SFJAZZ COLLECTIVE
A 20th Anniversary Celebration
Saturday, October 12, 2024 at 8pm
This performance is presented without an intermission.
Chris Potter: music director, tenor saxophone, winds
David Sánchez: tenor saxophone
Mike Rodriguez: trumpet
Warren Wolf: vibraphone
Edward Simon: piano
Matt Brewer: bass
Kendrick Scott: drums
Founded by SFJAZZ in 2004, the SFJAZZ Collective is an all-star ensemble and composer’s workshop that represents what’s happening now in jazz, celebrating its 20th Anniversary in 2024.
Since the beginning, the Collective’s mission has been to perform newly commissioned pieces by each member and fresh arrangements of works by modern masters. Through this pioneering approach, simultaneously honoring music’s greatest figures while championing jazz’s up-to-the-minute directions, the SFJAZZ Collective embodies SFJAZZ’s commitment to jazz as a living, ever-relevant art form.
To celebrate two decades as a working ensemble, the supergroup will perform a landmark Anniversary program that both honors the history of the group and looks ahead to its future. In tribute to the artists who have been honored by the Collective over its 20-year history, as well as the world-class composers who have been a part of the ensemble, the band will revisit past original compositions and arrangements from its innovative repertoire, updated and re-imagined by this singular lineup of jazz masters.
Now in its 41st year, SFJAZZ is the largest non-profit jazz presenter in the world. Originally founded in 1983 as a two-day festival, SFJAZZ now serves over a quarter of a million fans and students every year through its year-round concert, commissioning, and education programs.
CHRIS POTTER
MUSIC DIRECTOR, SOPRANO & TENOR SAXOPHONE | Member 2021–Present
A Chicago native, Chris Potter is among the most prominent, influential, and visionary artists in jazz, fronting multiple ensembles and collaborating with a staggering list of major artists including Paul Motian, Pat Metheny, Dave Holland, Zakir Hussain, Herbie Hancock, Jim Hall, Steely Dan and the Mingus Big Band. A veteran of over 150 recordings, he has topped numerous DownBeat Critics Polls, received a Grammy nomination, and has led or co-led over 20 albums including his latest Edition Records release, There Is A Tide. Potter also assumes the role of music director and this is the first time the SFJAZZ Collective has had a member in a music director position in over a decade.
DAVID SÁNCHEZ
TENOR SAXOPHONE | Member 2012—Present
Since his early exposure with Dizzy Gillespie’s United Nations Orchestra, Puerto Rican tenor saxophone virtuoso David Sánchez has become one of the most celebrated instrumentalists in jazz, recording nine albums as a leader and winning a Latin Grammy Award for his 2004 orchestral session, Coral. The five-time Grammy nominee has performed with a roster of greats including Charlie Haden, Eddie Palmieri, Roy Haynes, Tom Harrell, and countless others. Sánchez has an impressive résumé as an educator, conducting master classes, workshops and residencies at the world’s top universities and conservatories. His latest album is Ninety Miles: Live at Cubadisco, a project recorded in Cuba and co-led by trumpeter Christian Scott and vibraphonist Stefon Harris.
MIKE RODRIGUEZ
TRUMPET | Member 2022—Present
A Grammy-winning trumpeter and composer hailing from Queens, New York, Rodriguez was inspired to pursue music by his father, drummer Roberto Rodriguez, and came up through the music programs at the University of Miami and the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music at the New School in Manhattan. He’s recorded and performed alongside a stunning list of greats including Joe Lovano, Quincy Jones, Wynton Marsalis, and Chico O’Farrill, and has had lengthy associations with Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, and Chick Corea, with whom he won a Grammy as part of his Spanish Heart Band. Rodriguez has recorded four albums with his pianist brother, Robert, and a pair of releases as a leader including his latest, 2021’s Pathways. He is currently on the faculty at NYU and The Juilliard School.
WARREN WOLF
VIBRAPHONE | Member 2013—Present
Warren Wolf is a multi-instrumentalist from Baltimore, MD. Wolf began playing vibraphone, marimba, drums, and piano at age three, studying at Peabody Institute preparatory program and the Baltimore School for the Arts with Baltimore Symphony Orchestra member John Locke. After graduating in 1997, he enrolled at the Berklee College of Music in Boston for studies with master vibraphonist Dave Samuels, graduating in 2001 and returning as an instructor from 2003 to 2005.
Warren became an active musician on the national scene after leaving Berklee, working with Bobby Watson, Tia Fuller, Christian Scott, Donal Fox, Christian McBride, and Karriem Riggins, and his own Wolfpack band. Warren has released five albums on the Mack Avenue label including his 2020 holiday release, Christmas Vibes.
EDWARD SIMON
PIANO | Member 2010—Present
Edward Simon was born in the coastal town of Punta Cardón, Venezuela, where he grew up in a family of musicians. Settling in New York City in 1989, he played with numerous jazz masters, including Herbie Mann, Paquito D’Rivera, Bobby Hutcherson, Bobby Watson, Terence Blanchard, and Don Byron. He has produced 15 critically acclaimed albums as a leader for Sunnyside, CAM JAZZ, Criss Cross, and various other labels. His 2016 album, Latin American Songbook, won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Jazz Album, and his 2018 release, Sorrows and Triumphs, was declared “unmissable” in Nate Chinen’s “Take Five” column at WBGO.org. His latest album is 25 Years, a curated career retrospective documenting his quarter century of music.
MATT BREWER
BASS | Member 2018–Present
Matt Brewer was born in Oklahoma City and grew up in Albuquerque NM, surrounded by a family of musicians and artists. At the age of 10, Matt fell in love with the bass and began a lifelong study of music. He graduated high school from the Interlochen Arts Academy, and then went on to study at The Juilliard School. He's travelled the world playing in the bands of Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Greg Osby, Steve Coleman, Dave Binney, Gerald Clayton, Ben Wendel, Aaron Parks, Vijay Iyer, Dhafer Youssef, Antonio Sanchez, Mark Turner, Steve Lehman, Ben Monder, and Lage Lund, among many others. He has been a frequent guest lecturer at the Banff Center, and is an adjunct faculty member at the New School University.
KENDRICK A.D. SCOTT
DRUMS | Member 2021–Present
Named "Rising Star - Drums" by DownBeat magazine and a "Drummer Whose Time is Now" by The New York Times, Kendrick A.D. Scott is a premier drummer and composer of his generation. The Houston-born Scott has toured worldwide and recorded with artists including Herbie Hancock, Terence Blanchard, Marcus Miller, Charles Lloyd, Wayne Shorter, The Crusaders, Joshua Redman, Robert Glasper, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Dianne Reeves, Kurt Elling, Gretchen Parlato, and the Blue Note All-Stars. Kendrick’s compositions have been recorded on Grammy-winning records, and he won a 2017 Chamber Music of America New Works Grant funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. He has released five albums as a bandleader with his band, Oracle, The Source (2007), Reverence (2011), Conviction (2013), We Are The Drum (2015), and A Wall Becomes A Bridge on Blue Note records. Scott is on faculty at the Manhattan School Of Music.