Kyle Swan: Drums

Martin Bejerano: Piano

Matt Brewer: Bass

Grammy Award winning drummer Kyle Swan has been working on mastering his craft for over 20 years. He has demonstrated true dedication to enhancing his artistry in every way. He attained his Undergraduate and Graduate degrees from University of Miami’s Frost School of Music from the years 2013-2018. He studied Criminology and Jazz Studies in his undergraduate degree and became the TA for the Jazz Drum Department during his graduate studies.

 He has participated in many music festivals across the world which include the Detroit Jazz Festival, Chicago Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, The Jazz Cruise, University of Wyoming Jazz Festival, Port Au Prince Jazz Festival, Dromos Jazz Festival,Guatemala Jazz Festival, Menorca Jazz Festival, and many others.

 Swan has had the honor of working with many esteemed artists such as, Grammy Award winning artists Kurt Elling, Brian Lynch, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Paquito D’Rivera, Charles McPherson, Steve Nelson, Sean Jones, Orrin Evans, Peter Bernstein, Rodney Whitaker, Cyrille Aimee, Bobby Broom, Steve Davis, Ira Sullivan, Matt Brewer, Terell Stafford, etc.

 Swan has also taught/performed/adjudicated at various jazz camps/festivals including Indiana All State Jazz Bands, Tonica International Jazz Festival, Festival de Jazz de Antequera, and Whitworth University. As he currently resides in Chicago, Il., you can find him performing at jazz clubs and teaching master classes and privately around the city, country, and abroad. As a student of the Black American Artform that is Jazz, Swan has devoted quality time to his musical evolution, instruction, and mastery.

Orrin Evans: Piano

Robert Hurst: Bass

Jeff ‘Tain Watts: Drums

During his kaleidoscopic quarter-century as a professional jazz musician, pianist Orrin Evans has become the model of a fiercely independent artist who pushes the envelope in all directions. Evans upholds that reputation on his 20th album, Magic of Now (Smoke Sessions), on which he helms a multi-generational A-list quartet through an eight-piece program that exemplifies state-of-the-art modern jazz. From first note to last, the members, convening as a unit for the first time, display the cohesion and creative confidence of old friends, mirroring the leader’s predisposition for finding beauty in the heat of the moment.

 Although he’s never had the support of a major label, Evans has ascended to top-of-the-pyramid stature on his instrument, as affirmed by a #1-ranking as “Rising Star Pianist” in the 2018 DownBeat Critics Poll. Grammy nominations for the Smoke Sessions albums The Intangible Between and Presence, by Evans’ raucous, risk-friendly Captain Black Big Band, cement his bona fides as a bandleader and composer.

 Evans bedrocks his speculative sensibility with virtuoso command of the piano and deep assimilation of the fundamentals. A deft tune deconstructor, he commands vocabulary across a broad timeline of swinging, blues-infused hardcore jazz and spiritual jazz/avant garde jazz dialects, as well as the Euro-canon, and conveys his stories with the intuitive spontaneity of an ear player. He projects an instantly recognizable sound, sometimes creating flowing rubato tone poems, sometimes embodying the notion that the piano comprises 88 tuned drums.

 Evans’ stylistically polyglot compositions – influenced by the expansive, individuality-first Black Music culture of his native Philadelphia and by a decade playing Charles Mingus’ beyond-category music in the Mingus Big Band – similarly postulate an environment of “structured freedom” that instigates the personnel to push the envelope in all his multifarious leader and collaborative projects. These include the Eubanks Evans Experience (a recent venture with eminent guitarist Kevin Eubanks); the just-formed Brazilian unit Terreno Comum; Evans’ working trio with bassist Luques Curtis and drummer Mark Whitfield; Jr.; and Tar Baby (a collective trio of 20 years standing with bassist Eric Revis and drummer Nasheet Waits).

 An influential educator, Evans is devoted to passing the torch to new generations. His students include the outstanding young alto saxophonist and Blue Note artist Immanuel Wilkins, and the prodigious, Grammy-nominated teenage pianist Brandon Goldberg.

The Bad Plus are the ultimate originals. A democratic unit with a clear vision and a refusal to conform to convention. For the past two decades they have played with spirit and adventure, made their own rules and done so with a bold sense of creativity and intent. Avoiding easy categorization, The Bad Plus has won critical acclaim and a legion of fans worldwide with their unique sound and flair for live performance.

