Four-time Grammy Award Winner Stanley Clarke has attained “living legend” status during his over 50-year career as a bass virtuoso. He is the first bassist in history who doubles on acoustic and electric bass with equal ferocity and the first jazz-fusion bassist ever to headline tours, selling out shows worldwide. A veteran of over 40 albums, he won the 2011 Best Contemporary Jazz Album Grammy Award for The Stanley Clarke Band. Clarke co-founded the seminal fusion group Return to Forever with Chick Corea and Lenny White. In 2012 Return to Forever won a Grammy Award and Latin Grammy for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Forever.

Clarke’s creativity has been recognized and rewarded in every way imaginable: gold and platinum records, Grammy Awards, Emmy nominations, virtually every readers and critics poll in existence, and more. In 2022 Clarke was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts as one of its four new Jazz Master honorees. This is the highest honor that the United States bestows on jazz artists. He also was Rolling Stone’s very first Jazzman of the Year and bassist winner of Playboy’s Music Award for ten straight years. Clarke was honored with Bass Player Magazine’s Lifetime Achievement Award and is a member of Guitar Player Magazine’s “Gallery of Greats.” In 2004 he was featured in Los Angeles Magazine as one of the Top 50 Most Influential People. He was honored with the key to the city of Philadelphia and put his hands in cement as a 1999 inductee into Hollywood’s “Rock Walk” on Sunset Boulevard. In 2011 he was honored with the highly prestigious Miles Davis Award at the Montreal Jazz Festival for his entire body of work. Clarke has won Downbeat Magazine’s Reader’s and Critics Poll for Best Electric Bass Player for many years. In September 2016 he became a part of the permanent collection displayed at the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) in Washington DC. 

Clarke is touring domestically and internationally in 2023 with Stanley Clarke N•4EVER. Members of the band include Jahari Stampley (Piano / Keys),Emilio Modeste (Sax), Jeremiah Collier (Drums), Colin Cook (Guitar), Stanley Clarke (Bass).

Unable to tour most of 2020, Clarke’s Pandemic work has involved developing his web series, Stanley Clarke’s Bass Nation. The series premiered November 2020. The project is about the dynamics of the music industry, recording and performing, and includes Stanley’s conversations with noted musicians, gear reviews, play-throughs and performances. 

His most recent album release is music he composed for the 2019 documentary, Halston. Stanley’s Halston soundtrack was release on Node Records

In 2018 Clarke’s band CD, The Message, was released on Mack Avenue Records.. Including compositions from his young band members, Beka Gochiashvili, Mike Mitchel and Cameron Graves, the album swells with an abundance of strength, soul and astounding musicianship. 

An accomplished film and TV composer of well over 70 projects, his credits include Boyz N The Hood, the Tina Turner biopic What’s Love Got To Do With It, Romeo Must Die, The Transporter, Best Man Holiday and most recently the 2019 documentary film score Halston. In 2020 he scores the music for the Hulu show Woke. He has garnered three Emmy nominations and a BMI Award for his scoring. In 2014 Clarke was invited to become a member of the exclusive Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences.

Born in Philadelphia, Clarke has been a constant force of nature in American music since the early 1970s with the success of the jazz-fusion group Return To Forever. That accomplishment gave way to a number of extremely successful solo albums for Clarke. Along the way, he has collaborated with Quincy Jones, Stan Getz, Art Blakey, Paul McCartney, Jeff Beck, Keith Richards, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Chaka Khan, The Police, Herbie Hancock and many more, and has shared the stage with Bob Marley and Miles Davis.

Clarke believes in giving back to help young musicians hone their skills. He and his wife Sofia established The Stanley Clarke Foundation seventeen years ago as a charitable organization, which offers scholarships to talented young musicians.

Anyone who’s followed Judith Hill’s story will recognize Letters from a Black Widow as one jaw-dropper of an album title. The tabloid-coined phrase “Black Widow” arose after the overdose deaths of her two star-making collaborators, Michael Jackson and Prince. It became a term of abuse that internet trolls hurled at the celebrated artist, driving conspiracy theories and shame campaigns – trauma that nearly ended a career that includes a Grammy for her role in the Oscar-winning documentary film “20 Feet from Stardom.” 

