Don Braden is a world-class saxophonist, flautist, composer and educator. During the last 40 years he has toured the world with jazz greats Betty Carter, Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Tony Williams, Freddie Hubbard, Roy Haynes, and many others, and has performed in venues as diverse as Carnegie Hall, Saturday Night Live, and countless jazz festivals and clubs. He has played on over 100 albums as a sideman and 23 as a leader, the most recent being his critically acclaimed Earth Wind and Wonder, and the recently released In the Spirit of Herbie Hancock and Chemiatry, co-led with bassist Joris Teepe.
He is an imaginative, technically excellent, soulful saxophonist, and his harmonic and rhythmic sophistication give him a unique approach to improvising as well as composing and arranging. Most important of all: he has a beautiful sound, and he swings! All this combines with his joyous yet disciplined personality to make him one of the most important musicians working today.
He has composed music for ensembles ranging from duo to full symphonic orchestra, in many styles, for recordings (including 19 CDs as a leader and over 80 as a sideman), film, and the television networks NIckelodeon and CBS. Braden is a leading arranger of contemporary standards, and has built a solid collection of newer American songs into his Jazz repertoire.
Joris Teepe is an acoustic and electric bassist from Amsterdam and has lived in New York since 1992. He has led his own groups for 30 years and recorded 20 CD’s as a leader or co-leader and over 60 CD’s as a sideman.
He has worked with such jazz legends as Benny Golson, Barry Harris, Bobby Watson, Sonny Fortune, Tom Harrell, Chris Potter, Billy Hart, and Randy Brecker. His longest stint was with Rashied Ali (John Coltrane’s last drummer), with whom he recorded 5 albums and toured the world between 2000 and 2009. In 2004 Joris Teepe was nominated for the Bird Award at the North Sea Jazz Festival in the category “Artist Deserving Wider Recognition”.
Teepe has composed over 100 original compositions, including pieces for Symphony Orchestra & Small Jazz Group and Symphony Orchestra, Big Band, and Choir. He leads his own big band in New York, playing exclusively his own music, and performs his own repertoire as a guest soloist with local big bands.
One of his recent projects is the “Trio of Liberty”, co-led by saxophonist Don Braden. Down Beat Magazine selected their CD “Conversations” as CD of the year in 2017. This release marks their 25th year of musical cooperation. Their 2021 CD “Chemistry” features drummers Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts and Louis Hayes. Another project is “In the Spirit of Rashied Ali” a book with a CD, drawing on the spirit of his experiences with this legendary drummer. This release was nominated in 2019 for an Edison (Dutch Grammy).
