BRATTLEBORO-The Vermont Jazz Center is honored to welcome trumpeter Sean Jones and his touring quartet — including Seth Finch (piano), Aiden Taylor (acoustic bass), and Koleby Royston (drums) — to the VJC’s Cotton Mill Hill venue on Saturday, May 16.
Trumpeter Sean Jones has been described on Newark NPR affiliate WGBO’s program The Art of the Story as “one of the predominant voices of his generation.”
His resume resonates with awards and accolades from the jazz media, including Trumpeter of the Year (Jazz Journalists Association), Best New Artist, (JazzTimes), and Rising Star Winner (four times in DownBeat magazine). He has garnered three Grammys for his sideman work with Dianne Reeves, Nancy Wilson, and Gerald Wilson, and was chosen by Wynton Marsalis to be the lead trumpeter of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra from 2004 to 2010.
Jones has been the head of the Jazz Studies Department at Peabody Conservatory since 2018. He and his wife, Brinae Ali, are co-founding directors of the Baltimore Jazz Collective. He has devoted his life to the pursuit of personal development through educating himself and others.
He grew up in what he has referred to as “the cultural desert of Warren, Ohio, in an abusive household.” As a youth, Jones found participating and singing with his local Pentecostal church meaningful, specifically through the study of scripture and in the wisdom discovered through extensive reading.
A steady presence on jazz podcasts, Jones cites lessons learned in books like The War of Art by Steven Pressfield, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome by Dr. Joy DeGruy, and The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.
Jones often alludes to the concept of “one mind.” He stresses the importance of patience and practice, and he is quick to draw from an extensive repertoire of memorized quotes to prove his points.
For example, in a podcast with John Daversa (who calls Jones “one of the defining voices of modern jazz”), he paraphrased Jimi Hendrix, saying “I used to live in a world full of mirrors and all I could see was me, then I took my soul and I crashed all those mirrors and now the whole world is there for me to see.”
Along with his constant search for the meaning of life, Jones creates projects that convey his knowledge and transmit the essences of his passions. For the last several years he has been touring Dizzy Spellz, a tribute to Dizzy Gillespie that Jones organized with Ali, a brilliant choreographer, singer, storyteller, poet, and tap dancer.
According to the work’s promo, Dizzy Spellz offers “a deeper look at the intersecting cultural and spiritual dilemmas within the African Diaspora through the music of Dizzy Gillespie.”
Dizzy Spellz wraps in “the racial and social dynamics in the Deep South, creating and curating the bebop movement in New York, to his spiritual journey to Africa and his delve into Afro-Cuban music and the Baháʼí faith.”
In Dizzy Spellz, Jones and Ali illustrate the collective principles upon which they live their lives.
In a 2024 article published in By the Way Berkshires, Jones states: “I believe that Dizzy Gillespie inherently understood jazz’s genius outside of its sonic genius, its ability to allow people to have individual freedom but with respect to the group.
“That is arguably the greatest version of the democratic process sonically that we could get, and Dizzy Gillespie understood that. He worked out with the United Nations, right? He brought people together. They [the jazz musicians] were ambassadors for the country, the best of what the country could be.”
* * *
Jones continues to move forward — to search and create. Along with his work at Peabody, he is the artistic director of both the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Jazz orchestras, artist-in-residence at San Francisco Performances, and a member of The SFJAZZ Collective.
In addition, he serves as a member of the Jazz Education Network’s board of directors and was recently appointed as artistic director of Carnegie Hall’s NYO Jazz (National Youth Orchestra). He taught at the Berklee College of Music as the chair of the Brass Department, and he formerly held teaching positions at Duquesne University and at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music — all while regularly offering concerts, master classes and clinics around the world.
Jones has released eight highly regarded recordings as a leader, mostly with his steady band, which includes Orrin Evans on piano, Luques Curtis on bass, and Obed Calvaire on drums.
For live touring, he prefers to work in the mold of the late drummer, Art Blakey, using the opportunity to feature up-and-coming musicians in his groups.
Jones has recorded with many jazz luminaries, including Joe Lovano, Chico O’Farrill, Jimmy Heath, Charles Fambrough, Gerald Wilson, Steve Turre, Tia Fuller, Emmet Cohen, Nancy Wilson, and Dianne Reeves. In 2011, he toured with Marcus Miller, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter in an all-star ensemble that performed as “A Tribute to Miles.”
* * *
For the May 16 concert at the Vermont Jazz Center, Jones will be in the company of three young performers he has personally trained.
The group’s pianist, Seth Finch, is from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He recently graduated from the Juilliard School and has toured internationally and shared the stage with Dianne Reeves, Kurt Elling, Quiana Lynell, Troy Davis, Wycliffe Gordon, and Jeremy Davenport.
Bassist Aiden Taylor recently graduated from Peabody Conservatory with degrees in jazz bass performance and recording arts and sound engineering. He has been a five-time DownBeat Magazine Student Music Award winner, a YoungArts Winner, the 2020 Young Artist of the Year for the Society for the Preservation of the Great American Songbook, and the bassist for the 2020 Jazz Band of America.
Drummer Koleby Royston, also a recent graduate of Peabody Conservatory, is the son of two high-level jazz artists: pianist Shamie Royston (Fuller) and drummer Rudy Royston. He has performed at the Kennedy Center, and worked alongside Joel Ross, Allison Miller, Mark Whitfield Jr., Tia Fuller, Mimi Jones, Josh Evans, and others.
Come listen to the Sean Jones Quartet at the Vermont Jazz Center on May 16 and find out why the Trumpet Summit podcast calls him “one of the greatest trumpet players in the world.”
* * *
Thanks to sponsorship engagement, VJC operates using a subsidized ticket system, which lowers the cost per ticket to $25 even though the value per seat is more than double that amount. Make reservations early; it is anticipated that this concert will sell out.
General admission is $25(sliding scale; additional donation encouraged). Tickets can be reserved at vtjazz.org, or by phone 802-254-9088, Ext. 1. Those with accessibility needs should email or call to schedule a time for one of our staff to meet your party.
For those unable to attend in person, check out the VJC’s livestream at vtjazz.org.
Eugene Uman is director of the Vermont Jazz Center. The Commons’ Deeper Dive column gives artists, arts organizations, and other nonprofits elbow room to write in first person and be unabashedly opinionated, passionate, and analytical about their own creative work and events.
This Arts column was submitted to The Commons.