“For years the Black Widow was such a dark presence in my life that was too looming and intimidating to even talk about,” Hill says. But a year into the pandemic, she had time and space for a momentous reckoning. “Being forced to stop allowed me to reach a deeper place, to really marinate and figure out what’s at my core, what I really needed to talk about. I found I had the courage and strength to face all this – to be authentic to my core, to dive into the whole experience, and turn an ocean of darkness into expressive fire.”

If Hill’s previous album, Baby, I’m Hollywood, was the rowdy coming-of-age tale of a mixed-race child of bohemian California, Letters from a Black Widow is a formidable battle cry – an album-length soul/funk/gospel passion play that’s spectacularly written, arranged, and performed.

One signal moment in Hill’s writing process came during a visit with friends to a hot spring outside of Los Angeles, where a communal psychedelic experience wound up shunting her off into a more private and terrifying realm. “An entire mountain appeared before my eyes,” she recalls. “And I knew it represented all the trauma in my life that I hadn’t realized was still there.” 

I could feel the mountain/I close my eyes and it appears… Hill chose that vision as the album opener in “One of the Bad Ones” because she wanted the first chapter of Letters from a Black Widow to acknowledge that which she is most afraid of – her own maleficence. “We’re in a culture where we judge words and people on this binary of whether they’re good or bad, when everyone is more complicated than that. I wanted to explore that question, and communicate it with music that was orchestral and expansive, yet filled with pain and yearning.” In a sense, “One of the Bad Ones” plays like a précis for the entire album. Letters from a Black Widow is a theatrical, soul-funk song-cycle a la Inner Visions or What’s Goin’ On, which takes listeners on a journey from private pain to communal transcendence.

Her antihero energy truly ignites on “Flame,” a song that evokes the raw vocal power of a young Aretha Franklin, stabbing every syllable of the declaration, Give me chaos and give me pain/but you can never kill my flame. Hill says this is the kind of power she could only access by moving through that mountain. 

“All the guilt, shame, and paranoia can get to be like a cancer growing in you,” she shares. “You feel like nobody will understand, nobody will really care, and this becomes your whole reality. Making songs about it means giving yourself permission to even speak. It’s a kindness to yourself to even pick up the paintbrush and draw it, and it can take on a momentum of its own.”

Hill drew on conversations with her opera/theater director and friend Alexander Gedeon, which inspired the theatrical experimentation that runs throughout Letters from a Black Widow. Emotions reach their fullest expression in the titular song “Black Widow,” where Hill confronts the malign figure that haunted her for years.

This album’s new stories of discovery, resistance, and redemption all share the same unshakable soul and funk foundation Hill has enjoyed for most of her life. Searing guitar solos are evermore impressive by the fact that the guitar is one more instrument the confoundingly talented musician recently “just sort of picked up,” during the songwriting process. “To me, the guitar is like a new character, the wailing, screeching core of me, a voice that just wants to be heard,” Hill explains. 

While creating Letters from a Black Widow, Hill said she often changed up her writing style. “Some songs are about getting the story right, the tone, and the voice, almost like I’m writing a scene in a movie. Others begin with music… I’m with my guitar or bass just finding a groove, looking for what I need to drive the song,” she says. All live in the imaginative, often surprising spaces Hill renders with prodigious composing and arranging skills. “I trained in composition and always strive to figure out how to bring that exploration into my world as a blues-soul person.” 

Funk-riddled songs like “My Whole Life Is in the Wrong Key” and “Downtown Boogie” marry playful metaphor to sonic complexity and an unstoppable low-end groove. “Funk music is associated with sexy party vibes but it can also be ironic,” Hill says. “Sometimes what makes it funky is the irony of it.” Irony shades into righteousness with “We Are the Power,” which recalls the neo-soul erudition of Meshell Ndegeocello – I see a river full of little green money flowing/It’s running, running out of all the penitentiaries. “It’s saying that, even if they cut the microphone cord, we still have power sources within us. I wanted the same sense of defiance and empowerment you hear in “Flame” to run through the album, because we’re much stronger than we actually realize we are.”

