Artist Category: Jazz

Ben Garnett

For Ben Garnett, the acoustic guitar is naturally cinematic. “It has this ability to build a world for other instruments to inhabit,” Garnett muses. His forthcoming album, Kite’s Keep (2025), features artfully constructed compositions brought to life by acoustic music luminaries like Darol Anger, Brittany Haas (fiddle), Ethan Jodziewicz, Paul Kowert (bass), and Chris Eldridge (guitar). “My dream was to shine a light on these pervasive, yet often overlooked, abilities of the instrument; to demonstrate that a ‘guitar record’ can actually showcase the guitar as this world-building, ensemble instrument, rather than merely a lead instrument.” Shifting its aperture from folk to bluegrass, pop to jazz, classical to avant-garde, Kite’s Keep rarely settles into any one particular genre; rather, it relishes the in-between spaces, revealing its innovations not through spectacle, but through the quiet power of storytelling in motion.

Every piece on Kite’s Keep is a mini-movie with its own narrative arc, cinematic close-ups, and golden hour lighting with Garnett as both auteur director and best supporting actor. Not surprising for someone who frequents the Belcourt, Nashville’s arthouse cinema, to study how stand-out indie movies create tension and emotional resonance. The album takes its cue from Andrés Segovia, who famously said, “the guitar is an orchestra.” Garnett likes to disassemble his compositions, handing out the parts to his co-conspirators to give guitaristic ideas a new timbral life. Says Garnett, “there are moments on this record where the fiddle and bass take over material born from the fretboard, carrying it up or down to places where the guitar can only point.” This can be heard on the opening track “Look Again,” with its prismatic melodies expanding outward or “Tell Me About You,” a conversation piece with interlocking parts, fitting together like puzzle pieces. Kite’s Keep is full of singable melodies and guitar parts that sparkle with a sense of verve and adventure.

From early on, music was an immersive experience for Garnett. He played tuba in his grade school band and loved the wild atmosphere when they warmed up in the hallway. He learned Green Day songs after school, but his guiding light was his cousin Andy Timmons, a rock guitar god who lived an hour away on Texas Highway 121. Andy played in Danger Danger and with Olivia Newton-John and imparted the wisdom that songs are more important than virtuosity. Young Garnett spent hours in Andy’s studio, surrounded by vintage tube amps and over 100 guitars, pouring over Beatles songs and basking in those shimmering Ibanez guitar tones. In his 20s, Garnett found a new kind of guitar hero studying with Julian Lage at the Savannah Acoustic Seminar before moving to Nashville and striking up a deep friendship with Chris Eldridge (Punch Brothers), who has since become his longtime mentor and collaborator.

Garnett’s self-assured debut album, Imitation Fields (2023), produced by Eldridge, is a refreshingly beautiful collision of new acoustic and electronic music. Hypnotic pulses meet rootsy melodies featuring an all-star cast of many of the musicians on Kite’s Keep, as well as Billy Contreras (fiddle), Dominick Leslie (mandolin), former Circus No. 9 bandmate Matthew Davis (banjo), and others. He has made duo records with Matt Glassmeyer (Speed of Wood Vol. 1, 2024), Ethan Sherman (Stereoscope, 2019), and Celia Hill (Spherically, 2016). Garnett tours with contemporary bluegrass bands Missy Raines & Allegheny and Circus No. 9. He’s performed on the Grand Ole Opry at the Ryman Auditorium, Big Ears Festival, Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival, Rochester Jazz Festival, Philadelphia Folk Fest, and toured extensively in the US, Canada, France, Sweden, Australia, and New Zealand. As an educator, he’s taught at the Berklee College of Music, Targhee Music Camp, Idaho Bluegrass & Banjo Camp, Ashokan Bluegrass Camp, and Folk Alliance International.

Christine Tassan & Les Imposteures

For more than 20 years, guitarist Christine Tassan has been leading her boat with brilliance, aplomb and an absolutely contagious dynamism. One of the few female jazz and gypsy jazz guitar soloists, she stands out for her sensitive playing, quiet strength and irresistible audacity. Also a singer, composer, author, director and producer, she participates in numerous musical projects in Quebec and on the international scene, both as a leader and as a guest musician (notably with the Lost Fingers, Paul Kunigis, Le trio Martin Bellemare and Canto Tango).

