Joe Lovano
PROJECTS:
Hailed by The New York Times as “one of the greatest musicians in jazz history,” Grammy Award winning saxophone titan Joe Lovano has distinguished himself as a prescient and pathfinding force in the arena of creative music.
JOE LOVANO’S PARAMOUNT QUARTET ft. JULIAN LAGE, ASANTE SANTI DEBRIANO, WILL CALHOUN
Grammy Award winning titan of jazz saxophone Joe Lovano and virtuoso guitarist Julian Lage have enjoyed a long journey of mutual artistic admiration. They first met in 1999 at Yoshi’s in Oakland, where Joe was performing with McCoy Tyner. Then a child prodigy, Julian’s father brought him to the show and it was there he connected with Joe. They kept in touch through the years – even performing together at a private event – then reuniting at Berklee College of Music. “I’ve always found him a natural, beautiful, expressive musician with maturity beyond his years,” Joe says of Julian, “He is someone I always knew I would collaborate with at some point and I’m so happy to have his contributions within the Paramount Quartet.”
Longtime Lovano collaborator Asante Santi Debriano, who first performed with Joe in the Archie Shepp Quartet in the 1980s, joins on bass. Drummer Will Calhoun (of Living Colour fame) called Joe to perform with him and Santi in a fundraiser last year for the Puerto Rican Relief Fund after the devastating hurricane. That explosive, creative set was the springboard leading to the idea of adding Julian and forming this new band, which debuted at the legendary Village Vanguard in February 2024.
North American booking in collaboration with Arrival Artists.
COLTRANE 100: BOTH DIRECTIONS AT ONCE
2026 marks the centennial of iconic saxophonist John Coltrane's birth. Coltrane 100: Both Directions at Once offers audiences a rare chance to join this historic moment. An all-star lineup, each from different backgrounds — saxophonists Joe Lovano and Melissa Aldana; pianist Ndudzo Makhathini, bassist Matthew Garrison, and drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts — join together to pay tribute to one of the most inspirational artists, whose creativity and spirituality has influenced generations of musicians. Each member of this group stands on the threshold of the future, fulfilling their musical vision looking forward.
Coltrane once explained his musical aspirations to fellow saxophonist Wayne Shorter as, “starting a sentence in the middle, and then going to the beginning and the end of it at the same time... both directions at once.” The Coltrane 100 band looks Both Directions at Once with modern interpretations of classic Coltrane repertoire, plus originals inspired by his legacy.
TRIO TAPESTRY
Grammy Award winning composer, saxophonist, and producer Joe Lovano made his ECM debut in 2019 with Trio Tapestry, featuring pianist Marilyn Crispell and Carmen Castaldi on drums. “The intensity comes not from ferocity but from depth of feeling,” wrote the BBC Music Magazine.
Lovano reunited with two of the finest improvisers in the field on 2021’s Garden of Expression. Crispell and Castaldi lent their sensitivity and attuned instincts to this set of eight Lovano originals, soaring over expansive, out-of-tempo soundscapes akin to those of the previous album. It’s a language of lyrical melody and open space, with rich, unfolding harmony from the piano and sparse texture and flow from the drums and cymbals—not to mention the gongs that Lovano introduces.
The third album from Joe Lovano’s Trio Tapestry finds the group continuing to extend its spacious and lyrical approach, with deep listening and intense focus. “Our Daily Bread is fueled by the rhythm spirit of expression that projects the mysterious world of music that lies ahead,” says master saxophonist Lovano in his liner note and these elegantly fluid pieces and free-floating ballads indeed feel like songs of the soul. Marilyn Crispell is the optimal pianist for this music, orchestrating it as it unfolds with a sensibility attuned to both contemporary chamber music and post-Coltrane improvising. Drummer Carmen Castaldi, a Lovano associate since teenage years, embellishes the music with his own poetic touch on cymbals and, like Joe himself, draws blossoming resonances from gongs.
Longtime collaborators in various projects over the years, each member of the trio is a pillar in their respective industries: Lovano is a titan of jazz saxophone, The Guardian calls Marilyn Crispell “one of the most highly regarded pianists at the sharp end of contemporary jazz,” and Castaldi is a superb percussionist in the continuing legacy of Paul Motian. With innovative new compositions Lovano calls, “some of the most intimate, personal music” he’s recorded thus far. On stage, the trio unfurls a tapestry of modal expressions interwoven with shimmering saxophone, passionate spirituality in the piano, and a range of exceptional percussive accents.
JOE LOVANO ft. THE MARCIN WASILEWSKI TRIO
Poland’s dynamic Marcin Wasilewski Trio and Grammy Award winning US tenorist Joe Lovano bring forth special music of concentrated, deep feeling, in which lyricism and strength seem ideally balanced. Following their acclaimed 2020 Arctic Riff album, the quartet looks forward to a new ECM Records release soon.
SYMPHONY
Grammy Award winning composer, saxophonist, and producer Joe Lovano is a titan of jazz. Having performed orchestral arrangements of John Coltrane's works and collaborated with the WDR Big Band & Rundfunk Orchestra on the Grammy Award nominated Blue Note Records release Symphonica, Lovano recently premiered a new work by Douglas Cuomo, a raft, the sky, the wild sea, with the Fort Worth Symphony, London Philharmonic, and the Winston-Salem Symphony. He has also teamed with classical ensembles such as the Balourdet Quartet and The Overlook, performing a Cuomo chamber work, Seven Limbs, a virtuosic tour de force for tenor saxophone and string quartet, shot through with melodic beauty and rhythmic urgency, celebration and serenity, solemnity and unbridled joy.
PRESS QUOTES:
One of the jazz world’s most celebrated musicians
NPR
The titan among us
DownBeat
Organic and basic, intense and casual…Mr. Lovano’s performance is a knockout
The New York Times
Jazz royalty
The Boston Globe
After 30 albums as a leader and at least 25 years in the spotlight, it’s clear Joe Lovano is more than a dominant figure in jazz. He’s jazz’s answer to George Clooney or Jeff Bridges, a vibrant player who delivers an award-worthy performance every time out.
Wall Street Journal
Leave it to restless tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano to take the idea of a tribute record and turn it on its head with this collection dedicated to Charlie Parker…Lovano digs for new twists in Parker’s compositions like the flesh-and-blood creatures they are rather than replicating what’s already been heard…Though a showcase for history, Lovano and his band expertly show the many ways these classics can still throw sparks.
Los Angeles Times