While the album often takes buoyant and playful turns, all the songs are deeply anchored in Hill’s current reality, as a 39-year-old career artist grateful for the people who made her, and deftly aware of the bumpy path she’s chosen, and the force she’s becoming.

Gretchen Parlato

2024 GRAMMY NOMINEE FOR BEST JAZZ VOCAL ALBUM FOR LEAN IN WITH LIONEL LOUEKEPROJECTS:

Since the early 2000’s award winning vocalist and songwriter Gretchen Parlato has justly earned a reputation as one of the most inventing and mesmerizing vocalists of her generation. In 2021 she released FLOR, a project honoring her love and admiration of Brazilian music and her first studio recording in nearly a decade. “This project is a reflection of a time of putting myself aside and being completely present as a mom,” says Gretchen. “I’m finally able to find the balance between artistic creativity and nurturing motherhood. My purpose has both a higher and deeper meaning. There is a story to tell, now…of who I am in this role, and how that is reflected in the music.” The album has earned Gretchen her second Grammy Award nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album. 

Featured on over 85 albums, and four as a leader, Gretchen received her first Grammy Award nomination for Live in NYC (2013) and a coveted 4.5 star review from DownBeat Magazine with the DVD hitting No. 1 on the iTunes best music video list. The Lost and Found (2011) received more than 30 national and international awards, including the DownBeat Jazz Critics Poll No.1 Vocal Album of 2011 and iTunes Vocal Jazz Album of the Year. Her 2009 sophomore release, In a Dream, was JazzTimes Critics Poll Vocal Album of 2009 and hailed by Billboard as “the most alluring jazz vocal album of 2009.”

Gerald Clayton

Gerald Clayton searches for honest expression in every note he plays. With harmonic curiosity and critical awareness, he develops musical narratives that unfold as a result of both deliberate searching and chance uncovering. The four-time GRAMMY-nominated pianist/composer formally began his musical journey at the prestigious Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, where he received the 2002 Presidential Scholar of the Arts Award. Continuing his scholarly pursuits, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Piano Performance at USC’s Thornton School of Music under the instruction of piano icon Billy Childs, after a year of intensive study with NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron at The Manhattan School of Music. Clayton won second place in the 2006 Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Piano Competition.

Expansion has become part of Clayton’s artistic identity. His music is a celebration of the inherent differences in musical perspectives that promote true artistic synergy. Inclusive sensibilities have allowed him to perform and record with such distinctive artists as Diana Krall, Roy Hargrove, Dianne Reeves, Ambrose Akinmusire, Dayna Stephens, Kendrick Scott, John Scofield Ben Williams, Terell Stafford & Dick Oatts, Michael Rodriguez, Terri Lyne Carrington, Avishai Cohen, Peter Bernstein and the Clayton Brothers Quintet. Clayton also has enjoyed an extended association since early 2013, touring and recording with saxophone legend Charles Lloyd.

2016 marks his second year as Musical Director of the Monterey Jazz Festival On Tour, a project that has featured his trio along with Ravi Coltrane, Nicholas Payton, Terence Blanchard and Raul Midón on guitar and vocals.Clayton’s discography as a leader reflects his evolution as an artist. His debut recording, Two Shade (ArtistShare), earned a 2010 GRAMMY nomination for Best Improvised Jazz Solo for his arrangement of Cole Porter’s “All of You.” “Battle Circle,” his composition featured on The Clayton Brothers’ recording The New Song and Dance (ArtistShare), received a GRAMMY nomination for Best Jazz Instrumental Composition in 2011. He received 2012 and 2013 GRAMMY nominations for Best Jazz Instrumental Album for Bond: The Paris Sessions (Concord) and Life Forum (Concord), his second and third album releases.

