As a leading voice in American popular music, the Grammy Award-winning Nicholas Payton is

a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, composer, producer, arranger, essayist, and social activist who

defies musical and artistic categories. All the while, he honors the tradition of what he terms

“postmodern New Orleans music,” as well as the spirit of Black American Music, of which he

states, “There are no fields, per se. There are lineages.”

The New Orleans-born Payton has followed his calling since growing up under the tutelage of

his parents — acclaimed bassist Walter Payton and Maria Payton, a pianist and vocalist. Already

a prodigy before entering the first grade, he began playing trumpet at age four and started

performing professionally at age 10. Before the age of 20, he was already in demand by everyone

from Danny Barker and Clark Terry to Elvin Jones and Marcus Roberts. Payton released his first

album, From this Moment, in 1995 on the famed Verve label. He received his first Grammy

nomination in 1997 for the album Doc Cheatham & Nicholas Payton, and for the category of

Best Instrumental Solo, which found him winning the award that year.

Payton has released over 20 recordings as a leader, pushing musical boundaries and showcasing

a variety of contemporary and traditional styles, while displaying his ambidextrous ability to play

both the trumpet and keyboard at the same time when he’s inspired to do so. He has collaborated

with numerous mentors and contemporaries alike, ranging from Common and Cassandra Wilson

to Trey Anastasio, MonoNeon, and Jill Scott, to Dr. John, Joseph “Zigaboo” Modeliste of The

Meters, Allen Toussaint, and Abbey Lincoln to name a few. His most recent albums are

Quarantined with Nick and Maestro Rhythm King, both released in 2020.

“Everything I write is about life experiences. The music means nothing without life. A life lived.

It's not just notes on a page. It's not just a technical exercise. It's vibrations and energy,” Payton

says. “And I'm striving to help lift, if possible, raise the vibration of the collective conscious one

audience, one album, one song at a time. If I can't do that, there's no point in me playing. That's

why I play. It’s about contributing to society and inspiring. That's my life as an artist, period.

Challenging people to think differently, to think critically and to not be slaves to the system and

the status quo.” In addition to Payton’s work as a performer, he is an equally respected composer, having written

The Black American Symphony an orchestral work, which the Czech National Symphony

Orchestra commissioned and performed. He led a live concert performance of Miles Davis’

renowned Sketches of Spain with the Basel Symphony Orchestra in Switzerland.

“Pretty much all the music that I play is centered in Black culture, Black music. And that's why

I’ve eschewed jazz and came up with the terminology, Black American Music, because I want to

be connected to the whole of it,” Payton says about genre. “It's all the same. John Coltrane and

Charlie Parker and James Brown could be neighbors. So what's the distinction there? The only

difference in the music is who they came through, and where they're from.”As a leader, Payton's seminal writings and discussions on the problematics of the term and

associations of "jazz" have inspired musicians, researchers, music listeners, and thinkers alike.

As such, he termed Black American Music, or #BAM for short, to represent the breadth of

improvisational musical creations created by Black people in the U.S., regardless of genre. His

introduction of #BAM into the lexicon of popular music discourse landed him an entry in the

New York Times' “The Decade in Jazz: 10 Definitive Moments” in 2019.

“(Black American Music) is ... a liberation music, it is our first global recognition in humanizing,

if you will, a class of people who were systematically dehumanized for centuries,” Payton says.

“The concern for me is to draw from the wellspring of all the great Black ancestors who inspired

me to play this music in the first place. And to hopefully keep that energy, that spirit.”

Through his mission-driven work and art, Payton continues to creatively move boundaries, while inspiring and remaining inspired by the pioneering lineage of Black American Music, of which he is a part.

Nicholas Payton

Isaiah J. Thompson

Isaiah J. Thompson is the winner of the 2023 American Pianists Awards and the Cole Porter Fellowship in Jazz of the American Pianists Association. Originally from West Orange, New Jersey, the pianist, bandleader and composer began studying at The Calderone School of Music from an early age. Soon after, Isaiah continued his studies with Jazz House Kids and NJPAC Jazz For Teens and was later admitted to The Juilliard School graduating with both his Bachelor’s in 2019 and Master’s of Music degrees in 2020.

Isaiah has performed with major artists, including Ron Carter, John Pizzarelli, Christian McBride, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Steve Turre and Buster Williams. His recording debut was featured on Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Blue Engine Records’ Handful of Keys album with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, and he has since released multiple recordings as a leader.

He worked on the Golden Globe nominated soundtrack for Motherless Brooklyn, was named a Steinway Artist and has been awarded other accolades including, the 2018 Lincoln Center Emerging Artist Award, and second place in the 2018 Thelonious Monk Competition. As a performer, Isaiah tries to emit love, spirit and respect and convey his personal experiences through his artistry and his everlasting love of jazz.

Benny Green

Benny Green was born in New York City in 1963 and grew up in Berkeley California. His father, who played the tenor saxophone, introduced him to Jazz at an early age through his record collection that included Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Ray Charles and many founding voices of the music. He began piano lessons at the age of seven, and his first paid performance was at the age of 12. His major concert stage debut was in 1978, when he was 15, at the Monterey Jazz Festival as a member of the MJF High School All-Stars (now known as the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra).

Benny began performing on a regular basis with the vocalist Faye Carol at the age of 16, and began gigging frequently in the San Francisco Bay Area with NEA Jazz Master trumpeter Dr. Eddie Henderson at 17. Benny returned to NYC in 1982 when he was 19, was mentored during his first year in town by Walter Bishop Jr. and Walter Davis Jr. and played his first gigs in the city with Barry Altschul, Bobby Watson and Jo Jones Jr.

Betty Carter hired Benny in 1983, and he toured internationally with her for four years, and played on her Grammy Award winning Verve album “Look What I Got” before joining Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers for 2 1/2 years from 1987-’89, recording a few albums under Art Blakey’s leadership. He joined the Freddie Hubbard Quintet in 1989 and recorded the album “Live At Fat Tuesday’s” with Mr. Hubbard in 1992. That same year, Benny joined the Ray Brown Trio, which became his longest tenure as a sideman, remaining with Mr. Brown for 4 1/2 years.

As a leader, Benny recorded two albums for the Dutch Criss Cross label in the late 1980s before being signed to Blue Note Records in 1990 and remained with the label for 10 years, receding seven albums as a leader for the label, as well as two albums for it’s Japanese subsidiary, Toshiba--EMI. Oscar Peterson named Benny as his protegé in 1992, and chose Benny as the recipient of the Glenn Gould Award for excellence in Music and Communication, He recorded many albums as a sideman throughout the 1980s and ’90’s, including a duet with Diana Krall on her Grammy Award winning album, “All For You”. He recorded two albums as a leader for the Telarc label in the early 1990s, as well as two duo albums for the label with Russell Malone. In 1998 Oscar Peterson invited Benny to record a two-piano album with him, entitled “Oscar and Benny”.

Benny continued leading his trio and began recording for the Sunnyside label in 2014, and has released five albums for the label to date. He’s been focussing on solo piano performance and recording since 2020, and his most recent release in entitled, “Solo”, on the Sunnyside label.