Grant Richards Sextet

Grant Richards is an award-winning jazz pianist, composer, and educator. A native of Portland, Oregon, Grant began playing piano at the age of eight. By the time he entered college, he had won four Student Music Awards from Downbeat Magazine and recorded his first album as a leader. In 2009, Grant enrolled at Berklee College of Music on a full-tuition Jimmy Lyons Scholarship. He has since shared the stage with Grammy® award-winning artists Esperanza Spalding, Eddie Gomez, and Terri Lyne Carrington, as well as luminaries Simon Phillips, Kurt Rosenwinkel, and Valerie Simpson.

After releasing his second studio album Numinous, Grant moved to Japan for nearly three years where he taught at an international music school and performed often in the vibrant Tokyo music scene. Upon his return to the US, he moved to New York City and shortly thereafter acted as the Musical Director for the 2019 Jacob’s Pillow Tap Program led by Dormeshia and Michelle Dorrance in collaboration with renowned artist faculty including Dianne Walker, Brenda Bufalino, Derrick K. Grant, Jason Samuels Smith, Maria Torres, and Sam Weber. In 2021, Richards — a pianist deeply immersed in bebop and the blues — lead his music in a bold and emergent new direction with his album, Ballyhoo, an Afro-Cuban celebration named as one of the best releases of 2021 by Jazziz critic Mark Holston.

Since then, Richards has established a new quartet featuring some of NYC’s most in-demand musicians: Daniele Germani on saxophones, Simón Willson on bass, and Adam Arruda on drums. Brimming with creative momentum on the heels of their 2022 release, One and Done, Grant expanded his quartet to include two esteemed New York jazz veterans: saxophonist Dayna Stephens and trumpeter Scott Wendholt. The resulting powerhouse sextet won a New Jazz Works Grant from Chamber Music America in 2023 and has performances and recordings planned for 2024-2025.

Currently, Grant resides in Brooklyn where he maintains an active performing and teaching schedule in the city. In addition to his sextet, Grant has an exciting release scheduled for 2024, Menagerie, a vast collaborative songwriting project straddling the line between jazz, pop, and neo-soul which features a host of talented vocalists and musicians living in the NYC area.

Dayna Stephens is globally recognized as a world-class saxophonist, composer, arranger and educator. Dayna began his formal studies with a full scholarship at Berklee College of Music in Boston and later went on to graduate from the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, where he studied under artistic icons Terence Blanchard, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock. In a career spanning nearly three decades, Dayna has become an internationally renowned improviser and musician, winning the DownBeat Critics Poll for Rising Star (Tenor Saxophone, 2019). He has released a dozen critically-acclaimed records as a leader or co-leader and has also performed on numerous others as a featured sideman.

The Brooklyn-born, Bay Area-raised artist finds rhythmic dialogue extremely exciting as both an improviser and a written composer. Combined with his harmonic depth and spontaneity as an improviser, Dayna’s skills have earned him the attention and admiration of several jazz luminaries, many of whom have collaborated with him on recordings, the bandstand and the road. These include Kenny Barron, Billy Childs, Gerald Clayton, Al Foster, Idris Muhammad, Jeff “Tain” Watts, Billy Hart, Marcus Gilmore, Bill Stewart, Eric Harland, Johnathan Blake, Brian Blade, Victor Lewis, Lewis Nash, Jorge Rossy, Jeff Ballard and Justin Brown.

Among Dayna’s latest endeavors are two brand new ensembles. The first, a futuristic electronic collaboration called Pluto Juice, features Dayna on EWI and keyboards, Anthony Fung on drums, Rich Brown on electric bassist, and Andrew Marzotto on guitar. The second is a quartet with Emmanuel Michael, Kanoa Mendenhall and Jongkuk Kim, which has a new recording set to be released on Cellar Live in early 2024. In addition to his active performing schedule, Dayna currently teaches at Manhattan School of Music and William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey.

In addition to being a 20-year veteran of the esteemed Vanguard Jazz Orchestra, Scott Wendholt is one of the most in-demand trumpet players in the world. Born and raised in the Mile High City (Denver), Scott studied at Indiana University before eventually moving to New York City in 1990 where he has remained ever since. He has recorded and/or worked with many renowned artists including Kenny Garrett, Cyrus Chestnut, Christian McBride, Don Braden and Bruce Barth. With these bands and others, Scott has toured extensively throughout the United States, Europe, South America, Africa and Japan. For nearly 7 years, he was a member of Vincent Herring's quintet, a highly acclaimed band with three albums to their name, including Folklore: Live At The Village Vanguard.