Capturing the truth in each moment’s conception of sound comes naturally to Clayton. The son of beloved bass player and composer John Clayton, he enjoyed a familial apprenticeship from an early age. Clayton honors the legacy of his father and all his musical ancestors through a commitment to artistic exploration, innovation, and reinvention.

In the 2016-17 year, Clayton turns his imaginative curiosity toward uncovering the essence of the Piedmont Blues experience and expression in early twentieth century Durham. A Duke University commission, Clayton’s evening-length composition will explore a mixed media performance that features some of the most resonating voices in contemporary music.

Alan Hampton

Alan Hampton is a bassist/composer/singer who’s toured, written, and recorded with several leading artists in a variety of genres. In 2023 he worked as Musical Director for Rufus Wainwright’s Folkocracy Tour which included a star studded performance at Los Angeles’s Disney Hall, featuring Chaka Khan, Van Dyke Parks, Susanna Hoffs, among others.  He was recruited by Andrew Bird in 2011 and has since played on 7 of his albums, including Grammy Nominated “My Finest Work Yet” and “Hark,” featuring Hampton original “Glad.”  Recently Hampton and Bird scored Chris Pine’s highly anticipated directorial debut Poolman, staring Danny DeVito, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Annette Bening. In 2021 they scored the Peabody Award Winning and Emmy Nominated documentary Storm Lake.  He performed regularly on Chris Thile’s Live From Here, where he met I’m With Her, with whom he performed the Grammys in 2019.  His bass playing is featured on Larry Goldings’s score for the Netflix series Self Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam CJ Walker. The title track from ERIMAJ’s “Conflict of a Man,” was featured on HBO’s new series Insecure.  “Still,” one of many collaborations  between Hampton and Grammy nominated vocalist Gretchen Parlato, was performed on French television in Manu Katche’s One Shot Not. His vocals are featured on a Hexum/Hampton co-write entitled “This Time of Year” in the opening scene of A Cinderella Christmas. In addition to writing and contributing dozens of songs for other artists, including “Places That the Mind Goes” recorded by 311 and “If It Was,” recorded by Iceland’s Silva & Steini, he has also released two albums under his own name: The Moving Sidewalk, and Origami For the Fire, which received critical acclaim from Ben Ratliff of the New York Times:  

“Alan Hampton is a songwriter who makes you reach for platitudes about ‘good music’ — how people don’t write adventurous or honest pop songs anymore, how it’s all archness and monotony now, how our harmony-starved ears have shrunk….He does that because he’s got loads of talent.”

Clarence Penn

“Clarence is the kind of musician who leaves his judgments of music and musicians aside to provide the best support and complement. He really cares that everyone on stage sound as good as they can. That explains why the results are so great with the extraordinary musicians he brings into his projects. Fireworks!”—Dave Douglas

“Clarence is a charismatic player, with great dynamic range and drama and musicality. He’s an intricate and heady drummer who thinks compositionally, but uses his gut and instincts towards the end result of making something exciting, that feels alive, and is full of energy and passion. He doesn’t have a limited conception of what the drummer is. Of course, he drives the band and pushes the time, but he also knows how to stop and allow things to happen—to be a colorist.”—Maria Schneider

“I think Clarence is a natural leader. He listens like a producer. He has clarity and vision. He hears everything—the bass, the high voices, the middle. He understands harmony. He understands lyrics. He has the will to solve problems and figure them out. He doesn’t stay traditional, but makes the music free and colorful. He understands that music is play. I’d play with him every day if I could.”—Luciana Souza

Clarence Penn is one of the busiest jazz drummers in the world, a leader of multiple bands, a composer, a prolific producer, and an educator.