Now in their 21st year, The Bad Plus continues to push boundaries as founding members Reid Anderson (bass) and Dave King (drums) embark on a new piano-less incarnation of the band with Ben Monder (guitar) and Chris Speed (tenor saxophone) – instigating a new wave of excitement and anticipation within the band that is re-energizing their sound and inspiration. The Bad Plus have constantly searched to bridge genres and techniques while exploring the infinite possibilities of exceptional musicians working in perfect sync.

The Bad Plus is released their 16th studio recording, Complex Emotions, via Mack Avenue on Friday, November 8th, 2024.

Grammy®-nominated artists Alfredo Rodríguez and Pedrito Martinez first worked together on Alfredo’s 2012 release Invasion Parade. Since that initial recording session they have had the rare occasion to perform together as a duo, leaving audiences completely mesmerized by their fearless and virtuosic playing. Each artist brings a different approach to the collaboration. A protege of Quincy Jones, who took him under his wing when he defected to the US in 2009, Alfredo was schooled in the rigorous classical conservatories of Havana. His riveting artistry is informed as much by Bach and Stravinsky as it is by his Afro Cuban and jazz roots. Pedrito’s musical training came directly from the streets of the Cayo Hueso neighborhood of Old Havana in which he was raised and he has subsequently performed with artists such as Sting, Paul Simon, and Wynton Marsalis. Together, these two master musicians take listeners on a unique and exciting journey.

Trumpeter Sean Jones is a composer, educator, and chair of the Brass Department at Berklee College of Music. He is the artistic director of both the Pittsburgh and Cleveland jazz orchestras and has performed and/or recorded with Joe Lovano, Chico O’Farrill, Jimmy Heath, Nancy Wilson, and Dianne Reeves, and with Marcus Miller, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter in the 2011 Tribute to Miles tour. Jones holds a master’s degree from Rutgers University and was lead trumpeter with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra until 2010. He has recently released his seventh recording on Mack Avenue Records, im.pro.vise = never before seen, and is currently a member of the SFJazz Collective.

Eddie Gomez: Bass

Stefan Karlsson: Piano

Steven Pruitt: Drums

A two-time Grammy Award® winner, Eddie Gomez has been on the cutting edge of music for over four decades. His impressive resumé includes performances with jazz giants such as Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans, Gerry Mulligan, Ahmad Jamal, Scott Lafaro, Marian McPartland, Ron Carter, Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, Chick Corea, Benny Goodman, Miles Davis and many more.

Eddie Gomez was born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, and emigrated to the U.S. at a young age with his family, growing up in New York. He started on double bass in the New York City school system at the age of 11 and at age 13 went to the New York City High School of Music and Art. He played in the Newport Festival Youth Band from 1959 to 1961.His unique sound and style can be heard on many Grammy-winning records as well as on hundreds of recordings spanning the worlds of jazz, classical, Latin jazz, R&B, popular and contemporary music. A sought-after educator, Gomez is artistic director at the conservatory of music of Puerto Rico as well as a resident artist at the Berklee College of Music. He formerly was an artist-in-residence and associate professor of jazz double bass at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. It was his 11-year stint with the legendary Bill Evans Trio from 1966 to 1977that cemented his status among the all-time jazz greats. Prolific recordings ,crackling innovation and great flights of experimentation paved the way forth reputation Gomez boasts today.

Kelly Moran is a New York-based composer and pianist who has spent her career excavating the sonic possibilities of the piano. In the past decade, Moran has released numerous acclaimed albums that have challenged the piano’s traditional, classically-imposed school of thought with a more contemporary approach. Her unique strand of experimental piano compositions, which conjure hypnotizing textures and dramatic compositional arcs, have been included on year-end lists across classical, avant-garde, and metal genres.

 Moran’s most recent album, Moves in the Field, was praised by the New York Times for being “a softhearted but steel-skinned set of 10 piano pieces that are as rapturous as a waterfall or as delicate as vapor. Her first album in six years, it is the redemptive conclusion in an extended span of personal tragedy and professional doubt, all ingrained in its sweeping songs.”

 An accomplished and highly sought-after composer, Moran has collaborated with visionary contemporaries including FKA Twigs, Yves Tumor, The Avalanches, Kelsey Lu, Oneohtrix Point Never, and classical musician Margaret Leng Tan.