Scott has had a prolific recording career with over 100 credits as a sideman and leader. Following three successful offerings as a leader on Criss Cross Jazz, Scott released two critically-acclaimed albums for Double-Time Records, Beyond Thursday (1997) and What Goes Unsaid (2000). In 2014, Scott released Andthem on the label Fresh Sound featuring a new quartet with saxophonist Adam Kolker, drummer Victor Lewis and bassist Ugonna Okegwo.

Also known for his versatility and formidable abilities as an ensemble member, Scott is highly sought-after by many of the most famous big bands of our time, including the Carnegie Hall Big Band, Maria Schneider Orchestra, Bob Mintzer Big Band, and Toshiko Akiyoshi Big Band.

In addition to his active performing schedule, Scott is currently on the faculty at Manhattan School of Music and works often as a clinician in many colleges and institutions around the world.

Originally from the Frosinone region of Italy but based in Brooklyn, NY, Daniele Germani is a fast-rising star on the contemporary New York jazz scene. A graduate of the Conservatory of Frosinone, Daniele moved to Boston in 2013 when he was offered a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music. While there, he was admitted to Danilo Perez’s prestigious Berklee Global Jazz Institute, where he studied under the tutelage of Terri Lyne Carrington, Joe Lovano, and his mentor, George Garzone.

An extremely prolific composer, Daniele has written over 550 songs to date, many of which have been featured on the three albums he released between 2020 and 2023. His music traverses the boundaries of modern jazz and free improvisation, a technically-demanding blend that is ably executed his steadfast bandmates Justin Salisbury on piano, Giuseppe Cucchiara on bass, and Jongkuk Kim on drums. On recent outings, Daniele has also featured some of the biggest names in jazz as guests artists, including pianist Leo Genovese on Leave it Blank for Now (Chant Records, 2020) and bassist Joe Sanders on What Reason Could I Give (Fresh Sound, 2021).
 Today, Daniele continues to push the boundaries of the modern jazz scene in New York where he remains active performing, composing, and teaching.

Simón Willson is a Chilean-born, New York City-based bassist, composer and improviser. His wide-ranging interest in different realms of jazz and improvised music has led him to tour internationally with a diverse pool of established artists such as Dave Douglas, Ethan Iverson, Jason Palmer, Jonathan Kreisberg, Frank Carlberg, Roxana Amed, and the Mark Morris Dance Group among many others. As a versatile and accomplished sideman, he can be heard on over thirty records for labels such as Sony Music, Tzadik, Greenleaf, Steeplechase, Newvelle, and Endectomorph.

In addition to his sideman work, Simón currently co-leads two bands, Family Plan and Earprint. The latter was voted “Best Debut Album” in the NPR Music Jazz Critics Poll in 2016. In 2023, Vicente Atria’s septet Orlando Furioso, in which Simón plays bass, won the Deutscher Jazz Preis for “Best International New Artist.”  Simón’s debut album as a leader, Good Company, will be released October 13, 2023 on Fresh Sound Records.

NYC-based drummer Adam Arruda is one of the most sought-after musicians of his generation. A native of Toronto, Adam has been immersed in music from a very young age, attending some of the most prestigious schools in the city (Claude Watson School for the Arts) and performing in the top ensembles (Yamaha All Star Band, Jazz FM Youth All Star Band). In 2007, Adam was invited to the Grammy Awards to perform with the Gibson/Baldwin Grammy Jazz Big Band. In the following year, he and four others were chosen to study at the University of the Pacific for one year as Brubeck Institute Fellows under Joe Gilman on full scholarship. The ‘08/’09 Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet went on to receive Downbeat Magazine’s Best College Combo twice. Shortly thereafter, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston on scholarship, where he studied with Terri Lyne Carrington, Ralph Peterson Jr., Hal Crook, and many others. His career has brought him to some of the most renowned stages in the world including the Grammy Awards, North Sea Jazz Festival, Detroit Jazz Festival, Brubeck Jazz Festival, D.C Jazz Festival, The Kennedy Center, and several other acclaimed venues and festivals.

Residing in Brooklyn for the past 5 years, Adam has had the privilege of working with many world-class artists including Brad Mehldau, Dave Kikoski, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Aaron Goldberg, Harish Raghavan, Mike Moreno, Gilad Hekselman, Christian Scott, James Moody, Phil Woods, Kevin Eubanks, Orrin Evans, Joel Frahm, Veronica Swift, Jeremy Pelt and many more.