Lance Bryant

Lance Bryant

Musicians | Instrument: Saxophone, tenor | Location: Newark

That Lance Bryant is a gifted saxophonist and arranger, there was never any doubt. But his music, most written and sung by him, shows that his talents far exceed that of mere horn playing and arranging.

—James McBride, writer and jazz musician

Updated: April 13, 2023

Born: March 23, 1961

Saxophonist, arranger and vocalist Lance Bryant performs in the New York/New Jersey area. He received his formal music education at Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, where he studied saxophone, composition and arranging. After moving to New York City in the mid. 1980s, Lance continued his education, studying saxophone and arranging privately with Frank Foster, the former director of the Count Basie Orchestra. He also studied composition with Bruce Adolphe of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society. In 1990 Lance began his decade-long relationship with the Lionel Hampton Orchestra and in 1993 became the Orchestra's Musical Director and Principal Arranger. Lance also made his film debut in Spike Lee's Malcolm X and traveled extensively with Phyllis Hyman, Jon Hendricks, Pete "LaRocca" Sims, James Williams and others. In the early summer of 2000, Lance was selected as an on-stage musician for the Broadway production of the musical review Swing!, which received six Toni nominations. Throughout his music career, Lance's talents as an arranger, composer, saxophonist and vocalist have been featured on many projects like: For the Love of Jazz on Mojazz Records (Lionel Hampton), Dem Bones and Simply Natural on MaxJazz Records for Grammy nominated vocalist Carla Cook, Swingin' Away for the George Gee Swing Orchestra, and more recently on drummer Yoron Israel’s latest release, Visions, the Music of Stevie Wonder.

Lance’s earliest musical experience was established while growing up in the Baptist Church. His connection with spirituality and music has endured. In 2000 to 2006 Lance served as Director of Instrumental Music at Fountain Baptist Church in Summit, NJ. Between 2006 and 2013, while living in Massachusetts, Lance served as Minister of Music for Andover Baptist Church in Andover MA, leading worship services with gospel and sometimes jazz music. In 2002 he released Psalm, the first of four Cds featuring original songs, and jazz arrangements of hymns and Spirituals.

As an educator Lance's recent teaching work has included Berklee’s Saxophone Weekend for the Berklee College of Music summer program where Lance taught master classes, group lessons, jazz theory, improvisation and ensemble. Lance has also served on the faculty or Jazz At Lincoln Center’s educational department working with it's outreach program for youth throughout New York City. Currently Lance serves as faculty with three of northern New Jersey’s most prominent jazz programs for teens - Jazz House Kids, the New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s Jazz for Teens and the New Jersey Youth Symphony’s Jazz programs.

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Liner Notes

Yoron Israel: Visions – Tribute to Stevie Wonder

Read "Yoron Israel: Visions – Tribute to Stevie Wonder" reviewed by Howard Mandel


One of the enlightening insights drummer and bandleader Yoron Israel brings to Visions, The Music of Stevie Wonder is that Wonder's hits are true jazz compositions, with inherent swing and groove. Not only have the easy-to-love melodies of Stevland Hardaway Morris (b. May 13, 1950) become staples of the modern American soundtrack, they naturally trigger our most fundamentally human physical response: the graceful, unified movement of body and soul. The rhythmic impulse Yoron Israel and each member of ...

23
Album Review

Andy Farber and His Orchestra: Early Blue Evening

Read "Early Blue Evening" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Saxophonist Andy Farber's New York-based orchestra came together and cut its teeth as the onstage band for three hundred performances of After Midnight, a Broadway revue that paid tribute to Jazz Age nightclub luminaries from Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford and Count Basie to Harold Arlen, Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh. As one might presume from the orchestra's provenance, echoes of Ellington and Basie can readily be discerned on its first recording since After Midnight closed in 2014--but Farber, who wrote ...

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"That Lance Bryant is a gifted saxophonist and arranger, there was never any doubt. But his music, most written and sung by him, shows that his talents far exceed that of mere horn playing and arranging."

--James McBride, writer and jazz musician

"The greatest achievement of a jazz musician is to transcend the idiom; to get to a place where the music one writes or performs is not considered jazz per se, but rather great music and great performance with a jazz sensibility. Lance's first steps toward that lofty goal is the beginning of a new sound."

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