Saxophonist Branford Marsalis is one of the most influential and revered figures in contemporary music. The NEA Jazz Master, 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. After receiving Grammy nominations on its last two albums, Upward Spiral and The Secret Between the Shadow and the Soul, the Quartet made its Blue Note Records debut with the release of Belonging, a full album interpretation of Keith Jarrett’s 1974 ECM album of the same name. The New York Times commented “Marsalis has tackled imposing jazz masterworks before…but at its best, his ‘Belonging’ goes deeper…it’s a performance that both honors and amplifies.” John Zeugner captured the impact of the Quartet in a review of a live performance, calling it “casually confident, professional, cerebral, and supercharged with energy. The Branford Marsalis Quartet…was all of those adjectives and more.”

Alive with nurturing visions of simple sonic offerings to morph our present situation, Caroline Davis’ main reason for playing music is to connect with others, beckoning new vistas among curious listeners. Her musical journey began in Singapore, in a humid climate, hearing sounds underwater that she would recreate by singing to her German shepherd dogs, who treated her as their own. Her family moved to the United States, Atlanta, Georgia, around age 6, where she encountered R&B and gospel music rife with horns that called her to choose the saxophone 6 years later. 

 Today, Davis’ music covers a wide range of styles, owed to this shifting environment. As a leader, she has released eight albums: Live Work & Play, Doors: Chicago Storylines, Heart Tonic, Alula, Anthems, Portals, Vol. 1: Mourning, Alula: Captivity, and Portals, Vol.2: Returning. Her active projects include jazz-leaning Portals, experimental R&B My Tree, and protest band Alula. She has won Downbeat’s Critic’s Poll Rising Star Alto-Saxophonist (2018) and has been included in numerous Reader and Critics Polls. Her work has garnered much praise from NPR, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Wire, DownBeat, and many international publications.

 Davis is active as both a side-person and a leader in a diverse set of expressions. Davis has shared the stage with Lee Konitz, Rajna Swaminathan, Michelle Boulé, Angelica Sanchez, John Zorn, Bari Kim, Wendy Eisenberg, The Femme Jam, Matt Mitchell, Terry Riley, Miles Okazaki, and Billy Kaye.

 Outside of these performance relationships, she has been involved with the following mentorship communities: IAJE’s Sisters in Jazz, the Kennedy Center’s Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Program, and Mutual Mentorship for Musicians. Grants and residencies supporting a grateful Caroline include: Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Chamber Music America, New York Foundation for the Arts, Jerome Hill, Civitella Residency, BringAbout Residency, Avaloch Farm Music Institute Residency, The Jazz Gallery Fellowship, and MacDowell. Some of her compositional practice integrates music with cognitive science, influenced by her Ph.D in Music Cognition. 

 Davis’ awards and recognitions are plentiful. She has been involved with various mentorship communities: IAJE’s Sisters in Jazz (2006), the Kennedy Center’s Betty Carter Jazz Ahead Program (2011), and Jen Shyu/Sara Serpa’s Mutual Mentorship Program (2020). Davis was the recipient of CMA’s Performance Plus Grant (2021), NYFA’s City Artist Corps Grant (2021), Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (2019-2020); and she was a fellow-in-residence at The Jazz Gallery (2022) and composer-in-residence at MacDowell (2019), Avaloch Farm Music Institute (2023-24), and Civitella (2025). Some of her compositional practice integrates music with cognitive science influenced by her Ph.D in Music Cognition. As a teaching artist, Caroline brings her unique knowledge of music and psychology to her teaching. She offers a yearly Jazz & Gender course at The New School, co-taught with Sarah Elizabeth Charles, and private lessons at Manhattan School of Music, and has been invited to institutions of all levels as a guest educator.

 Davis is an advocate for social justice in the realms of gender (This Is a Movement) and in the movement for carceral justice (Justice for Keith Lamar). She is organizing community events as “Community Conversations on Art & Justice for Incarcerated People”, showcasing the intersectionality between liberation and art of all forms.

PAT METHENY was born in Lee’s Summit, MO on August 12, 1954 into a musical family. Starting on trumpet at the age of 8, Metheny switched to guitar at age 12. By the age of 15, he was working regularly with the best jazz musicians in Kansas City, receiving valuable on-the-bandstand experience at an unusually young age. Metheny first burst onto the international jazz scene in 1974. Over the course of his three-year stint with vibraphone great Gary Burton, the young Missouri native already displayed his soon-to-become trademarked playing style, which blended the loose and flexible articulation customarily reserved for horn players with an advanced rhythmic and harmonic sensibility: a way of playing and improvising that was modern in conception but grounded deeply in the jazz tradition of melody, swing, and the blues. With the release of his first album, Bright Size Life (1975), he reinvented the traditional “jazz guitar” sound for a new generation of players. Throughout his career, Pat Metheny has continued to redefine the genre by utilizing new technology and constantly working to evolve the improvisational and sonic potential of his instrument.

