Angel City Jazz Festival

Steve Lehman

Described as a “state-of-the-art musical thinker” by The New York Times, Steve Lehman is a composer, performer, educator, and scholar who works across a broad spectrum of experimental musical idioms. Lehman’s pieces for large orchestra and chamber ensembles have been performed by the American Composers Orchestra, International Contemporary Ensemble, Sō Percussion, JACK Quartet, and the PRISM Saxophone Quartet. His album, The People I Love, was cited as one of the “Top 10 Jazz Albums” of 2019 by NPR Music, Rolling Stone, The Los Angeles Times, and The New York Times. His previous recordings include Sélébéyone (2016), Mise en Abîme (NPR #1 Jazz Album of 2014), and Travail, Transformation and Flow (The New York Times #1 Jazz Album of 2009).

The recipient of a 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship and a 2014 Doris Duke Artist Award, Lehman is an alto saxophonist who has performed and recorded nationally and internationally with his own ensembles and with those led by Anthony Braxton, Vijay Iyer, George Lewis, Bennie Maupin, Jason Moran, Georgia-Anne Muldrow, Meshell Ndegeocello, Tyshawn Sorey, and High Priest of Antipop Consortium, among many others. He has taught undergraduate courses at Columbia University and the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. Currently, Lehman is a professor of Music at California Institute of the Arts.

Instagram / Website

Kris Davis

Kris Davis is a Grammy award-winning pianist and composer described by The New York Times as a beacon for “deciding where to hear jazz [in New York] on a given night.” Davis has released 24 recordings as a leader or co-leader and collaborated with artists such as Terri Lyne Carrington, Dave Holland, John Zorn, Craig Taborn, Ingrid Laubrock, Tyshawn Sorey, and Esperanza Spalding. She was named a 2021 Doris Duke Artist alongside Wayne Shorter and Danilo Pérez; Pianist of the Year by DownBeat magazine in 2022 and 2020; and Pianist and Composer of the Year by the Jazz Journalists Association in 2021. In 2019, Kris Davis’ Diatom Ribbons was named Jazz Album of the Year by both The New York Times and the NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll. The album draws from the musical worlds of free improvisation, spoken word, electronica, mainstream jazz, R&B, and rock. In September 2023, Davis released Diatom Ribbons (Live at the Village Vanguard), featuring Grammy winner and NEA Jazz Master Terri Lyne Carrington on drums, Julian Lage on guitar, Val Jeanty on turntables and electronics, and Trevor Dunn on bass. Davis is the associate program director of Creative Development at the Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, the founder of Pyroclastic Records, and a Steinway Artist.

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Steve Lehman & Garden of Klōns

Steve Lehman – alto saxophone and effects pedals

Cory Smythe – augmented piano

Jonathan Pinson – drum set and sensory percussion

Kris Davis Trio

Kris Davis – piano

Robert Hurst – bass

Jonathan Blake – drums

The Guardian (Review)

The Wall Street Journal (Review)

Kris Davis, “Run the Gauntlet”