2025 Solo Jazz Piano Festival – Saturday Headliner Performance

Saturday Feature Concert

Welcome back to day two of the Vermont Jazz Center’s 9th Solo Jazz Piano Festival. This festival aims to illustrate the wide variety of jazz piano styles and approaches by calling on the pianists themselves to convey their own unique attributes while simultaneously demonstrating their direct link to the continuum of the music’s lineage. The Solo Jazz Piano Festival is one of the cornerstones of the VJC’s programming. To date, the festival has presented sixty of the world’s top pianists, including NEA Jazz Masters Toshiko Akiyoshi and Joanne Brackeen, and acknowledged luminaries Stanley Cowell, Benny Green, Helen Sung, Myra Melford, Sullivan Fortner, Kenny Werner (see back panel for full list). 

Set I: Sean Mason
Born and raised in Charlotte, NC, Sean Mason is now based in New York City. He took to the piano at the late age of 13, initially teaching himself to play Ray Charles’ tunes by ear. Sean has performed and toured with jazz legends Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, and Catherine Russell and was featured pianist on the soundtrack of the Netflix movie, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. His ability to blend traditional jazz with modern elements sets him apart as a unique voice. That diversity of styles is evident in three recent projects. His debut album, The Southern Suite, has been lauded for its deep roots in jazz tradition while embracing a contemporary sensibility. “This album is really a personal documentation of [my] time in the South and how that inspires who I am now,” Mason said. He develops that theme in the Grammy-nominated My Ideal, a duo collaboration with esteemed vocalist Catherine Russell. The team digs deep, covering lesser-known tunes, including gems from the 1920s and 30s by Bessie Smith and James P. Johnson. Another recent collaborative project, Chrome Valley, pairs Mason with poet Mahogany L. Browne (Lincoln Center poet-in-residence), where they present a musical essay on the Black experience in America.

Set II: Luther Allison
Also from Charlotte, North Carolina, pianist Luther Allison has performed on both drums and piano alongside Etienne Charles, Michael Dease, Jazzmeia Horn, Rodney Whitaker, Samara Joy, Joe Farnsworth, Ulysses Owens Jr., and Ekep Nkwelle. Allison recently led a group of musicians on a 40-city Jazz at Lincoln Center tour, arranging, playing, and directing music that reflects the spirit of New Orleans. This past year, Allison won his first Grammy for his work with the jazz vocalist Samara Joy, performed at the Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival and landed a fellowship at the Jazz Museum’s Jazz Is: Now! Program. Allison studied in Memphis under one of the pianists in Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Donald Brown. This connected him with the famed lineage of Memphis players, including Mulgrew Miller, Harold Mabern, and James Williams. The Memphis piano sound is steeped in the blues and Black church music and also pays homage to the great Phineas Newborn.