The Lafayette Gilchrist "Undaunted" Sextet

Events

Performing Arts

Lafayette Gilchrist (piano)
Leo Maxey (trumpet/flugelhorn)
Christian Hizon (trombone)
Obasi Akoto (bass)
Kevin Pinder (percussion)
Eric Kennedy (drums)

Baltimore-based jazz pianist Lafayette Gilchrist got his start playing in saxophonist David Murray’s band. Lafayette is not only a penetrating and sensitive artist, but also a pianist and composer who does not shy away from the influences of the greatest artists who inspire him to look for stylistic references. Lafayette Gilchrist leads the sextet through many riveting compositions that demonstrate why he is one of the most iconoclastic jazz musicians of his generation.

The band on his new album, Undaunted, subtly combines elements of barrelhouse, blues, stride piano, post-hardbop, hip-hop and elements of rhythm’n’blues in the melody of modern jazz straight from New Orleans pubs. The recording was named one of DownBeat Magazine’s Best Albums of 2023, and Chris Pearson in The Times of London writes “This is urgent music, impossible to ignore.” In his new review in All About Jazz, Mike Jurkovic notes that Lafayette is a ”Barn-burning, barrel-housing pianist…” Dioni Piatkowski writes in Poland’s Era Jazz that “Gilchrist is one of the most iconoclastic jazz musicians of his generation.”