Joe Lovano’s Paramount Quartet

 

Grammy-winning titan of jazz saxophone Joe Lovano and virtuoso guitarist Julian Lage have enjoyed a long journey of mutual admiration. They first met in 1999 at Yoshi’s in Oakland, where Joe was performing with McCoy Tyner. Julian’s father brought the young prodigy to the show, and it was there he connected with Joe. They kept in touch through the years before reuniting at Berklee College of Music. “I’ve always found him a natural, beautiful, expressive musician with maturity beyond his years,” Joe says of Julian, “He is someone I always knew I would collaborate with at some point and I’m so happy to have his contributions within the Paramount Quartet.”

 

Longtime Lovano collaborator Asante Santi Debriano, who first performed with Joe in the Archie Shepp Quartet in the 1980s, joins on bass. Drummer Will Calhoun (of Living Colour fame) called Joe to perform with him and Santi at a fundraiser last year. There, they played for the Puerto Rican Relief Fund after the devastating hurricane. That explosive, creative set was the springboard leading to the idea of adding Julian and forming this new band. Then, the Quartet debuted at the legendary Village Vanguard in February 2024.

 

Joe Lovano is fearless in finding new modes of artistic expression. He has won DownBeat Magazine’s Critics and Readers Polls countless times as Tenor Saxophonist and Musician of the Year. He has also received numerous awards from Jazz Times and the Jazz Journalists Association for Tenor Saxophone, Album of the Year and Musician of the Year. Further, Lovano continues to explore new horizons within the world of music as a soloist, bandleader and composer.