Home » Member Page

Jason Palmer

About Me

Trumpeter/Composer/Arranger/Educator/Actor Jason Palmer has been making a positively unique contribution to the creative music world for the past 15 years. He has worked with icons such as Roy Haynes, Jack DeJohnette, Herbie Hancock, Phil Woods, Jimmy Smith (the organist), Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Kurt Rosenwinkel (first trumpeter to ever be hired by this highly acclaimed guitarist), Ravi Coltrane, Mulgrew Miller, Clarence Penn, Jeff Ballard, Kenny Barron, Common (hip-hop icon), Roy Hargrove, Lewis Nash, etc. Jason took 1st Place ($10,000 prize) in the 2009 Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition. The June 2007 issue of Downbeat Magazine cited Jason as one of the “Top 25 trumpeters of the Future”. In addition to performing on 25 albums as a sideman, Jason has recorded five albums under his own name and is currently a Steeplechase Records Recording artist. His most recent records Here Today and Take a Little Trip received 4 1⁄2 and 4 starts (out of 5) in Downbeat Magazine. Jason is has toured the world extensively with Greg Osby, Grace Kelly, Matana Robert’s Mississippi Moonchile, The Round Trip Trio (France), as well as projects lead by bassist Michael Janisch, performing at major jazz festivals in the Russia, UK, Luxembourg, Belguim, Germany, Finland, Croatia, Serbia, Bratislava, Canada, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, France, Malta, The Netherlands, and numerous clubs and major jazz festivals in the U.S.

Jason’s quintet has been leading the house band every weekend at Boston’s historical Wally’s Jazz Café for the past eleven years. His band was nominated as one of the “Best Jazz Act” by the Boston Phoenix in 2011. He has presented his band at the Tanglewood Jazz Fest, Sculler’s Jazz Club, the Stone and the Jazz Gallery in NYC, the Studio in Hartford Ct, as well as venues in France. The Massachusetts Cultural Council selected Jason as an Artist Fellow in Music Composition for 2011. In 2007 Jason Palmer was commissioned by the Festival of New Trumpet Music in NYC to premier a new work (based on a Sudoku game) for his quintet at the Jazz Standard.

In addition to a heavy performing schedule, Jason Palmer continues to maintain a busy schedule as an educator/actor/board member at JazzBoston. He is currently an Assistant Professor of Ensembles at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Jason has also served on the faculty at the New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music in NYC from 2008-09.

Jason has taught trumpet and directed ensembles in the Preparatory Division and the School for Continuing Education at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston for twelve years and has been teaching at the Mission Hill Primary School for the past nine years. He also served as a faculty member at the Aquinas College Jazz Camp (Grand Rapids, MI, 2004-present) and has given master classes in Portugal, France, the UK, and Mexico. Jason was the leading actor in director Damien Chazelle’s Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench. The movie received great reviews after premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2009. Since then the film was screened at film festivals in Greece, Denmark, Austria, Australia, Bratislava, Martha’s Vineyard (MA), Houston, Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles, Calgary (Canada), Minneapolis, Mill Valley (CA), as well as theatrical distribution in North America and DVD release worldwide.