Whether fulfilling the role of vocalist, emcee, showman, or impresario, Michael Mwenso conveys both the sophistication and spontaneity of hardcore jazz and the music’s folkloric roots with impeccable craft, creativity, and communicative flair.

Most frequently, Mwenso performs as leader—or ringleader—of Michael Mwenso and The Shakes, a revue comprising between three to five vocalists (they include himself, Brianna Thomas, Charenee Wade, and Vuyo Sotashe) and a rotating ensemble that includes rising stars like drummers Joe Saylor and Jamison Ross, pianist Chris Pattishall, trumpeters Alphonso Horne and Bruce Harris, and tenor saxophonist Tivon Pennicott. From time to time, internationally acclaimed singer Cecile McLorin Salvant and pianists Jonathan Batiste, Aaron Diehl and Sullivan Fortner—among others—augment this close-knit musical family. All developed their ideas and accrued public visibility at late night shows booked and overseen by Mwenso since 2012 (when he joined Jazz At Lincoln Center as Curator and Programming Associate) at Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola at JALC’s complex in New York’s Time-Warner Center.

Mwenso, 31, developed his unique skill sets through the course of several eventful life journeys. Born in 1984, he lived in Freetown, Sierra Leone, in West Africa until age 10, when his single mother brought him to London, England. He began singing and playing piano, then trombone, and by 13 was touring with an old school swing band. During these formative years, he also immersed himself in recordings of American jazz and roots music. His learning curve rose dramatically after his mother, who worked as a nightclub hostess, decided to have him spend nights at the internationally prestigious Ronnie Scott’s Jazz Club, whose floor manager was a family friend. Mwenso took advantage of a singular opportunity to witness, talk to and learn from jazz giants like Elvin Jones, Billy Higgins, Betty Carter, Benny Carter, Tommy Flanagan and Johnny Griffin, all attracted by his superior knowledge of their recordings. His charismatic blend of raw talent and precocious erudition also drew the attention of James Brown, who offered Mwenso the signal honor of a guest spot singing and dancing at his UK engagements when he was 14, 15 and 16.

At 16, Mwenso left school and turned professional. He played trombone in reggae and Afrobeat horn sections (including a group led by drum legend Tony Allen) and jammed with American expat drummer Clifford Jarvis and London’s strongest African- and Caribbean-descended hardcore jazz musicians. At 21, he started to focus on singing, most consequentially in a four-voice group, mixing well-wrought high-velocity bebop vocalese and scat, the blues, standards, and Black American folk music. They performed not infrequently at Ronnie Scott’s, where in 2007 Mwenso established a late-night jam session. Under his ministrations, it soon became a go-to spot not just for jazz musicians, but millennial generation dancers, actors, artists and general music fans.

In 2009, Wynton Marsalis—who met and befriended Mwenso in 1997—played a week at Ronnie Scott’s. After witnessing the vibrant scene that Mwenso had coalesced, he invited him to move to New York, with a mandate to attract a younger, broader audience to Dizzy’s and JALC, while retaining values consistent with Marsalis’ “all jazz is modern” mantra. Mwenso’s success in accomplishing this mission is evident: the Shakes were featured on the November 17, 2015 edition of Christian McBride’s Jazz Night In America on NPR, and performed at the Kennedy Center’s 2015 New Year’s Eve Gala.

“You’re getting a generation of holistic musicians who love Louis Armstrong just as much as Woody Shaw, Sidney Bechet as much as Ornette Coleman,” Mwenso says. “They want to be free in all styles of music—free in themselves. We’re figuring out ways to play this music as art, but as entertainment, too.”

Young South African jazz vocalist, Vuyo (Vuyolwethu) Sotashe, is gradually making his mark in the New York jazz scene. Sotashe moved to the NYC in 2013 after being awarded the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to pursue Master of Music at William Paterson University. Since then, he has gone to win first prize at the very first Mid-Atlantic Jazz Festival Vocal Competition in 2014, and performed on the festival’s main stage in February of 2015. More recently, he won the Audience prize award and placed second over-all at the Shure Montreux Jazz Voice Competition in 2015, held at the annual Montreux Jazz festival in Switzerland. In the same he placed third in the prestigious Thelonious Monk Institute International Jazz Vocal competition, where he was the very first male vocalist ever to place in the competition’s finals.

Sullivan Fortner is a pianist, composer and bandleader whose music moves between deep jazz tradition and an irrepressibly exploratory musical imagination. A New Orleans native known for his command of harmony, rhythm and improvisation, Fortner has emerged as one of the defining pianistic voices of his generation, equally distinctive as a solo artist, ensemble leader and collaborator.

His recent work captures the breadth of that musical identity. Following Aria (2015) and Moments Preserved (2018), Fortner released the expansive Solo Game in 2023, an investigation of the possibilities of solo performance that moved beyond acoustic piano to incorporate organ, percussion, electronics, voice and other instruments. Southern Nights followed in 2025, bringing Fortner together with bassist Peter Washington and drummer Marcus Gilmore in a recording deeply connected to his New Orleans roots. The album won the 2026 GRAMMY Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album and followed his February 2025 appearance on the cover of DownBeat.

Fortner’s work as a collaborator has been equally significant. His longstanding musical relationship with vocalist Cécile McLorin Salvant has produced some of contemporary jazz’s most acclaimed recordings, including The Window, winner of the 2019 GRAMMY Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album. In 2025, Fortner earned another GRAMMY, this time for Best Jazz Performance with Samara Joy on “Twinkle Twinkle Little Me.”

Across his career he has performed and recorded with artists including Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon, John Scofield, Ambrose Akinmusire, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Stefon Harris, Fred Hersch, Chief Adjuah and the late Roy Hargrove.

Fortner began playing piano at seven in New Orleans, growing within a musical culture in which rhythm, improvisation, blues and individual expression remain inseparable.

He later earned his Bachelor of Music from Oberlin Conservatory and a Master of Music in Jazz Performance from Manhattan School of Music. That combination of lineage and rigorous study continues to inform a musical language that respects tradition without treating it as fixed.

Whether working with a trio, accompanying a vocalist, performing solo or expanding the piano through electronics and other sound sources, Fortner approaches music as an active field of discovery.

That exploratory impulse is particularly apparent in Solo Game, where Fortner works alone in the studio while extending his musical vocabulary far beyond the conventional boundaries of solo piano.

Fortner’s curiosity extends naturally to his work as an educator and mentor. He has taught and presented masterclasses at institutions including Manhattan School of Music, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts, Purdue University, Belmont University and Oberlin Conservatory, where he has served on the faculty and returned as visiting professor of jazz piano.

His relationship to the music is rooted not simply in technical command, but in sustained engagement with its history, language and evolving possibilities.