Since 1991, when he arrived in New York City, Penn has placed his unique blend of mega-chops, keen intellect, and heady musicianship at the service of a staggering array of A-list artists—a chronological short-list includes Ellis and Wynton Marsalis, Betty Carter, Stanley Clarke, Steps Ahead, Makoto Ozone, Michael Brecker, Dave Douglas, Maria Schneider, Luciana Souza, Richard Galliano, and Fourplay. Penn’s impressive discography includes several hundred studio albums (including the Grammy-winning recordings 34th and Lex by Randy Brecker and Concert in the Garden and Sky Blue by Maria Schneider) representing a 360-spectrum of jazz expression, and he’s toured extensively throughout the United States, the Americas, Europe, Japan, and Southeast Asia. He’s composed music for films and commercials, and produced tracks for numerous singers in the pop and alternative arenas. He earned a “Ten Best of 1997” accolade from the New York Times for his first leader recording, Penn’s Landing.

A graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, where he was a protégé of Ellis Marsalis, Penn is active as an educator and drum clinician. From 2004 to 2012, he taught on the faculty of the Banff International Workshop in Jazz and Creative Music. He’s also served on faculty at the Stanford Jazz Workshop, the Saint Louis College of Music in Rome, Italy, and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Intensive Jazz Institute.

Penn currently leads several ensembles. His most recent “rhythmically intoxicating” recording is 2014’s “Monk The Lost Files”arrangements of the music of Thelonious Monk. Released on the Origin record lable, an amazing quartet comprising saxophonist Chad Leftkowitz-Brown, Pianist Gerald Clayton/Donald Vega, and bassist Yasushi Nakamura performing the music of Thelonius Monk with today’s modern jazz sensibility. Near completion is a “world music” studio project of songs and instrumentals that melds background voices—including his own—with a world class band.

Whether Penn is leading his own band or performing as a sideman, he brings to the table unfailing versatility and professionalism, an ability to find creative ways to interpret a global array of styles and idioms, and a stated intention “to play music that’s warm and organic for the people and for myself.”

His motto: “When people hear my name, I want them to think, ‘I don’t know what band he’s playing with tonight or what he’ll be doing, but it’s going to be good, it’s going to be musical.’”

Twenty-five-year-old Isaiah Collier is a musical virtuoso in the truest sense of the phrase. He began playing saxophone at age 11, and his intuitive proficiency earned him attention early on. Ever since, his band Isaiah Collier and The Chosen Few has been turning ears.

There’s a regal, elegant manner to Isaiah’s stage presence: he’s over 6 feet tall, thin, deep brown, with high cheekbones. When not playing, he is patiently waiting – not contemplating his next move, but listening to the musicians who accompany him, listening to their stories. He explains that he’s never really hearing himself, he’s hearing others play: some people have fire, others have air. “That’s how I hear. There has to be a balance.”

Isaiah Collier’s sound is a dynamic flurry of metaphors, yet he can hold back when necessary. He plays his influences, which he describes as a “sonic time machine; you can’t really put a time or destination on it.” As far as he where he plans to take his music, Collier says, “I reach backwards, and forwards simultaneously when creating art and what is ahead of me is the past.”

He has released four albums to date, Parallel Universe (Night Dreamer, 2023) I AM BEYOND (Division 81 Records, 2022), Cosmic Transitions (JAZZ, 2021), and Return of the Black Emperor (JAZZ, 2018).

Jeremiah Collier is from Chicago’s Southside. 22-year-old Collier is a fierce drummer with a wide understanding of music genres. He combines technique with enthusiastic physical energy. Jeremiah has been performing with Clarke for several years and performed with him in concert when Clarke won the National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master honor in Spring 2022.

