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Bryan Carter

With a confidence reflecting an instrumental and compositional maturity that both belie his age and announce the arrival of a remarkable talent, Bryan Carter exudes what promises a highly successful career.

Shortly after completing his training at The Juilliard School in New York City and still at the very outset of his career, Carter has already played and/or recorded with many notable artists including Clark Terry, McCoy Tyner, Wynton Marsalis, Marcus Roberts, Kenny Barron, Michael Feinstein and Kurt Elling.

Carter attended The Juilliard School as a Jazz Studies major and studied with Carl Allen and Kenny Washington. He was the recipient of the Irene Diamond Scholarship as well as the Samuel L Jackson Scholarship. While at Juilliard, Carter took a strong interest in composition, orchestration and interdivisional cross-collaborative performance.

Bryan is currently touring across the world with his band, “The Young Swangers”, a diverse semi-acoustic band built upon a foundation of brash eclecticism as well as it’s expanded “concert-driven” counterpart, "The Young Swangers Orchestra”. He also served as the house drummer for NBC’S “Maya & Marty” starring Maya Rudolph, Keenan Thompson and Martin Short. The show has featured guests including Miley Cyrus, Nick Jonas, Tom Hanks, Drake, Steve Martin and Tina Fey.

Aside from performing Carter conducts clinics, master-classes and workshops at schools, colleges and universities around the world. Currently Carter served as a founding teaching artist for the Jazz at Lincoln Center, “Jazz for Young People” program in New York City. As a proud member of the LGBTQIA+, Bryan is committed to the creation of safe spaces for young musicians from all walks of life. This past summer Carter produced, "Jazz at Pride: A Celebration of the LGBTQIA+ Community within the Jazz Community". This landmark event brought together over thirty musicians and coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots..

When Bryan is not on-stage or in the studio, he can be found expanding audiences for jazz via written publications, YouTube and as a presenter on television. Bryan is releasing a new album in the fall via La Reserve Records and endorses Ludwig Drums, Vic Firth Drumsticks, Remo Drumheads, Zildjian Cymbals and 64 Audio Monitors.

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Album Review

Owen Broder: Hodges: Front and Center: Vol. Two

Read "Hodges: Front and Center: Vol. Two" reviewed by Pierre Giroux


Owen Broder's Hodges : Front and Center Vol.Two is a respectful yet refreshing tribute to Johnny Hodges, a saxophonist with an iconic sound while injecting a contemporary vitality into the mix. Hodges' influence looms large throughout the album, guiding Broder's approach to the music. In this quintet's musical journey, Broder, on both alto and baritone saxophone, is accompanied by trumpeter Riley Mulherkar, pianist Carmen Staaf, bassist Barry Stephenson and drummer Bryan Carter. In both his playing and composing, Hodges showed ...

7
Album Review

Owen Broder: Hodges: Front and Center: Vol. Two

Read "Hodges: Front and Center: Vol. Two" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


At times, while listening to random classics in the collection, one can have the idea that everything in jazz evolved from the late '40s to early '50s bebop. But before bop was swing. Duke Ellington stayed with swing through bop, funk, and fusion. And so did alto saxophonist Johnny Hodges (1906-1970), who played in Ellington's band from its early days, the late-1920s. A much-admired player with a distinctive tone and a beautiful way with a melody, Hodges also ...

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Album Review

Owen Broder: Hodges: Front and Center, Vol.1

Read "Hodges: Front and Center, Vol.1" reviewed by Pierre Giroux


Johnny Hodges was a unique instrumentalist whose alto saxophone playing was readily recognizable due to his tone, phrasing, and melodic engagement in improvisation. For the greater part of his musical life, he was anchored in the middle chair of the Duke Ellington Orchestra's saxophone section. However Hodges never turned down an opportunity to stretch out in a small group setting on such albums as Back To Back and Side By Side. Additionally, there were several sessions with organist Wild Bill ...

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Album Review

Chad Lefkowitz-Brown and the Global Big Band: Open World

Read "Open World" reviewed by Jack Bowers


There are times, thanks to the indestructible human spirit, when even the most horrendous scourge--say, a global pandemic that has claimed millions of lives in countries around the world--can lead to the occasional silver lining, a small yet persistent light at the end of a very dark tunnel. Case in point: Open World, a superlative new album by saxophonist Chad Lefkowitz-Brown (commonly known as Chad LB) and the Global Big Band, whose name describes exactly what it is: an ensemble ...

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Album Review

Steven Feifke Big Band: Kinetic

Read "Kinetic" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Jazz connoisseurs who lean toward big bands that swing as earnestly and often as the renowned architects of the epic big-band era should find plenty to cheer about on Kinetic, the debut recording by New York-based pianist, composer and arranger Steven Feifke's audacious and fiery ensemble. This is a band that fires on all cylinders—but it couldn't even leave the garage unless Feifke supplied the fuel. With one exception (noted below), Feifke's intense and high-powered charts neatly pave the way, ...

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Album Review

Steven Feifke Big Band: Kinetic

Read "Kinetic" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Assimilare la tradizione per poi creare cose originali. È questo il percorso che hanno seguito e continuano a seguire i musicisti jazz, in forme e approfondimenti diversi. A 30 anni esatti il pianista Steven Feifke è ancora al primo passo ma in questo scintillante debutto orchestrale dimostra di avere tutte le carte in regola per sviluppare percorsi originali. Kinetic è infatti un esempio del miglior modern mainstream orchestrale, elaborato sulle lezioni di Thad Jones e Mel Lewis, ...

Album Review

Veronica Swift: This Bitter Earth

Read "This Bitter Earth" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Ad appena 26 anni Veronica Swift firma il suo album più avvincente e maturo, imponendosi come la vocalist stilisticamente più completa emersa nel nuovo millennio. Dotata di un talento prodigioso, s'è imposta nell'affollato panorama odierno delle cantanti per inventiva e virtuosismo, rinnovando l'eredità di grandi interpreti degli anni cinquanta come Anita O'Day e Dinah Washington. Veronica Swift s'esprime con esuberante entusiasmo e profondità interpretativa, sorretta da una naturale capacità di “comunicare" col pubblico, ben oltre il semplice ...

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Performance / Tour

Jazz This Week: Wild, Cool and Swingin', Bryan Carter CD Release, Tim Cunningham, RFT Music Showcase, and More

Jazz This Week: Wild, Cool and Swingin', Bryan Carter CD Release, Tim Cunningham, RFT Music Showcase, and More

Source: St. Louis Jazz Notes by Dean Minderman

While there's a paucity of touring jazz and/or creative music acts in St. Louis this week, our local and regional musicians are doing all sorts of interesting things over the next few days...if you know where to find them. For example, on Thursday, Park Avenue Jazz will perform a free concert from noon to 1 p.m. at the Old Library Plaza at 8th and Locust as part of the St. Louis Public Library's “Not So Quiet" concert series. That evening, ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Hodges: Front and...

Outside in Music
2024

buy

Hodges: Front and...

Outside in Music
2022

buy

This Bitter Earth

Mack Avenue Records
2021

buy

Quartet Sessions

Self Produced
2021

buy

Kinetic

Outside in Music
2021

buy

Open World

Self Produced
2021

buy

Used to Be Duke

From: Hodges: Front and Center: Vol....
By Bryan Carter

Royal Garden Blues

From: Hodges Front and Center Vol 1
By Bryan Carter

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