Heralded by NPR Music as “the ultimate modernist,” the Philadelphia-raised artist has collaborated with Pharoah Sanders, Ravi Coltrane, Tom Harrell, Hans Glawischnig, Avishai Cohen, Donny McCaslin, Linda May Han Oh, Jaleel Shaw, Chris Potter, Maria Schneider, Alex Sipiagin, Kris Davis and countless other distinctive voices. DownBeat once wrote, “It’s a testament to Blake’s abilities that he makes his presence felt in any context.”
His latest releases as a leader include “Passage” (Blue Note, 2023) and “Homeward Bound” (Blue Note 2021). A frequent presence on Blue Note records over the past years, Blake has also contributed his strong, limber pulse and airy precision to multiple leader releases from Blue Note artists including Dr. Lonnie Smith’s Breathe (2021), All in My Mind (2018) and Evolution (2016) and Kenny Barron’s Concentric Circles (2018), the latter whose trio Blake has been a vital member for nearly 15 years.
His new album “My Life Matters”, which will come out on Blue Note in August 2025, is a music suite that focuses on the idea of speaking up when we see injustices happening. Don’t stay silent; then, you have become part of the problem. The suite was commissioned by the Jazz Gallery in New York City.
Blake’s band Pentad is a quintet of musicians whose expressions inhabit that mystery of time and space. “The name represents us as five individuals coming together for a common cause: trying to make the most honest music as possible,” says Blake who assembled the band with the intention of composing for a fuller, more explicit chordal sound than his past projects have featured. The result is a wildly intuitive, tight sound that embraces spontaneity and relies on trust.
- Johnathan Blake, drums
- Dayna Stephens, sax/ewi
- Fabian Almazan, piano & electronics
- Jalen Baker, vibraphone
- Dezron Douglas, bass
