Wayne Escoffery

“Small Lions” is really a term that jazz journalists have already been using to spell it out the very long set of straight-ahead, acoustic-oriented jazz improvisers who have been born within the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, and London local Wayne Escoffery is probably the many Small Lions who started building his catalog in the first 2000s. Escoffery, who takes on post-bop and hard bop, is really a tenor saxophonist having a big, complete tone; his affects around the tenor possess included, amongst others, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, and Sonny Rollins. Escoffery takes on the soprano sax as another device, and his most apparent inspirations around the soprano consist of Coltrane and Shorter. But whether he’s around the tenor or the soprano, Escoffery offers managed a decidedly straight-ahead perspective that’s quite faithful towards the spirit from the Small Lion motion. Although he’s originally from THE UK, he offers spent the majority of his existence within the northeastern area of the United States. Given birth to in London on Feb 23, 1975, Escoffery was just 11 when he remaining the U.K. along with his mom and relocated to New Haven, CT in 1986. That 12 months, he joined the brand new Haven Trinity Males Choir, and it had been also in 1986 that he began monitoring the tenor sax with saxophonist/clarinetist Malcolm Dickinson. Escoffery remaining the brand new Haven Trinity Males Choir when he was 16, and playing jazz saxophone — not really performing — became his main concentrate. Escoffery was still in his teenagers when he fulfilled the popular alto saxophonist Jackie McLean, who Escoffery offers referred to as a coach and a significant motivation in his lifestyle; Escoffery researched with McLean (who passed away in 2006) thoroughly on the Hartt College, a executing arts college in Western world Hartford. From then on, he attended the brand new Britain Conservatory in Boston and graduated from that organization with a Experts in 1999 before shifting to NEW YORK the following season at age 25. Escoffery’s presence within the jazz globe continued to improve; within the 2000s, his longer list of actions ranged from being truly a person in trumpeter Tom Harrell’s quintet to using the Charles Mingus ghost music group to touring with veteran drummer Ben Riley’s Monk Legacy Septet (a Thelonious Monk tribute music group). Escoffery also supported his talk about of jazz vocalists within the 2000s, including Laverne Butler, Mary Stallings, Carolyn Leonhart, Cynthia Scott and Nancie Banking institutions. Escoffery’s first record as a head, Times Modification, was documented for the German Nagel-Hayer label in early 2001; another Nagel-Heyer studio time, Intuition, was documented in 2003. Escoffery’s initial live record, Veneration, was documented in 2006 for the Savant label and was accompanied by a studio program for Savant, Expectations and Dreams, in 2007.