Cameron Graves

A member of the game-changing, genre-blurring Los Angeles collective, the West Coast Get Down, pianist CAMERON GRAVES is taking the modern jazz scene by storm. Graves’ style was described by his fellow West Coast Get Down member, Kamasi Washington, as an “almost unbelievable combination of modal jazz, romantic era European classical music, and mathematical death metal.” Graves’ debut record on Mack Avenue Records, Planetary Prince, which also serves as Graves’ pseudonym, comes from The Urantia Book,a spiritual tome that emerged from Chicago in the first half of the 20th century and that purports to reveal the truth of humanity through a combination of spiritual and cosmological ideas, including radical retellings of familiar stories from the Bible. This release marked a seismic shift in the jazz landscape and the game-changing arrival of the genre-blurring Los Angeles collective West Coast Get Down blending elements of Jazz, Classical, Rock and Hip-Hop. The core of the band on Planetary Prince is made up of fellow West Coast Get Down members, whose musical and personal relationships with Graves stretch back to their high school days: tenor saxophonist Kamasi Washington, trombonist Ryan Porter, bassist Stephen “Thundercat” Bruner, and drummer Ronald Bruner Jr. To their ranks are added trumpeter Philip Dizack and bassist Hadrien Feraud, both key members of the groundbreaking modern L.A. Jazz scene.

Connie Han

Hailed by Downbeat Magazine "The Jazz Warrior-Goddess" with "a skill and ferocity unmatched by all but the most accomplished of pianists," 27-year-old piano wizard and composer Connie Han interprets the jazz piano pantheon with her own fiery, contemporary style.

Named a Steinway Artist in 2019, the pianist exhibits her charismatic playing style in its full emotional range on Secrets of Inanna, Han’s third release on Mack Avenue Records — a dynamic musical portrait of the beguiling and mysterious Inanna, ancient Sumerian proto-goddess of Love, Beauty, and War. 

With an interpretation that belies her age, Han’s expertise shines in the piano trio idiom. Paved by Chick Corea/Roy Haynes and McCoy Tyner/Elvin Jones, the timeless drum-piano tradition is explored in Han’s interplay with longtime collaborator/drummer Bill Wysaske. The two like minds and their combined chemistry has proven exceptionally fruitful in Han’s career, as Wysaske’s myriad contributions include concept development, production, composition, and arrangement on all three albums released by Mack Avenue Records. 

Han’s latest release Secrets of Inanna portrays the Sumerian mythos of the goddess’s solitary descent into the abyss of her soul: the underworld. As told in the Sumerian legend The Descent of Inanna, the heroine’s quest and prophetic evolution can only be completed with Inanna’s commitment to endure immeasurable suffering — a metamorphosis in which she kills her prior self and is ultimately reborn as the Queen of Heaven and Earth. 

Han believes in the power of myth to lead a grounded existence as an artist and human being. The wisdom imparted by epics such as The Descent of Inanna is as meaningful to Han’s work as her influences. Throughout Connie’s own journey, music continues to prove itself as meditative sanctuary and a constant truth of life. It is part of her vision to embolden and inspire audiences of all ages with storytelling through the jazz piano idiom.

Gustav Mahler once said, “Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire.” With each upcoming performance and recording date, Connie Han continues to fulfill this axiom with tenacity and identity — standing on the shoulders of giants who have so deeply impacted her artistry. 

Jahari Stampley

Jahari Stampley is a Chicago-born pianist who began playing the piano at the age of 14. Within two years of exploring the instrument, he began winning various competitions including Best High School Jazz Soloist Award and the National YoungArts Competition. By the age of 18 years old, he was recognized and followed by many world-renowned musicians including Yebba Smith, Jill Scott, Robert Glasper, Cory Henry, Jacob Collier, Stanley Clarke, and Derrick Hodge, among others. Jahari has toured with Stanley Clarke and is featured on Derrick Hodge’s "Color of Noise" album. 

Jahari has performed in venues such as Radio City Music Hall in NYC, The Met Philadelphia, Byline Bank Aragon in Chicago, Carnegie Hall in NY, San Francisco Jazz Center, and MANY others. He’s also headlined & performed solo piano tours in Berlin, Koethen & Magdeburg, Germany, Geneva, Switzerland, and Los Angeles, California. He’s conducted music workshops in Santa Ana, Costa Rica, and taught masterclasses in Spokane, Washington. Jahari is also the band leader & featured pianist playing the part of Bill Wither’s keyboardist in the feature film “Spinning Gold". Many of Jahari’s performances have garnered praise in various media outlets, articles & magazines throughout the world. 

