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Jason Palmer

Jason Palmer

Awards and Recognition

French American Cultural Exchange Jazz Fellowship

First Place in the 2009 Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition

"Top 25 trumpeters of the Future," Downbeat Magazine

Chamber Music America New Jazz Works Grant, 2019

Fellow in Music Composition by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, 2011 and 2017

Jason Palmer

Division: College

Department: Jazz Studies

Instrument: Trumpet

Trumpeter, composer, and educator Jason Palmer is one of the most in demand musicians of his generation. He has performed with Roy Haynes, Herbie Hancock, Jimmy Smith (the organist), Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Ravi Coltrane, Mark Turner, Jeff Ballard, Lee Konitz, Phil Woods, Common, Roy Hargrove, Lewis Nash.

Having made Boston, MA, his home for 22 years, Jason was recently named to the inaugural class of the Boston Artist in Residence Fellowship for Music Composition.

In addition to performing on over forty albums as a sideman, Jason has recorded 14 albums under his own name on labels Ayva, Steeplechase, Newvelle, and most recently with Giant Step Arts. Four of his recordings were reviewed by Downbeat Magazine, all receiving four stars or better. Jason has toured in over 30 countries with saxophonists Mark Turner, Greg Osby, Grace Kelly, and Matana Roberts and has been a featured guest artist on multiple projects in Portugal, Mexico, Canada, and Russia.

For the past fifteen years, Jason’s quintet has been the house band every weekend at Boston’s historic Wally’s Jazz Café. He has presented his band at numerous clubs throughout the northeast United States including the Tanglewood Jazz Fest, Sculler’s Jazz Club, the Stone in NYC, the Jazz Gallery in NYC, and the Beantown Jazz Festival. In 2007 Jason Palmer was commissioned by the Festival of New Trumpet Music in NYC to premier a new work (based on a Sudoku game) for his quintet at the Jazz Standard. The music from that suite was later featured on his 2016 recording on SteepleChase entitled “Beauty ‘n’ Numbers: The Sudoku Suite.”

In addition to a heavy performing schedule, Jason Palmer offers his passion for improvised music as Assistant Professor of Ensembles and Brass at Berklee College of Music and as VP of the JazzBoston organization. Jason has also served as an Assistant Professor at Harvard University and at New England Conservatory. He has also served on the faculty at the New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City.

Curriculum Vitae

  • French American Cultural Exchange Jazz Fellowship
  • First Place in the 2009 Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition
  • "Top 25 trumpeters of the Future," Downbeat Magazine
  • Chamber Music America New Jazz Works Grant, 2019
  • Fellow in Music Composition by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, 2011 and 2017

Affiliated Departments and Programs

Jazz Studies