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Godwin Louis

Godwin Louis, alto saxophonist, was born in Harlem, New York and began playing saxophone at age nine. Godwin grew up in Bridgeport, Connecticut and Port au Prince, Haiti. Godwin was a finalist in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Saxophone Competition. He has performed around the globe including: Mali, Senegal, Togo, France, Spain, United Kingdom, Italy, Russia, Azerbaijan, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Venezuela, Colombia, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and Australia.

Godwin is a graduate of Berklee College of Music and the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute for Jazz Performance.

Godwin has studied and performed with Herbie Hancock, Clark Terry, Roger Dickerson, Ron Carter, Al Foster, Jack Dejohnette, Jimmy Heath, Billy Preston, Patti Labelle, Toni Braxton, Babyface, Madonna, Gloria Estefan, Barry Harris, Howard Shore, David Baker, Mulatu Astakte, Mahmoud Ahmed, Wynton Marsalis, and Terence Blanchard just to name a few.

In addition, Godwin has performed as a sideman, guest soloist and has conducted clinics and master classes worldwide. As a composer, Godwin has received the Jerome Foundation Emerging Artist Grant, and the Jazz Gallery's "New Works Commission". As an educator, humanitarian and ambassador, Godwin has traveled from Ghana to China to help promote cross-cultural understanding and introduce thousands to America’s indigenous art form, through public concerts, master classes, and jam sessions. Godwin is the founder of Experience Ayiti, a nonprofit educational, multidisciplinary arts organization.

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18
Album Review

Cecile McLorin Salvant: Mélusine

Read "Mélusine" reviewed by Katchie Cartwright


Wynton Marsalis was right, Cécile McLorin Salvant is the sort of singer who comes along only “once in a generation or two." A MacArthur Fellow, multiple Grammy winner, and self-described eclectic, Salvant creates projects that encompass an astonishing array of idioms and historical periods, which she interrelates inventively and interweaves with original compositions. Here, she plumbs the francophone side of her repertoire. French songs have cropped up regularly in her live shows, but less on disk. Mélusine fills the gap ...

9
Album Review

Michael Feinberg: Hard Times

Read "Hard Times" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Although the Covid pandemic has been devastating to the artistic community, and certainly jazz musicians are no exception, albums like Michael Feinberg's Hard Times point to the possibility of hopeful resilience. With a top-shelf bunch of colleagues and smart compositions with rhythmically crafty arrangements, the bassist's eighth release is a winner, with a plucky spirit and satisfying grooves in abundance. Feinberg pulled this band together in October 2020, and with folks like drummer Jeff “Tain" Watts and pianist ...

23
Album Review

Andy Farber and His Orchestra: Early Blue Evening

Read "Early Blue Evening" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Saxophonist Andy Farber's New York-based orchestra came together and cut its teeth as the onstage band for three hundred performances of After Midnight, a Broadway revue that paid tribute to Jazz Age nightclub luminaries from Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford and Count Basie to Harold Arlen, Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh. As one might presume from the orchestra's provenance, echoes of Ellington and Basie can readily be discerned on its first recording since After Midnight closed in 2014--but Farber, who wrote ...

1
Album Review

Jonathan Barber & Vision Ahead: Legacy Holder

Read "Legacy Holder" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


Drummer Jonathan Barber's Legacy Holder is a musical missive acknowledging the history that flows before and beyond his time, the ethos of the present, and a need to bind these streams into a single/singular statement or groundwork for himself and those who will follow. It is an album built on intellect, understanding, intuition and, perhaps most importantly, respect—for culture, curiosity, a capacity to love and do what's right, and the need to change. Leading Vision Ahead—an aptly ...

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Event

Experience Ayiti Joins With The Mingus Big Band At New York’s Jazz Standard This October To Support Music Initiatives In Haiti

Experience Ayiti Joins With The Mingus Big Band At New York’s Jazz Standard This October To Support Music Initiatives In Haiti

Source: ARE Group

The New York-based Mingus Big Band will host the non-profit charity Experience Ayiti (XA) during October, to bring awareness and raise funds for XA’s mission in Haiti. The residency will take place at New York’s Jazz Standard on Mondays beginning October 7, followed by each consecutive Monday that month; October 14, 21, and 28. Sets are at 7:30 pm and 9:30 pm; for ticket information visit: jazzstandard.com Experience Ayiti was founded by Haitian-American saxophonist Godwin Louis, alongside three fellow musicians ...

Mervin Toussaint
saxophone, alto

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Creole Orchestra

Culture Shock Music
2024

buy

Mélusine

Nonesuch Records
2023

buy

Poetic

Self Produced
2022

buy

Early Blue Evening

ArtistShare
2021

buy

Hard Times

Fresh Sound Records
2021

buy

Legacy Holder

Self Produced
2020

buy

Resilience

From: Resilience
By Godwin Louis

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