Jahari won first place in the 2023 Herbie Hancock Institute International Competition,  2023 Chicagoan of the Year in Jazz,  2023 Chicago Youth Symphony Alumni Award, the first non-classical musician to receive the honor; and awarded the 2023 Luminarts Fellowship for his debut album “ Still Listening.” Earlier in his life Jahari won the  Bösendorfer prize for the international 2019 American Jazz Pianists Association Competition (for ages 18-25), the 2018 ASCAP Foundation Fran Morganstern Davis Scholarship, and the National Young Arts Foundation 2018 Young Arts Winner. 

Alongside all of this, Jahari released his first Debut Album entitled “Still Listening” which rose to #1 on Apple iTunes in the first weeks of the Album’s release. The music on “Still Listening” has also been set in an orchestral arrangement for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Jahari Also designed and wrote the music for a music Education mobile game, "Piano Chronicles”. It is available as a mobile app for all mobile devices on Google Play Store and the Apple Store.

Ruslan Sirota

Ruslan was born in Uman, Ukraine. His father, Yefim, who was an active local guitarist, had introduced him to music at an early age. Picking up guitar around the age of four, Ruslan had transitioned to piano around the age of seven. In 1990, his family moved to Israel, where he continued to study piano at the Bat-Yam music school. At approximately 14, Ruslan discovered jazz, instantly showing imminent interest. By the age of 16, he was the "wunderkind" keyboardist for the then-popular Israeli jazz fusion band, "Confusion". With Confusion, he toured Israel and made several appearances at the Red Sea Jazz Festival.

At 18, Ruslan auditioned for the Berklee College of Music, where he received full tuition scholarship, and moved to Boston in January 2000. During his studies at Berklee, Ruslan displayed growing interest in R&B, funk and soul music, playing with local artists and eventually becoming the resident keyboardist in a club called "Wally's Jazz Café". Circa 2004, Ruslan joined the Stanley Clarke band and moved to Los Angeles, thus marking the beginning of his professional career.

Since then, Ruslan has been touring, performing and recording with major artists (in addition to Clarke), such as Black Eyed Peas, Kamasi Washington, Seal, Josh Groban, Ne-Yo, Thundercat, Chick Corea, George Duke, Marcus Miller, Al Jarreau, Victor Wooten, Eric Benét, Rachelle Ferrell, Larry Carlton, Los Angeles Philharmonic and countless others. Ruslan released his self-titled debut album, featuring Clarke, Corea and George Duke as special guests, on October 24, 2011. The album was produced by Ruslan and Clarke. Ruslan released the album "Ruslan" in 2011, in 2019 he released the album “A Lifetime Away” and in August 2023 he released the album "Fruits Of The Midi".

Currently Ruslan is recording and performing with a new project featuring various vocalists. In the program - original music and unique arrangements of known songs.

INSTANT ALTER is a new project formed by saxophonist Emilio Modeste and vocalist Natasha Agrama, featuring drummer Miguel Russell and bassist Ryo Takenaga.

INSTANT ALTER is a reorientation into a new way of being. A new aesthetic and a new story. These four virtuosic artists band together in service of the art of storytelling, creating an expansive sonic landscape as super-bands of the past have done – such as Return to Forever – while integrating grounded Earth Songs that evoke vibrations of the Brazilian Tropicália movement. Within this musical vessel lies an engine fueled by a powerful and inimitable Bass-and-Drum connection.

INSTANT ALTER follows in the spirit of the storytellers that have graced our journeys, offering a fresh sense of melody and rhythm, leading the way to deep feeling, healing and consciousness.

INSTANT ALTER’s debut record is produced by Lenny White and Stanley Clarke, and features guest performances by some of the most legendary, sound-defining artists in music.

INSTANT ALTER is the point of change between vulnerable sensitivity and earth-shaking calls for reflection; between expansion and deep dives into learning and unlearning; between a global sentiment and an individual experience. 

INSTANT ALTER is happening in every living moment.

