*SSAJ Big Band + Ishii/Smith Lee Duo
Sun, Mar 29
|Black Squirrel Club
Selendis Sebastian Alexander Johnson Big Band is formed from the cutting edge improvisors from the Big Apple. Anne Ishii (Drums) and Matt Smith Lee (Sax) open.
Time & Location
Mar 29, 2026, 7:30 PM
Black Squirrel Club, 1049 Sarah St, Philadelphia, PA 19125, USA
About the event
$15 to 30
The Selendis Sebastian Alexander Johnson Big Band started 3 years ago as a project at The New School where Johnson returned immediately upon graduation to work as a guest professor leading a big band class twice a week to perform Cal Massey’s Black Liberation Movement Suite, and Fred Ho’s Struggle for a New World Suite. From there Johnson continued to book big band shows performing excerpts from those works, as well as Duke Ellington & Monk pieces, connected together with long conductioned and non-conductioned improvisations. The personnel are always shifting between an always expanding pool of about 35 people right now.
Confirmed so far
Abe Mamet (French Horn), James Worsey (Trumpet), Will Evans (Trumpet), AJ Medeiros (Trombone), SSAJ (Trombone), Samantha Kochis (Flute), Francisco de la Garza (Tenor Saxophone), Christoph Götzen (Guitar), Darja Goldberg (Accordion), Josh Mathews (Drums).
An alternatively spacious and rip-roaring take on…