Results for "Original Music"

Odin Scherer

Born: November 20, 1998

Odin Scherer is a Brooklyn, NY based guitarist, composer, improviser, and mixing engineer from Katonah, NY. Since moving to NYC in 2017 to attend The New School on scholarship, he has performed at venues including The Jazz Gallery, Bar Next Door, Smalls Jazz Club, Williamsburg Music Center, ShapeShifter Lab, Green Lung Studio, Tishman Auditorium at The New School, Julian’s NYC, and WBGO radio station in New Jersey. His diverse research interests include Black American music, folkloric music from around the globe, wildlife and ecosystems, fossils, and Impressionist classical music and visual art. 

Reggie Watkins

Born: August 24, 1971

Trombonist, pianist, arranger and composer Reggie Watkins has released five recordings as leader. The March 28th 2025 release of Rivers (BYNK Records) features Watkins on trombone with his quartet playing all of his original compositions and arrangments. In addition to composing and performing with his own groups, he is a member of the 3X Grammy nominated group Orrin Evans' Captain Black Big Band, The Pittsburgh Jazz Orchestra, Steeltown Horns and Keystone Jazz Collective. Watkins has toured and recorded extensively with artists such as trumpeter Maynard Ferguson, Jason Mraz, The Temptations, Postmodern Jukebox, Dumpstaphunk, and saxophonist Richie Cole.

Bobby Falk

Born: February 25, 1980

The Bobby Falk group is a contemporary jazz group based in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, performing original music and contemporary jazz. Bobby Falk is the drummer/leader since 2006, upon starting the group in Louisville, KY, and relocating to Dallas, TX in the summer of 2015. The group primarily focuses on material blending modern and traditional jazz, with fusion influences ranging from Pat Metheny, Rick Margitza, Michael Brecker and Steps Ahead. In addition to Bobby’s acclaimed original music, the group features writing from the other band members on a consistent basis.

The Bobby Falk group has released three full-length albums of original material (Samuel street songs, A New day, With my Dallas friends), and have performed locally and nationally, across the country at acclaimed events and festivals. In addition to local club/private performances, the group has been selected to perform at the Huntingburg Jazz fest (2013), Lexington library concert series (2014), Katy Jazz festival (2017), Durant jazz festival @ Southeastern Oklahoma State university (2018), Fort Worth main street arts festival (2017-present), Denton Jazz and Arts festival (2016-present), Fort Worth library jazz concert series (2017), Grapevine “Grapefest” (2022), and Granbury Jazz fest (2022). Earlier this year, The Bobby Falk group also performed at the 13th annual JEN convention (Jazz Education Network) January 2022 in Dallas, TX. Music of the Bobby Falk group is available on Itunes, Spotify, google music, Amazon, CD baby, YouTube, and other outlets.

Charlotte Mclean

Geovane Santos

Born: August 5, 1989

Geovane Santos, an Afro Brazilian from the city of Belo Horizonte currently living in New Orleans, is a guitarist, vocalist, composer, researcher, videographer, and educator. Awarded the 2017 Louis Armstrong Foundation Jazz Composer Award through ASCAP in association with the University of New Orleans (UNO), Santos’ creative work and scholarship explore the intersectionalities of race, transculturation, culture appropriation, and processes of narrative building in music. 

Founder of the #NewOrleansBrasilDay and considered by OffBeat Magazine New Orleans’ "best Brazilian jazz guitarist", Santos holds a M.A

Andrew Hartman

New York City based guitarist and composer Andrew Hartman is becoming a recognizable voice in jazz. As Chris Spector writes, Hartman is “blazing his own trail without debt to the masters of the past rearing it’s head.” (Midwest Record) 

Hartman has released two albums of his original music, Andrew Hartman and Still Motion, and his most recent album, Compass, which features saxophonist Chris Cheek, bassist Ike Sturm, and drummer Zach Harmon. The album is receiving critical praise, including from All About Jazz writer Edwin Blanco’s who says: “Kudos to guitarist Andrew Hartman for crafting such an engaging and exceptional work of art.”