Metheny’s versatility is nearly without peer on any instrument. Over the years, he has performed with artists as diverse as Steve Reich to Ornette Coleman to Herbie Hancock to Jim Hall to Milton Nascimento to David Bowie. Metheny’s body of work includes compositions for solo guitar, small ensembles, electric and acoustic instruments, large orchestras, and ballet pieces and even the robotic instruments of his Orchestrion project, while always sidestepping the limits of any one genre.

As well as being an accomplished musician, Metheny has also participated in the academic arena as a music educator. At 18, he was the youngest teacher ever at the University of Miami. At 19, he became the youngest teacher ever at the Berklee College of Music, where he also received an honorary doctorate more than twenty years later, in 1996. He has also taught music workshops all over the world, from the Dutch Royal Conservatory to the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz to clinics in Asia and South America. He has also been a true musical pioneer in the realm of electronic music, and was one of the very first jazz musicians to treat the synthesizer as a serious musical instrument. Years before the invention of MIDI technology, Metheny was using the Synclavier as a composing tool. He also has been instrumental in the development of several new kinds of guitars such as the soprano acoustic guitar, the 42-string Pikasso guitar, Ibanez’s PM series jazz guitars, and a variety of other custom instruments.

It is one thing to attain popularity as a musician, but it is another to receive the kind of acclaim Metheny has garnered from critics and peers. Over the years, he has won countless polls as “Best Jazz Guitarist” and awards, including three gold records for (Still Life) Talking, Letter from Home, and Secret Story. He has also won 20 Grammy Awards spread out over a variety of different categories including Best Rock Instrumental, Best Contemporary Jazz Recording, Best Jazz Instrumental Solo, Best Instrumental Composition at one point winning seven consecutive Grammys for seven consecutive albums. In 2015 he was inducted into the DownBeat Hall of Fame, becoming only the fourth guitarist to be included (along with Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian and Wes Montgomery) and its youngest member. In 2018 he was named an NEA Jazz Master, the nation’s highest honor in jazz, awarded to the recipients “for their lifetime achievements and exceptional contributions to the advancement of jazz.” Metheny has spent much of his life on tour, often doing more than 100 shows a year since becoming a bandleader in the 70’s. At the time of this writing, he continues to be one of the brightest stars of the jazz community, dedicating time to both his own projects and those of emerging artists and established veterans alike, helping them to reach their audience as well as realizing their own artistic visions.

Riley Mulherkar: Trumpet

Chris Pattishall: Piano

Barry Stephenson: Bass

Jason Burger: Drums

The trumpeter has had audiences on their feet since he was in middle school, a prodigious and disciplined player soaking up everything he could from Seattle’s unexpectedly rich and rooted jazz community. Playing under legendary band directors Robert Knatt and Clarence Acox prepared him for The Juilliard School, where he quickly found a musical home with Jazz at Lincoln Center and its leader, Wynton Marsalis.

 Mulherkar is a founding member of The Westerlies and in 2024 released his debut album Riley, hailed as “über hip, modern yet timeless…one of the best debut records to come out in a long, long time” (DownBeat).

 Since, he has played with everyone from Kenny Barron and Dee Dee Bridgewater to Anna Deavere Smith and Alan Cumming, and in 2020 received Lincoln Center’s prestigious Emerging Artist Award in 2020 for his work as “an original bandleader, composer, arranger, educator, community activist and advocate for jazz and the arts.”

Riley, his opening recorded salvo as a soloist, is the sonically modern setting for Mulherkar’s vulnerable, melodious interpretation of the rich tradition with sound design shaped by producers Rafiq Bhatia and Chris Pattishall. Enveloping Mulherkar within a series of textured, intricately-crafted spaces, Bhatia and Pattishall train a cinematographer’s lens on the continuum of great old songs, as well as new Mulherkar pieces which fit right into a radically bold audio framework for the emotional pronouncements of Riley’s horn.

Mulherkar is an Edwards Artist and performs on Edwards trumpets.