Pianist

SFJAZZ is excited to partner with Diablo Regional Arts Association and the Lesher Center Presents Headliners series on its first ever season of concert events in Contra Costa County. Curated by SFJAZZ this thrilling line-up of internationally recognized jazz artists launches its inaugural residence at Walnut Creek’s Lesher Center for the Arts during the 2025-26 Season.

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The Kenny Barron Trio featuring Tyreek McDole

Lesher Center for the Arts

Master Kenny Barron started his career as a teenager with Philly Joe Jones and moved to New York at 19, playing with Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, and Yusef Lateef. A prolific bandleader, Barron has recorded over 40 albums and has earned 14 Grammy® nominations. A dedicated educator, he taught at Rutgers University for nearly 30 years, mentoring artists like Terence Blanchard and David Sánchez. In 2009 he received the Living Legacy Award from Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation and was inducted into the American Jazz Hall of Fame and won a MAC Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. He is an eight-time recipient of Best Pianist by the Jazz Journalists Association.

Kenny Barron Voices featuring Tyreek McDole

Cadillac Square

Kenny Barron’s third night highlights his work as a composer and arranger in addition to his sterling pianism, focusing on original material and jazz classics performed with a chamber orchestra.  

Kenny Barron w/ Orchestra

SFJAZZ Center

A solo recital by Kenny Barron is a rare opportunity to witness the unadorned creative process of one of the greatest living pianists — an artist who leads a peerless career as a bandleader, sideman, composer, arranger, educator, and National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master recipient. Though he is often heard in a trio setting — a format Barron has honed to its highest level of expression — the pianist as soloist creates an entire orchestra from the instrument, as heard brilliantly on his GRAMMY-nominated 2022 release The Source. 

Kenny Barron, solo

Barron performs with a new all-star quintet featuring bass legend Christian McBride, rising saxophone master Immanuel Wilkins, longtime drummer Johnathan Blake, and trumpeter and SFJAZZ Collective member Mike Rodriguez. They will be performing a range of material including music from Barron’s new Artwork Records release, Beyond This Place, featuring Blake and Wilkins. 

Kenny Barron Quintet

Kenny Barron has long been one of the most respected American pianists - by critics, the jazz public and his colleagues themselves. Listening to him in a trio allows you to appreciate his phrasing, sound, sense of time, melodic invention as well as his boundless jazz culture. An opportunity not to be missed. The trio is also the formula of his most recent album, “The Source”.

Kenny Barron Trio

Teatro Morlacchi

Join us for an unforgettable evening of jazz with the Kenny Barron Quintet at the Paradise Jazz Series. This special performance will take place on Friday, April 19, 2024, at 8:00 pm in the iconic Orchestra Hall, located at 3711 Woodward Avenue, Detroit, MI. The concert promises to be a remarkable showcase of jazz mastery, lasting approximately 2 hours.

Kenny Barron, a composer, pianist, educator, and NEA Jazz Master, leads the quintet. Barron's illustrious career is highlighted by his induction into the National Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009 and the American Jazz Hall of Fame in 2005. With over 40 albums released, 13 Grammy nominations, and collaborations with legends like Dizzy Gillespie, Chet Baker, Stan Getz, and Yusef Lateef, Barron's performance is a testament to his status as a jazz icon. His piano skills, known for timeless classics and innovative improvisations, make him a peerless performer recognized worldwide.

The Kenny Barron Quintet lineup features:
- Kenny Barron on piano
- Kiyoshi Kitagawa on bass
- Johnathan Blake on drums
- Mike Rodriquez on trumpet
- Riko Sasari on alto saxophone

Tickets for this must-see event start at a special price, offering everyone the chance to experience the magic of Kenny Barron and his quintet live. Don't miss this opportunity to witness a master of performance and composition in one of Detroit's most beloved venues.

For tickets and more information, visit the Detroit Symphony Orchestra's website or contact the box office directly. Join us for a night of exceptional jazz that celebrates the rich musical heritage and ongoing legacy of the Kenny Barron Quintet.

Orchestra Hall

Kenny Barron’s final night as Resident Artistic Director is devoted to the West Coast premiere of new chamber work with an ensemble including Swiss-born harmonica virtuoso Grégoire Maret, flutist and former SFJAZZ High School All-Star Elena Pinderhughes, and cellist Noah Johnson. Don’t miss this special night of new music!

Kenny Barron

Revered innovators of two generations of jazz music join forces for a very special performance: pianist Kenny Barron and violinist Regina Carter. Both Barron and Carter have the distinguished honor of being named NEA Jazz Masters, Barron in 2010 and Carter in 2023. Longtime friends and collaborators, their 2000 recording, Freefall, earned them accolades for its “passion and dynamic feeling… the cohesion and joy of this duo’s music-making is consistent from beginning to end” (Jazz Times). They appear in Santa Fe in celebration of Barron’s 80th birthday.

Kenny Barron and Regina Carter

Lensic Performing Arts Center

Kenny Barron’s week closes in the most spontaneous and creative way possible, with an evening of improvised music featuring a sterling lineup of adventurous artists.

Vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Jen Shyu is a Guggenheim Fellow known for her visionary approach as a composer and her memorable work with Steve Coleman and Five Elements.


Kenny Barron: Freely Improvised Music

Kenny Barron’s third night brings the Bay Area premiere of a new sextet project embracing the music of Brazil and beyond. No stranger to Brazilian rhythms, Barron recorded his first album of samba-influenced compositions three decades ago with 1993’s Verve date Sambao.


