John Patitucci has been at the forefront of the jazz world for more than 30 years and active in all styles of music. He is a three-time Grammy Award winner, has been nominated 14 times, and has played on many other Grammy-winning recordings. He has performed and/or recorded with jazz giants such as Dizzy Gillespie, Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Stan Getz, Freddie Hubbard, Roy Haynes, Wynton Marsalis, Michael Brecker, Kenny Garrett, Victor Feldman, Nancy Wilson, and countless others. Patitucci has also performed and/or recorded with pop artists such as Natalie Cole, John Mayer, Alicia Keys, Joni Mitchell, Bono, Sting, James Taylor, and Paul Simon. He has been active as a composer with 14 solo recordings of his own and has been commissioned to write for various chamber music groups. Patitucci has performed as a soloist with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Estonian National Symphony, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Norway’s Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, and London Symphony Orchestra. He is currently writing and arranging a project with the Harlem Quartet for performances in 2019. Patitucci has been involved in education for many years, writing books, making instructional videos, and giving master classes around the world. He was formerly the artistic director of The Bass Collective, a specialized school in New York, and a professor of music at The City College of New York. He is currently Artist in Residence at Berklee College of Music’s Global Jazz Institute and launched his interactive online bass school through ArtistWorks (artistworks.com). This year he continues to tour with the Wayne Shorter Quartet, Children of the Light Trio, his own Electric Guitar Quartet, and a reunion tour of the Chick Corea Elektric Band and Chick Corea Trio.

Brian Blade was born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana. The first music he experienced was gospel and songs of praise at the Zion Baptist Church, where his father was pastor. In elementary school, music appreciation classes were an important part of his development. By age nine, he began playing the violin. Inspired by his older brother, who had been the drummer at church, Blade shifted his focus to the drums throughout middle and high school. During high school, he began listening to the music of John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk, Elvin Jones, and Joni Mitchell. At 18, Blade moved to New Orleans to attend Loyola University. From 1988 through 1993, he was able to study and play with most of the master musicians living in New Orleans, such as Johnny Vidacovich, Ellis Marsalis, Steve Masakowski, Bill Huntington, Michael Pellera, John Mahoney, George French, Germaine Bazzle, Emile Vinette, David Lee Jr., Alvin “Red” Tyler, Tony Dagradi, and Harold Battiste. In 1997, he formed Brian Blade & The Fellowship Band with pianist Jon Cowherd. The Fellowship Band has since released five albums: Brian Blade Fellowship (1998), Perceptual (2000), Season of Changes (2008), Landmarks (2014), and Body and Shadow (2017). In 2009, Blade released his first album as a singer-songwriter, Mama Rosa, featuring songs dedicated to his grandmother and family, written from experiences in his life so far. While continuing to perform with The Fellowship Band and his Mama Rosa lineup, Blade also began a project that features his father’s gospel singing with his brother and himself on drums alongside the Zion Baptist Church Choir, collectively known as Brady L. Blade Sr. & The Hallelujah Train. Since 2000, Blade has been the drummer in the Wayne Shorter Quartet, and he has recorded with Daniel Lanois, Joni Mitchell, Ellis Marsalis, and Bob Dylan.

A native New Yorker, Adam Rogers has been the guitarist of choice for an array of the some of the greatest names in jazz, pop, and world music: Michael Brecker, Randy Brecker, Joe Jackson, Cassandra Wilson, Walter Becker, Chris Potter, John Zorn, the Gil Evans Orchestra, the Charles Mingus Orchestra, Norah Jones, Paul Simon, John Patitucci, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Ravi Coltrane, Brian Blade, Kenny Barron, Marcus Miller, Regina Carter, and Giora Feidman, among many others. He has appeared on more than 200 albums and toured extensively throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, South America, the Middle East, and Russia. He has been singled out for praise in DownBeat, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Village Voice, JazzTimes, Jazziz, Newsweek, Jazz Hot, All About Jazz, and the Chicago Sun-Times. Rogers continues to co-lead the innovative and critically acclaimed group Lost Tribe, which has released three albums. His debut CD, Art of the Invisible, was released in 2002 on Criss Cross Jazz, offering a definitive statement as a composer and improviser. The quartet featured on this recording included Edward Simon on piano, Scott Colley on bass, and Clarence Penn on drums. His second album featuring exclusively original compositions, Allegory, was released by Criss Cross the following year with the addition of Chris Potter on saxophone. With the same lineup, 2005’s Apparitions continued to showcase Rogers’s unique compositional and improvisational abilities. Time and the Infinite, featuring Scott Colley and Bill Stewart, was released in 2007; Sight, featuring John Patitucci and Clarence Penn, followed two years later. His power trio Dice—featuring Fima Ephron on bass and Nate Smith on drums—highlights the influence of funk, rock, and blues prevalent in Rogers’s musical development; their debut recording was released to critical acclaim in June 2017. Additionally, Rogers’s new acoustic quartet focuses on his own compositions.

Steve Cardenas has many diverse credits as a performer and recording artist. Beginning his musical career in his hometown of Kansas City, he has been an integral part of the New York City jazz community since 1995. Cardenas has performed with many well-known and highly esteemed musicians. Notably, he was a longstanding member of the Paul Motian Electric Bebop Band, Charlie Haden Liberation Music Orchestra, and Joey Baron’s band Killer Joey. Cardenas is currently a member of the Steve Swallow Quintet, John Patitucci Electric Guitar Quartet, Ben Allison Band, Jon Cowherd’s Mercy Project, and Adam Nussbaum’s Lead Belly Project. He has also performed regularly with such diverse artists as Norah Jones, Madeleine Peyroux, Eliane Elias, Maria Muldaur, and many others. Cardenas has toured extensively throughout Europe, North and South America, and Asia, performing at countless international jazz festivals, theaters, opera houses, and clubs. He also leads his own trio and has five recordings as a leader, including a new release, Charlie & Paul, on Newvelle Records. He is also a well-respected educator. He is on faculty at the School of Jazz at The New School in New York City, where he directs the Thelonious Monk Ensemble, an improvisation ensemble, and the guitar duos class, as well as offering individual lessons. Cardenas has also been on faculty at the California Institute of the Arts, Siena Summer Jazz Workshop, Brubeck Summer Jazz Colony, Stanford Jazz Workshop, and Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music. Additionally, he is co-author, with editor Don Sickler, of the Thelonious Monk Fake Book (Hal Leonard). The Thelonious Monk Fake Book marks the first time all of Monk’s compositions have appeared in one volume, many of them for the first time.