Trained in classical guitar, she is interested in many styles, studying folk, pop, jazz and developing her talent as a singer-songwriter at a very young age. Her interest in gypsy jazz, jazz and improvisation really began with her discovery of the music of Django Reinhardt in 1998, a style she learned by participating in master classes, such as Angelo Debarre, Emmanuel Kassimo or Yorgui Loeffler.

In 2003, she founded her gypsy jazz and swing song group, Christine Tassan et les Imposteures, which was immediately a great success and became a staple of the gypsy scene. Unique in its kind, this female ensemble performs in more than 600 festivals and venues in Quebec, Canada, Europe, the United States and China, each time receiving an enthusiastic reception from the public and the media. He can be found at the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, the prestigious Django Reinhardt Festival in Samois-sur-Seine (France) and the DjangoFest NorthWest (USA). The quartet has seven albums to its credit, including “Entre Félix et Django” which won the Opus Prize for “Jazz Album of the Year” in 2017 and a nomination for “Show of the Year” in 2018. The latest “Django Belles”, released in 2018, integrates two new brass musicians, for an original ode to the Quebec winter.

Always in search of new horizons, Christine studied jazz composition and arrangement at Berklee College of Music (2014). In 2020, in parallel with Les Imposteures, she arrived with this new quintet project, “Voyage intérieur”, which brings together ten instrumental compositions, the result of introspective musical research. We discover a new facet of the guitarist, with electric and bebop sounds. This album is nominated in 2021-2022 in the Jazz Album of the Year category at the Juno Awards, the ADISQ, the Opus Awards and the GAMIQ!

Jason Anick

Berklee College of Music Professor Jason Anick, has earned a reputation among string players as an imaginative improviser, versatile composer, and insightful educator.
Growing up playing fiddle tunes with his family and classical music with local orchestras, he developed a passion for improvisation, which led him to study jazz and classical music at Hartt Conservatory. In 2008, Anick started what would be a 10 year stint touring and recording with Grammy award-winning guitar virtuoso John Jorgenson while still a senior at Hartt Conservatory.

As a band-leader, Anick has launched a variety of musical projects over the years, including the Django Reinhardt inspired group Rhythm Future Quartet, an Americana-inspired Acoustic Trio, and a contemporary jazz ensemble with pianist Jason Yeager. His string of recordings (Sleepless, Tipping Point, United, Travels, Rhythm Future Quartet and Friends, Reverence, Sanctuary) has earned him praise from Downbeat Magazine as a “Rising Star in the world of jazz violin.”

A versatile musician and sought after side-man, Anick has also shared the stage with an array of artist like Stevie Wonder, Guster, Tommy Emmanuel, Hamilton de Holanda, The Jim Kweskin Jug Band, Celia Woodsmith, and Ward Hayden and the Outliers. With performances all over the world from China, Europe, and Japan and renowned venues like Carnegie Hall, Montreal Jazz Festival, Blue Note, Smalls Jazz Club, Scullers Jazz Club, Yoshi’s, Iridium, TD Garden, Regattabar, NPR, and The Late Night Show, Jason has proven himself to be a leader in the ever-growing contemporary string world.

Kevin Gosa

I’m a two-time Downbeat-Award winning soprano saxophonist. My playing is focused on tone and melody. I play in any idiom from classical and experimental pop music to jazz and folk.

I co-founded The Fretful Porcupine with the extraordinary Jake Armerding.

I’ve recorded with The University of Kansas Saxophone Quartet, Found Wandering, Strange Attractors, The Sensorium Saxophone Orchestra, The Magills, Jonathon Roberts, Sarah Lentz, and Ex Unum.

Antar Goodwin

An accomplished artist blending jazz, blues, and soul. Recently signed with Bigger Beast Records, Antar is following up his 2024 album “The Game” with a new single, set to release in early 2025. He’s toured internationally and collaborated with Sting, Lauryn Hill, and Wyclef Jean.

