Bio

For the past two years, trumpeter Jason Palmer has been performing with Blue Note recording artist Greg Osby and his group The Greg Osby Five. With this group, Jason has performed at major jazz festivals in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, France, Malta, Netherlands, as well as two stints at the Village Vanguard in New York City. Jason is also currently working with alto saxophonist Matana Roberts (of the AACM out of Chicago), performing at venues in NYC (the Jazz Gallery and Tonic) as well as the Moers Jazz Festival (Germany). In January of 2007, Jason Palmer had the great opportunity to perform with hip-hop artist Common on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He is set to release his first album as a leader in July of 2007 entitled “Songbook” on the Ayva Musica label. The album is comprised of nine original compositions and shall feature Greg Osby (alto), Ravi Coltrane (tenor), Leo Genovese (piano), Matt Brewer (bass), Warren Wolf (vibes), and Tommy Crane (drums). Jason is currently performing in Sofia Koutsovitis’s Octet and Kendrick Oliver’s New Life Jazz Orchestra. As a member of the NLJO, Jason has performed at the Newport Jazz Festival, Tanglewood Jazz Festival, Marblehead Jazz Festival, Berks Jazz Festival, Sculler’s Jazz Club, Regattabar Jazz Club, as well as Blues Alley (Washington D.C.). He has also worked as a sideman with Ravi Coltrane and David Gilmore. Jason was also a finalist in the 2003 Carmine Caruso International Jazz Solo Trumpet Competition held in Orlando, Florida. He leads a quintet that has served as the house band at Boston’s historical Wally’s Jazz Café for the past six years. His quintet has performed three times on WGBH radio’s “Eric in the Evening”, presented concerts at Emmanuel Church in Boston as a part of First Night Boston, the Highland Jazz Series in Needham, Mass., and has performed club dates at the Good Life, Les Zygomates, the Lily Pad, and the Jazz Standard in New York City During his time in Boston, Jason has been fortunate to share the stage with Roy Haynes, Wynton Marsalis, Benny Golson, Lewis Nash, Billy Pierce, Roy Hargrove, and Tim Warfield. Jason was a resident at the 2000 Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz at Aspen Snowmass in Aspen, CO, the 2003 Betty Carter Jazz Ahead program, as well as the 2003 Steans Institute for Young Artists at the Ravinia Festival in Chicago. While attending these programs, he was able to study and perform with jazz legends such as Herbie Hancock, Joshua Redman, Brian Blade, Christian McBride, Jimmy Smith, James Moody, Rufus Reid, Winard Harper, and Fred Wesley. As a teacher, Jason is a faculty member of the Aquinas College Jazz Camp (Grand Rapids, MI) as well as the trumpet faculty in the Preparatory Division at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston for the past seven years.