Dierk Peters

Born: October 27, 1986

Dierk Peters is a Brooklyn based Vibraphonist. Originally from Germany he moved to the US in 2016, and is a now sought-after improviser and composer on both sides of the Atlantic. He is a distinctive voice on his instrument with a unique sound that emphasizes the warmth and depth of the vibraphone, and with his incomparable harmonic agility he surpasses its percussive nature.

He has been awarded with the Praetorius Music Price, the highest music price of his home state of Lower Saxony, soloist and band prices at the B-Jazz-, Convento-, Jazz d’avignon- and Jugend Jazzt - competitions and grants and scholarships by the States of Northrhine Westphalia & Lower Saxony, the German Academic Exchange Service, the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation, among many others. He received his Diploma Summa Cum Laude from the conservatory in Cologne, Germany and his Masters Degree from the Manhattan School of Music in New York.

J. A. Granelli

Born: July 7, 1966

J. Anthony Granelli is a native of northern California. He began to study bass at age eight with bassist and musical instrument pioneer Fred Marshall. In his teens Granelli moved to Seattle Washington where he performed with Jay Clayton, Julian Priester and Jerry Granelli while studying at Cornish College of the Arts.

Granelli received a BFA from California Institute of the Arts in 1991. At Cal Arts he explored creating a personal vocabulary of improvisation while studying with  Charlie Haden and performing with John Bergamo and Miroslav Tadic.

After moving to Brooklyn New York in 1992 Granelli was very active in the scene that flourished around the Knitting Factory. While in New York he was a founder/ assistant director with Ralph Alessi of the School for Improvised Music an internationally attended program that runs during the summer. Granelli also helped to found and is assistant director of Jerry Granelli’s Creative Music Workshop in Halifax Nova Scotia, which just celebrated it’s twentieth anniversary in 2016. In 2006 Granelli earned a Masters Degree in Jazz Composition from New York University.

Carmen Lundy

Born: November 1, 1954

"Musicians as diversely gifted as Carmen Lundy, who has excelled as a vocalist, composer, lyricist, arranger, and pianist for more than three decades, remain far and few between." - Jazz Times

Grammy® Nominated Jazz singer, composer and arranger Carmen Lundy hails from Miami, Florida and received her B.M. degree from the University of Miami.  In 1978, Lundy moved to NYC and in 1985, she released her first solo album entitled Good Morning Kiss, which topped the Billboard chart for 23 weeks.

Currently on the Afrasia Productions label, Carmen is a 2021 Grammy® Nominated artist for her 15th and newest album Modern Ancestors, for Best Jazz Vocal Album.  Her previous release, 2017’s Code Noir, debuted at #6 on the Billboard Jazz Chart and received both critical and popular acclaim. Carmen’s other releases and discography consist of “Good Morning Kiss” (CLR/Afrasia Productions), “Moment To Moment” (Arabesque/Afrasia Productions), “Night And Day” (CBS/SONY and re-issued by Afrasia in 2011), “Old Devil Moon” (JVC), “Self Portrait” (JVC), “Something To Believe In” and “This Is Carmen Lundy” (both for Justin Time), “Jazz and The New Songbook – Live at The Madrid” (2-disc set and DVD, Afrasia Productions), “Come Home”, “Solamente”, “Changes”, “Soul To Soul” and “Code Noir” (Afrasia Productions). All have topped the Best Albums and Top Ten Albums lists on JazzWeek, Downbeat, and JazzTimes.

Hank Hensley

Hank Hensley is a writer and producer from Louisville, Kentucky who has composed original music compositions for the past 35 years. Hensley values the intrinsic worth of the stories told behind his music and the depth of the musicians who tell them.

Each of Hensley’s original tracks are created with the purpose of adding intrinsic value to be woven into the tapestry of our culture. Each work takes the listener on a journey, creating a transcendent connection to the music on a variety of levels.