Kenny Barron: Brazilian Explorations

Expanding his stellar working trio to a quintet with the addition of SFJAZZ Collective trumpeter Mike Rodriguez and Bay Area-raised saxophone great Dayna Stephens, Kenny Barron explores new sonorities and textures in a program of originals and fresh takes on standards documented on his 2018 Blue Note album Concentric Circles.

Starting his week as Resident Artistic Director in grand style, Kenny Barron performs with his ironclad working trio with bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa and drummer Johnathan Blake. Kitagawa’s 27-year association with Barron and Blake’s nearly twenty-year tenure have made them the finest working piano trio in jazz, a unit that has developed a singular depth of communication as captured on Barron’s 2016 Impulse! album Book of Intuition — a sterling session nominated for “Best Instrumental Jazz Recording” at the 2016 GRAMMY Awards.

Step into the SFJAZZ “living room” and hear artists and tastemakers spinning their favorite recordings while in conversation. Listening Parties offer listeners the chance to get behind-the- scenes and hear about music from the artist’s perspective. The format is an on-stage conversation in the Robert N. Miner Auditorium, accompanied by the artist’s pick of recorded, and sometimes live, excerpts. The conversation closes with questions from the audience followed by a reception with complimentary drinks and bites.

This Listening Party features 2010 NEA Jazz Master and 2023-24 Resident Artistic Director Kenny Barron, discussing his legendary five-decade career and taking a deep dive into his SFJAZZ residency, which features four curated concerts. Kenny Barron’s performances run February 1-4, 2024.

Listening Party with Kenny Barron

Join us for what has become a legendary event in South Orange, featuring the convergence of countless Jazz greats in an unforgettable evening of music. Curated by Jazz legend and South Orange resident John Lee, this year SOPAC celebrates a titan of Jazz piano who The Los Angeles Times lauds as “one of the top Jazz pianists in the world,” Kenny Barron!

Giants of Jazz

South Orange Performing Arts Center

Kenny Barron has been hailed by the Los Angeles Times as “one of the top jazz pianists in the world” and Jazz Weekly as “The most lyrical piano player of our time.” And the inimitable Philadelphian has been honored by the National Endowment of the Arts as a Jazz Master. Don’t miss Barron and his virtuosic trio live at the Schermerhorn.

Shermerhorn Symphony Center

NEA Jazz Master Kenny Barron is a “pianist, composer, and bandleader of apparently infinite resource and ingenuity” (The Guardian). At Carnegie Hall alone, Barron has performed with Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Freddie Hubbard, Charlie Haden, Kathleen Battle, and dozens more, and he now makes his long-awaited return during his 80th-birthday celebration year. His long-standing, Grammy-nominated Trio represents “the pinnacle of the jazz-piano tradition” (JazzTimes), with repertoire that spans 60 years of Barron’s original compositions and influential classics by Thelonious Monk and more.

Kenny Barron Voyage Trio

Carnegie Hall

Having performed and toured with Joe Henderson, Nancy Wilson, Roy Hargrove and Stan Getz, bassist Marlene Rosenberg has a background of performing with the jazz icons. But she also traffics with the newest generation of jazz artists, including Jazzmeia Horn, Makaya McCraven and Marquis Hill.

Ms. Rosenberg’s festival credits include the Mt. Fuji Festival (Tokyo), The North Sea Festival (Rotterdam, Holland), and the Kristianstad-Ahus Festival (Sweden). As for clubs, Marlene has played The Village Vanguard in NYC, The Chicago Jazz Showcase, The Quasimodo in Berlin and The Magnetic Terrace in Paris.

Marlene Rosenberg Quartet

Jazz Showcase

Honored by The National Endowment for the Arts as a 2010 Jazz Master, Kenny Barron has an unmatched ability to mesmerize audiences with his elegant playing, sensitive melodies and infectious rhythms. The Los Angeles Times named him “one of the top jazz pianists in the world” and Jazz Weekly calls him “The most lyrical piano player of our time.”

Soka Performing Arts Center

In this Signature Series concert, NEA Jazz Master and Berklee honorary doctorate recipient Kenny Barron will perform his original music as arranged by Piano Department Professor Eric Gould. Barron’s beautiful piano sound will be amplified by Berklee World Strings, under the direction of String Department Professor Eugene Friesen(Opens in a new window), giving expression to the joy for which Barron is widely known.

Kenny Barron with Strings

Berklee College of Music

This is the jazz trio at its finest. Jazz legend Kenny Barron is one of the great composers and bandleaders, whose credits include long stints with Philly Joe Jones, Roy Haynes, Lee Morgan, James Moody, Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Milt Jackson, Buddy Rich, Yusef Lateef, and many more. With Charlie Rouse, Ben Riley, and Buster Williams, he co-founded the band Sphere, devoted to the music of Thelonious Monk. Johnathan Blake is a trail-blazing musician, bandleader, and composer in his own right, but is also a regular member of Kenny’s trio — and his favorite drummer. Bassist Rufus Reid, an SJW family member for many years, is himself one of the greats of jazz, as a performer, educator, and composer. In fact, both Rufus and Kenny first played and taught at SJW in the 1980s with Stan Getz.

Pianist

Kenny Barron

Events

Past events

Jan 10, 2026

The Kenny Barron Trio featuring Tyreek McDole · Lesher Center for the Arts

Aug 30, 2025

Kenny Barron Voices featuring Tyreek McDole · Detroit Jazz Festival

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