Described by NPR Music as “one of the most acclaimed jazz artists of his generation, a trumpeter of deep expressive resources and a composer of kaleidoscopic vision,” Ambrose Akinmusire has made a home at the crossroads of different musical forms and languages, from post-bop and avant-garde jazz to contemporary chamber music and hip-hop to singer-songwriter aesthetics. His 2018 release Origami Harvest features rapper Kool A.D. with the Mivos String Quartet and was named a top album of the year by The New York Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Los Angeles Times and more.
The Oakland, California native and Blue Note recording artist has made consistently adventurous, enduring music with a committed band of dear friends: pianist Sam Harris, bassist Harish Raghavan and drummer Justin Brown, whose unforgettable chemistry is captured on the 2017 double album A Rift in Decorum: Live at the Village Vanguard (“amazingly effective” – DownBeat). The quartet reaches new heights with their GRAMMY-nominated 2020 release on the tender spot of every calloused moment, featuring liner notes by the great Archie Shepp. On these and other releases, Akinmusire aspires to create richly textured emotional landscapes that tell the stories of the community, record the time and change the standard. While committed to the lineage of black invention and innovation, he is able to honor tradition without being stifled by it.
Akinmusire has received numerous composer commissions: from the Berlin Jazz Festival for “Mae Mae,” a suite based on Mattie May Thomas’s 1939 field recordings; from the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra Liquid Music Commission (for Origami Harvest); from The Kennedy Center for “Untitled,” featuring MacArthur Fellow Cécile McLorin Salvant and others; from the Hyde Park Jazz Festival Commission for “Banyan,” a work for 12- piece ensemble that builds on Ambrose’s interest in the role of the griot and mentor in social and jazz history; and the Monterey Jazz Festival Commission for “The Forgotten Places” featuring Salvant, Theo Bleckmann and quartet plus clarinet, cello, harp and guitar. More recently, Akinmusire has branched out as a composer and has begun creating music for film and television projects including, most notably, the new Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal series, “Blindspotting.”
Following his evocative 2007 debut Prelude... To Cora on the Fresh Sound label, Akinmusire joined Blue Note in 2011 with when the heart emerges glistening, produced by Jason Moran and featuring Raghavan and Brown with Gerald Clayton on piano and Walter Smith III on tenor sax. Akinmusire’s lyricism, distinctive harmonic language and rich sense of dynamic and timbral contrast set him apart. Highly virtuosic in execution, the music had a pointed social dimension as well: “My Name Is Oscar” initiated what became a theme linking all of Akinmusire’s studio albums, in which the names of murdered African Americans are recited and remembered with dignity. On the imagined savior is far easier to paint (2014), hailed as “a gorgeous, moving album” in JazzTimes, “Roll Call for Those Absent” took up the matter of injustice once again, as did “Free, White and 21” on Origami Harvest and the stark solo Fender Rhodes finale “Hooded Procession (read the names outloud)” on calloused moment. imagined savior found Akinmusire broadening his sonic and stylistic reach as well by incorporating guitarist Charles Altura, the Osso String Quartet and singers/cowriters Becca Stevens, Theo Bleckmann and Cold Specks, each with their own widely diverging vocal sound. (Akinmusire reciprocated, playing on Cold Specks’ 2014 release Neuroplasticity.) On calloused moment, vocalist Genevieve Artadi of Knower sings original lyrics on Akinmusire’s “Cynical sideliners,” in an affecting duet with the leader on Rhodes. Percussionist/vocalist Jesus Diaz also contributes Yoruba vocals on the opening “Tide of Hyacinth.”
In 2024, Akinmusire signed to Nonesuch records and released the Grammy nominated “ Owl Song” featuring guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer Herlin Riley. Owl Song is the first of three records Akinmusire will be releasing over the couple of years. Each will spotlight a distinct element of Akinmusire’s musical world and involve different instrumentation and production approaches. He confesses that he’s not one of those artists who breezes through his work; every record in his discography has challenged his thinking in some fundamental way. He focuses on the granular detail of the process, and only later, when he looks back, does he appreciate the entire journey of the project. Akinmusire will be releasing the second record, honey from a winter stone (featuring rapper Kokayi, the Mivos Quartet, Sam Harris, Justin Brown and Chiquita Magic) in January 2025.
Akinmusire has performed as a featured soloist with Archie Shepp’s Attica Blues Big Band as well as AACM multireeds innovator Roscoe Mitchell in an intimate quartet setting at San Francisco’s The Lab (a two-night event documented on the live album Come and See What There Is to See). “Mr. Roscoe (consider the simultaneous),” from Famoudou Don Moye and Amina Claudine Myers), as well as calloused moment, finds Akinmusire honoring Mitchell and grappling on his own terms with lessons learned under Mitchell’s wing.
In addition to his five Blue Note outings, Akinmusire has made signal contributions to groundbreaking albums across a wide stylistic and genre-defying spectrum, including Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl and Brad Mehldau’s Finding Gabriel. He has collaborated with acclaimed pianist Kris Davis in duo and trio settings at the Vision Festival, the North Sea Jazz Festival and elsewhere. He appears on Kendrick Lamar’s 2015 landmark To Pimp a Butterfly, on the closing track “Mortal Man.” In 2016 he was a featured soloist and composer with the WDR Big Band in Cologne, performing alongside pianist/arranger/conductor Orrin Evans. He played on Joni Mitchell’s 2014 release Love Has Many Faces, and in 2018 accompanied Chaka Khan, James Taylor and other luminaries honoring Mitchell in a gala concert documented on Joni 75: A Birthday Celebration. Other sideman highlights include recordings by Jack DeJohnette, Marcus Miller, Steve Coleman, and Terri Lyne Carrington. Akinmusire received his 2nd GRAMMY nomination - for “Best Improvised Solo” - on Carrington’s 2022 release, New Standards Vol 1.
In addition to winning the prestigious Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition in 2007 and the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition the same year, Akinmusire has frequently topped the JazzTimes and Downbeat annual critics polls. He has received the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award (2014); Le Grand Prix de l’Académie du Jazz (2014); Germany’s ECHO Jazz Award (Instrumentalist of the Year/Brass); and The Netherlands’ Paul Acket Award. A sought-after educator as well, Akinmusire has taught at the Dave Brubeck Institute, Stanford Jazz Workshop, Musik-Akademie Basel, Banff Centre, Berklee College of Music (as Artist-in-Residence), Princeton University, McGill University, Indiana University, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Southern California, Conservatorium van Amsterdam, New Zealand School of Music, Vriednden Antwerpen and more.
A graduate of Manhattan School of Music, Akinmusire lived for several years in New York before returning to the West Coast to attend the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz in Los Angeles while also pursuing a master’s degree at USC’s Thornton School of Music. During another five-year stint in New York he performed with the likes of Vijay Iyer, Aaron Parks and Esperanza Spalding. He then returned to LA and joined the faculty at Thornton for two years before coming full circle: back to Berkeley, where he now resides with his family.
In 2023, Akinmusire was named the artistic director of the Herbie Hancock Institute.
