Linda May Han Oh

Linda May Han Oh was born in Malaysia to parents of Chinese descent who immigrated to Perth, Western Australia, where she was raised. In 2004, Oh was an International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE) Sister in Jazz. In 2006, moved to New York and two years later won the ASCAP Young Jazz Composer’s Award. Upon graduation she recorded with Jon Irabagon and then a highly acclaimed debut release, Entry with Ambrose Akinmusire and Obed Calvaire. In 2010 she received the Jazz Journalist’s Award for Up-and-Coming Artist of the Year, received the award of No. 1 Acoustic Bass Rising Star in the Downbeat Critic’s Poll and took second place at the BASS2010 Competition in Berlin. In 2011 she started working with the Dave Douglas Quintet and record on his Greenleaf Music label. She has played and recorded on over 60 dates as a side person with numerous jazz luminaries including Joe Lovano, Greg Osby, Anat Cohen, Kenny Barron; she has earned a Grammy for her work with Terri Lyne Carrington on The Mosaic Project. Oh has released four dates as a leader, and recently joined guitarist Pat Metheny’s new quartet. Metheny told JazzTimes: “She has all the things you want: great time, a really big and yet dynamic sound, a fantastic harmonic sense and real facility on the instrument…She has an indescribable presence in the music that is really hard to find. She owns the space around the notes she plays in ways that really add up to something more than the notes and sounds. There is a transcendent thing happening there that is really what makes music music.”