Jonathan Blake & Pentad

In the organizer's words:

Called "the ultimate modernist" by NPR Music, the Philadelphia-raised artist has collaborated with Pharoah Sanders, Ravi Coltrane, Tom Harrell, Hans Glawischnig, Avishai Cohen, Donny McCaslin, Linda May Han Oh, Jaleel Shaw, Chris Potter, Maria Schneider, Alex Sipiagin, Kris Davis and countless other distinctive voices in contemporary jazz. DownBeat once wrote, "It's a testament to Blake's abilities that he makes himself heard in any context." In recent years, Blake has been frequently featured on Blue Note records and has contributed his strong, supple pulse and airy precision to several Blue Note leader releases, including Breathe (2021), All in My Mind (2018) and Evolution (2016) by Dr. Lonnie Smith and Concentric Circles (2018) by Kenny Barron, whose trio Blake has been a member of for nearly 15 years.

Blake's band Pentad is a quintet of musicians whose forms of expression inhabit the mystery of time and space. "The name represents us as five individuals who have come together for a common goal: to make the most honest music possible," says Blake, who put the band together with the intention of composing a fuller, more explicit chordal sound than he's used in his previous projects. The result is an intuitive, dense sound that allows for spontaneity and is based on trust.