Stan Strickland

Singer, saxophonist, flutist, actor, Stan Strickland has performed extensively throughout the United States, Europe, Scandinavia, New Zealand and the former Soviet Union. In addition to numerous radio and television appearances, Stan has performed in many clubs and concert halls, including Jordan and Symphony Halls in Boston, Carnegie Recital Hall and Town Hall in New York, and at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. He also has performed with the Boston Pops Touring Ensemble. His work has been featured on recordings by Bob Moses, Marty Erlich, Webster Lewis and Brute Force. Stan has also performed with jazz greats Yusef Lateef, Pharoah Sanders, Herbie Mann, Danilo Perez, Shirley Scott and Marlena Shaw.

His acting experience includes the leading role in the Boston Art Group’s production of “Harlem Renaissance”, which toured across New England, and the current production of a play Stan conceived called “Coming Up For Air: An Autojazzography”, a Vinyard Playhouse production, with performances on Martha’s Vineyard and in Boston at the Boston Playwrights’ Theatre.

Stan has a M.A. degree from Lesley College in Expressive Arts Therapy, and is an adjunct professor there, having taught classes in music and movement therapy. He also teaches at Berklee College of Music, Tufts University and Longy School of Music.

Stan is Co-Executive Director of Express Yourself. It is centered on the fact that serious art-making has tremendous restorative powers, and since 1988, the multidisciplinary team of professional artists, working in partnership with adolescents in public mental health residential facilities, has been producing multimedia performance pieces that celebrate this fact.

In 1991 Stan received the Martin Luther King Music Achievement Award from the city of Boston, in 1994 the Cambridge Favorite Musician Award and in 1996 an award for Exemplary Service to the mentally ill from the Massachusetts State House.

Devon Gates

Devon Gates is a bassist, vocalist, and composer from Atlanta, Georgia, now based between Boston, MA and Brooklyn, NY. Through studying anthropology and jazz performance at Harvard University and Berklee College of Music, she has worked with Terri Lyne Carrington, Linda May Han Oh, Vijay Iyer, Danilo Perez, Claire Chase, Yosvanny Terry, and esperanza spalding, and has performed with Social Science, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Susie Ibarra, Michael Mayo, Alexa Tarantino, Immanuel Wilkins, Kenny Werner, and Tia Fuller. In 2020, she released her first EP, “Voice/Bass” on Bandcamp, followed by the release of single “skipped that step” in spring 2023. In 2022 her original composition “Don’t Wait” was published in Berklee Press’ “New Standards” collection of 101 lead sheets by female jazz composers.

For her work as a composer, Gates has won the inaugural Marion Brown Prize, a HerVoice prize (Chicago Acapella), and the 2024 First Commission award from ComposersNow, along with the Bohemian Prize (’23) and a John Green Prize (’22) from the Harvard Music Department, and a commission for the MassArt Museum (’22). Her pieces have been programmed by the Harvard Choruses, Chicago Acapella, Bowdoin College, and National Sawdust. She is a Mutual Mentorship for Musicians fellow and Betty Carter Jazz Ahead alum, and has performed at Joe’s Pub, the Monterey Jazz Festival, London Jazz Festival, Montreal Jazz Festival, DC Jazz Festival, Winter JazzFest, the Kennedy Center, Roulette Intermedium, and SFJazz. She performed her first tour in Asia (Ulaanbataar, Mongolia, and Osaka and Tokyo, Japan) in August 2023, followed by a fall 2023 term abroad in London, UK at the Royal Academy of Music, and a January 2024 Italy tour.

Her Harvard Opportunes arrangement and live solo performance of “Hard Place” by H.E.R. went viral on TikTok, garnering the attention of Michael Buble and Jason Derulo, and later winning her a CARA Acapella Award for Best Soloist on the 2022 studio album recording. She also works in varied interdisciplinary settings, from scoring a short film for the Harvard-Radcliffe Institute exhibition on seminal ethnomusicologist Dr. Eileen Southern, to collaborating with the Harvard Ballet Company to set dance to her original music. She is currently developing a string quartet in collaboration with playwright Phillip Howze, to be premiered in February 2024 as part of his theatrical work, “Self Portraits” (Bushwick Starr, Brooklyn, NYC).

