianist, composer, band leader and uncompromising individualist. The GRAMMY Award-winning artist received international praise as both key player and producer for his collaborative work on The Window (Mack Avenue, 2018), alongside multi-GRAMMY winner, vocalist-composer Cecile McLorin Salvant.

Ken Fowser
Ken Fowser Professional Bio

Since his arrival on the New York scene in 2005, Ken Fowser has continued to steer traditional harmony in uncharted directions. His lyrical approach to line construction and depth of harmonic sensibility allow him to record and play all over the world with such master players and burgeoning stars as David Hazeltine, Ugonna Okegwo, Donald Vega, Willie Jones III, Rick Germanson, Quincy Davis, David Wong, Jason Brown, Dezon Douglas and Rodney Green.