Emilio Modeste (@EmilioLModeste) is a saxophonist and composer from New York City. Perhaps best known for his time performing with the late trumpet great Wallace Roney, he is currently touring with the bands of Stanley Clarke, Cindy Blackman Santana, and Dezron Douglas. Equally as adept on tenor or soprano, Modeste’s singular shining tone and sense of melody creates a gravitational field that pulls in even the most reluctant of listeners. This can be most recently heard on Steve Turre's Generations (Smoke Records) and Dezron Douglas’ Atalaya (International Anthem) from 2022, and he is featured on Stanley Clarke’s upcoming album as well. A student of the great drummer and producer Lenny White, Modeste explores endless styles of musical expression in his artistry. He has shared the bandstand as a soloist and collaborator with greats from all genres, including DJ Premier (Gang Starr), Carlos Santana, Jon Batiste, Patrice Rushen, Will Calhoun (Living Colour) and many more. 

Natasha Agrama (@natashalovesit) is a vocalist, composer and multi-disciplinary artist from Los Angeles, California. Agrama graduated from SFAI with a degree in New Genres, and since 2013 has been traveling the world with her music and also as a special guest in the great Stanley Clarke’s band. The granddaughter of Chilean crooner Antonio Prieto, her velvet-fire voice carries forth the victories of humanity, the journey to truth from illusion, and the history of finding and belonging in a new world that jazz embodies. 

Her 2017 release, The Heart of Infinite Change (Alphapup) features Thundercat, George Duke, Vinnie Colaiuta…legends of all generations. In 2019, Agrama was awarded the Montreux Jazz Talent award and participated in the Montreux Jazz Academy, an annual residency that selects six of the leading up-and-coming artists to perform at the world famous Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland. Agrama’s most recent release is 2023’s “WOU v2”, a single about how a state of interbeing flourishes triumphantly from the madness of our world.

At just 21 years old, Miguel Russell (@jeanmarcelbasquiat) stands as a dynamic force in the world of music, wielding his drumsticks with precision and passion. Miguel has seamlessly woven his talent into the tapestry of contemporary jazz, leaving an indelible mark on the industry. From the Bronx, Miguel's journey into the realm of music began at the ripe age of 2. His innate connection to rhythm and melody quickly set him on a trajectory toward becoming a formidable drummer and artist. Miguel creates sonic landscapes that captivate audiences and fellow musicians alike. Miguel Russell has become a sought-after collaborator; touring with renowned artists such as trumpeter Theo Croker, pianist Jahari Stampley, Isaiah Thompson, and Anthony Hervey, to name a few, has become the heartbeat of many unforgettable performances. Miguel's drumming prowess serves as the backbone, elevating every composition and leaving audiences in awe. Miguel's musical journey has also been enriched by collaborations with some of the most esteemed artists in the industry. Working and studying alongside powerful musical forces such as Kendrick Scott, John Riley, saxophonist Dayna Stephens, vocalist Melanie Charles, bassist Harish Raghavan, guitarist Charles Altura, and more, he has not only contributed his rhythm but has also absorbed the invaluable lessons from these maestros.

Born in New York City, Ryoma Takenaga’s (@ryomatakenaga) journey into the world of music began at the age of five, when he started learning to play the piano. At nine, he began studying the upright bass. Ryoma's discovery of jazz was a turning point in his artistic evolution, and it was at the Jazz House Kids program where his first introduction to jazz was the artistic director, Christian McBride.

Currently pursuing his music education at New York University, Ryoma is a nineteen year old rising musician in the city's bustling music scene. His journey has been punctuated by performances with some of the most legendary names in the industry such as Jack DeJohnette, Lenny White, Chief Adjuah (Formerly known as Christian Scott), Keyon Harrold, Ulysses Owens Jr., Sean Jones, Marcus Gilmore, Melissa Aldana, Ravi Coltrane, and Antoine Roney. He has additionally been guided by mentors including Dezron Douglas, Harish Raghavan, and Mimi Jones.