Mwalim Daphunkee Professor

Considered by critics and peers alike to be one of the contemporary masters of the oral tradition, MWALIM “DaPhunkee Professor” (Morgan James Peters) is a multi-award-winning composer, musician, theater artist, writer, and educator whose works span the mediums of sound recordings, books, plays, films, videos, and multimedia installations.

An accomplished composer, musician, and singer in the genres of jazz, soul, House Music, and Afrobeats, Mwalim s a three-time winner of the New England Urban Music Awards for Jazz, and is the writer and co-producer of The GroovaLottos six-time Grammy nominated album, “Ask Yo’ Mama”.

Coming from long family lines of West Indian/Bajan (Barbados) and Mashpee Wampanoag oral traditionalists, it was of little surprise that Mwalim would tell stories to his classmates in nursery school and kindergarten, or that he began winning awards for storytelling in the 7th grade, and city-wide short-story contests in high school. While in college, he began his career as a storyteller and spoken-word artist; interweaving storytelling with a life long love of music as a violist, pianist, percussionist, and singer. Playing Carnegie Hall before the age of 14 and -at 16 -becoming one of the youngest session players in EMI history- Mwalim’s story is a rich and multi-dimensional one. After completing his MS in Film Boston University he studied theater arts education and playwriting at New African Company in Boston. His plays began getting productions in Boston and after a reading at the 1999 National Black Theatre Festival, his plays and performances pieces began receiving productions throughout the USA and Canada as well as the UK and Caribbean.

Sam Reider & The Human Hands

Led by Latin GRAMMY-nominated accordionist, pianist, and composer Sam Reider, the Human Hands is an innovative collective of acoustic musicians exploring the crossroads of folk, jazz, and classical music from around the world. Irresistible melodies, joyful improvisation and otherworldly sounds collide in what Songlines Magazine has dubbed a “mash-up of the Klezmatics, Quintette du Hot Club de France and the Punch Brothers.” The New York Times calls it “modern folk music with saxophone and accordion.”

The group got its start playing late night sessions at well-known dive bars and music venues in Brooklyn. After releasing their debut record, Too Hot to Sleep, in 2018, they toured throughout the US, UK, and Europe appearing at premier venues and festivals like Jazz at Lincoln Center, Celtic Connections, and SFJAZZ. Their concerts have aired on PBS and the BBC.

Sam Reider and the Human Hands will be performing new music off their upcoming record, The Golem and Other Tales (June 2024). The album features a through-composed suite of music entitled “The Golem,” alongside five other original compositions that elicit echoes of Django Reinhardt, Planxty, Duke Ellington, Astor Piazzolla, Bernard Hermann and Raymond Scott. The medieval legend of the Golem tells the story of a clay man brought to life by a rabbi. In a time of darkness, the rabbi prays for a hero to deliver his community from evil. One night, a mysterious stranger shows up at the rabbi’s door and convinces the rabbi to build a golem. With his assistants, the rabbi gathers clay, sculpts a giant man, and inscribes the word for “truth” on its forehead. At the stroke of midnight, when the final letter is completed, the golem comes to life. The supernatural being performs heroic acts but quickly spins out of control as it yearns to become more and more human. After falling in love with the rabbi’s daughter, the golem is ambushed by its creators, chased and destroyed.

This concert will feature: violinist/cellist Duncan Wickel (Rising Appalachia), saxophonist Eddie Barbash (Jon Batiste), guitarist Roy Williams (Stephane Wrembel), and bassist Andrew Ryan (Kaia Kater).

Jimmy Mazzy

Jimmy Mazzy enjoys iconic status as both a banjoist and vocalist on the American jazz scene. For more than forty years, this consummate musician has delighted followers of traditional jazz with his uniquely lyrical banjo style and his wonderfully haunting vocals. He is featured on more than 30 albums, many of them on the famous Stomp Off label including the Paramount Jazz Band and his own Jimmy Mazzy & Friends. In a New York Times review of Jimmy and Eli’s Stomp Off recording, Shake It Down, critic John S. Wilson wrote: “Mr. Mazzy sings with husky-voiced intensity and a sentimental enthusiasm that sometimes suggests a cross between Ted Lewis and Clancy Hayes. His banjo-playing is relaxed and flowing, providing light lines that help the tuba rise up and shuffle around.”