Patrick Wolff, tenor sax
Keith Saunders, piano
Eric Markowitz, bass
Tony Johnson drums

Injecting swing into jazz classics, a little Monk, some Kenny Dorham, some Lucky Thompson– you can’t really go wrong with these musicians and this music!

“The kid can play…so lyrical, and deft and swinging to boot.”
—ROBERT PINSKY, UNITED STATES POET LAUREATE

Patrick Wolff is a saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and educator, originally from New York, and currently residing in San Francisco.

He attended New York University, where he studied with Ralph Lalama, George Garzone, Frank Foster, Ron McClure, and Frank Kimbrough. In the jazz world, Patrick Wolff has toured heavily with the Glenn Miller Orchestra, worked with Shane Endsley, Matt Wilson, Grant Stewart, Dena DeRose, Josh Roseman, Judi Silvano, Marcus Shelby, and Ron McClure, and has had the great fortune of performing with many of the world’s greatest musicians, including Louis Hayes, Tootie Heath, Peter Bernstein, Roy McCurdy, Larry Willis, Larry Grenadier, Drew Gress, Marcus Gilmore, Gregory Hutchinson, Joe Lovano, George Cables, Marcus Belgrave, Dayna Stephens, Taylor Eigsti, Julian Lage, and Ray Drummond. As a bandleader, he led a trio in NYC with bassist Chris Van Voorst Van Beest and drummer Yujiro Nakamura. An artistic success, this group performed regularly at clubs like Zebulon, the Bar Next Door, and Louis 649, was an active member of the MTA’s Music Under New York program, and released a cd entitled Petals.

Since relocating to the Bay Area, Wolff has worked with many of the most exciting local bandleaders, including Graham Connah, Marcus Shelby, Adam Shulman, and Andrew Speight, and currently leads a trio with bassist John Wiitala and drummer Hamir Atwal, as well as a sextet with the same trio, trumpeter Mike Olmos, pianist Adam Shulman, and clarinetist Ben Goldberg. Both groups perform original music and can be seen in regular performance. The trio and sextet have recorded two records, Your Obedient Ghost and Noose of Light.

Wolff is a member of the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra and often appears with Mike Johnson’s 8-Legged Monster. He collaborates regularly with singer/songwriter Diana Gameros and soul revue “OTIS”. He can be seen regularly in residence every Wednesday at Club Deluxe, where he leads the San Francisco Repertory Jazz Quartet featuring Adam Shulman, Eric Markowtiz and bass, and Smith Dobson V on drums.

Wolff’s experiences as a sideman reach far beyond the jazz world. His first national tour was with punk band/comic troupe The Loose Nuts, and his longest-running musical association was with Afro-beat/highlife juggernaut Asiko. He spent a year as a member of the seminal avant-garde compositional rock group Kayo Dot, and has played with Nigerian reggae star Majek Fashek, fuji music legend Adewale Ayuba, and indie rock giants Calexico.

As a composer, Wolff blends melodies and forms from a broad base of folk traditions and his own experiences with the advanced jazz conceptions of composers like Andrew Hill, Ornette Coleman, and Booker Little. His music reflects a great reverence for jazz tradition, a high degree of attention to melody and feel, a non-traditional approach to structure and form, and an advanced awareness of sound. His saxophone playing is an extension of these principles and has been praised for its warmth, originality, and focus.

As an educator, Wolff has taught privately for 16 years and worked on the faculty of the Stanford Jazz Workshop for 16 years, Jazz Camp West for 4 years, and has done numerous workshops for local colleges and high schools.

His colleagues on the bandstand tonight are no slouches either!