Caleb Wheeler Curtis – stritch, soprano saxophone, trumpet

Jason Moran – piano

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// Photo by Adrien Tillmann

// This is a seated performance. If you require accessibility accommodations, please email boxoffice@nationalsawdust.org.

ABOUT CALEB WHEELER CURTIS

Saxophonist, trumpeter, and multi-instrumentalist Caleb Wheeler Curtis has been called "one of the more daring musicians in jazz today" by All About Jazz, and his music described as "a masterpiece" by Italy's Musica Jazz. Originally from Ann Arbor, Michigan and based in Brooklyn since 2009, Curtis draws from a wide range of influences — progressive bop, post-Coltrane lyricism, and Ornette-rooted free improvisation — forging an approach that is, above all, distinctly his own. A MacDowell Fellow, his work spans bandleading, collaboration, and sideman work across an expansive and growing discography.

As a bandleader, Curtis's most recent release, Ritual (Chill Tone, 2026), showcases his ability to unify musicians from many corners of the jazz universe through thoughtful, surprising compositions. His 2024 double album, The True Story of Bears and the Invention of the Battery (Imani Records) — on which he plays stritch, sopranino saxophone, trumpet, and tenor saxophone — was hailed by All About Jazz as "a jubilant and invigorating release" worthy of consideration among the best recordings of the year. The album's second disc, Raise Four: Monk the Minimalist, offers a searching reexamination of lesser-known Thelonious Monk compositions alongside bassist Eric Revis and drummer Justin Faulkner. HEATMAP (2022), composed during his MacDowell Fellowship and featuring pianist Orrin Evans, Revis, and drummer Gerald Cleaver, was called "truly exhilarating post-Ornette free-jazzmaking" by Jazzwise.

Curtis's collaborative work is equally central to his identity. As a founding member of the trio Ember — with bassist Noah Garabedian and drummer Vincent Sperrazza — he continues to push into new terrain in group improvisation; their 2023 album August in March earned praise from Jazziz for its "refreshingly novel style, distinctive ideas, and superlative musicianship." Curtis was also a co-founder of Walking Distance, whose 2018 album Freebird — featuring Jason Moran — was named one of The New York Times' Top 20 Jazz Records of 2018. His saxophone-and-piano duo with Swiss pianist Laurent Nicoud, Substrate (2022, Unit Records), further demonstrates his range as a collaborator and his sustained interest in the boundary between composition and improvisation.

A sought-after large-ensemble performer, Curtis appears as a featured soloist on three GRAMMY-nominated albums by the Captain Black Big Band, including Walk a Mile in My Shoe (2024), The Intangible Between (2020), and Presence (2018). He has contributed to Kris Johnson's Jim Crow's Tears — a concert jazz musical addressing the history of blackface and minstrelsy — and the Paradise Jazz Series Big Band, which debuted with two sold-out concerts at Detroit Symphony's Orchestra Hall. His sideman discography includes recordings with Orrin Evans, Igor Lumpert, Max Light, Josh Lawrence, and David Gibson, among others.

Curtis has performed at major international festivals including the Chicago, Pittsburgh, and DC Jazz Festivals, as well as Festival de Jazz de Providencia in Chile and Festival de Jazz de Madrid in Spain. He is a regular presence at New York's most vital rooms, including Smalls, Bar LunÁtico, Bar Bayeux, Close Up, and The Jazz Gallery.

ABOUT JASON MORAN

Jazz pianist, composer, and artist Jason Moran was born in Houston in 1975 and earned a degree from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Jaki Byard. He was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2010, was the artistic director for jazz at the Kennedy Center, and teaches at the New England Conservatory. Moran is deeply invested in reassessing and complicating the relationship between music and language, and his extensive efforts in composition, improvisation, and performance are all geared towards challenging the status quo. His activity stretches beyond 15 solo recordings and performances with masters of the form including Charles Lloyd, Cassandra Wilson, and the late Sam Rivers. His 21-year relationship with his trio the Bandwagon (with drummer Nasheet Waits and bassist Tarus Mateen) has resulted in a profound discography for Blue Note Records and Yes Records, a label he co-owns with his wife, singer and composer Alicia Hall Moran. Moran has collaborated with major art world figures such as Adrian Piper, Joan Jonas, Glenn Ligon, Adam Pendleton, Lorna Simpson, and Kara Walker; he has composed five scores for choreographer Alonzo King's Lines Ballet Company and two for Ronald K. Brown's Evidence Dance Company. His longstanding collaborative practice with Alicia Hall Moran is groundbreaking; as named artists in the 2012 Whitney Biennial, they constructed BLEED, a five-day series of performances stretching from readings to wellness to a ring shouts. BLEED explored the power of performance to cross barriers and challenge assumptions. In 2015, they participated in the Venice Biennnial curated by the late Okwui Enwezor.  Recently they created Two Wings: The Music of Black America in Migration for Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium. Moran keeps a close relationship with history and activism, culminating in his work with film director Ava DuVernay on Selma and 13th.  His multimedia tributes to Thelonious Monk, Fats Waller, and James Reese Europe have shifted the jazz paradigm. Also a visual artist, Moran’s solo museum exhibition debuted at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. The exhibition pulled together his artwork and that of his collaborators, including installations he creates about jazz clubs of a bygone era. The exhibition traveled to four museums, ending at the Whitney in New York.