Henry Butler, Steven Bernstein & the Hot 9 at New Mexico Jazz Festival at Hiland Theater

Considered the premier exponent of the great New Orleans jazz and blues piano tradition, Henry Butler’s music is a rich amalgam of jazz, Caribbean, classical, pop, blues, and R&B. Blinded by glaucoma at birth, he has been playing the piano since he was six years old, and arranging, composing, and performing professionally since he was twelve. A 10x Pinetop Perkins Best Blues Instrumentalist Award nominee, he has played almost every major club and festival in the United States as well as venues in Brazil, France, Norway, Italy, Japan, Australia, and more. A New York Times review of a performance at the Jazz Standard described Butler as “percussive in his attack, ostentatious with his technique— the picture of stubborn mischief — and, not coincidentally, of New Orleans pianism.....

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Considered the premier exponent of the great New Orleans jazz and blues piano tradition, Henry Butler’s music is a rich amalgam of jazz, Caribbean, classical, pop, blues, and R&B. Blinded by glaucoma at birth, he has been playing the piano since he was six years old, and arranging, composing, and performing professionally since he was twelve. A 10x Pinetop Perkins Best Blues Instrumentalist Award nominee, he has played almost every major club and festival in the United States as well as venues in Brazil, France, Norway, Italy, Japan, Australia, and more. A New York Times review of a performance at the Jazz Standard described Butler as “percussive in his attack, ostentatious with his technique— the picture of stubborn mischief — and, not coincidentally, of New Orleans pianism... billowing whole-tone glissandi; furrowed, Monkish hiccups; boppish two-handed octaves; flare-ups of funk and Chopin.” Butler’s collaboration with retro-futurist trumpeter and bandleader Steven Bernstein and his band, the Hot 9, explores everything from early 20th century blues to thoughtful and exhilarating improvisations on the Crescent City canon, all the while using a traditional New Orleans palate as their launching point.

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