Preludes

Classical music has inspired jazz artists from the Modern Jazz Quartet to Bill Evans to Dave Brubeck, including pianists Adam Birnbaum, Jeb Patton, and Aaron Diehl, who bring this gorgeous, thoughtful program to Jazz in July.

The Juilliard-schooled, classically trained Birnbaum is a winner of the American Pianists Association Cole Porter Fellowship, and counts Kenny Barron among his fans. He joins us with David Wong on bass and Keita Ogawa on percussion to perform music from his critically acclaimed album Preludes, which re-imagines music from the first half of Bach’s iconic The Well-Tempered Clavier for a new generation, introducing straight-ahead and Latin jazz elements in a compelling contemporary fusion. Preview the music.

A protégé of the late great Sir Roland Hanna and mainstay of the bands of Jimmy Heath and Charles McPherson, piano phenom Jeb Patton presents his own more broadly classically inspired Preludes project. Joined by the stellar musicians from the recording – John Ellis on saxophones, Mike Rodriguez on trumpet and flugelhorn, David Wong on bass – as well as Aaron Kimmel on drums, Patton’s inventive genre-crossing originals swing hard and create something thrillingly new. Preview the music.

Completing the program, Aaron Diehl performs selections from Sir Roland Hanna’s 24 Preludes with bassist David Wong. Hanna created and recorded these works – modeled on Debussy’s 24 Preludes – in Japan in 1976 and ’77, melding jazz and classical impulses in a style all his own. No contemporary pianist embodies Hanna’s spirit more than the Diehl, who has been performing these under-the-radar works since 2021, and whose explorations at the jazz-classical intersection are some of the most exciting in music.

Online streaming also available for 72 hours following the performance.