Jon Mayer Trio at Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden

Jon Mayer mixes “introspective lyricism and a hard-bop drive. He’s a strong rhythmic player with a lot of piano vocabulary.” – Kirk Silsbee, Downbeat Magazine

The World Music Series brings another jazz legend to the garden, pianist Jon Mayer.

Mayer is from the tradition of New York players who are not afraid to express strong emotions from both ends of the spectrum. He is a muscular, blues based pianist on one hand and is entirely at home with a ballad and it’s potential for tenderness. His jazz pedigree is solid, having grown up in New York City during a particularly fertile time in modern jazz evolution. Mayer is represented on a John Coltrane recording Like Sonny on Roulette and on a Jackie McLean Prestige date called Strange Blues....

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Jon Mayer mixes “introspective lyricism and a hard-bop drive. He’s a strong rhythmic player with a lot of piano vocabulary.” – Kirk Silsbee, Downbeat Magazine

The World Music Series brings another jazz legend to the garden, pianist Jon Mayer.

Mayer is from the tradition of New York players who are not afraid to express strong emotions from both ends of the spectrum. He is a muscular, blues based pianist on one hand and is entirely at home with a ballad and it’s potential for tenderness. His jazz pedigree is solid, having grown up in New York City during a particularly fertile time in modern jazz evolution. Mayer is represented on a John Coltrane recording Like Sonny on Roulette and on a Jackie McLean Prestige date called Strange Blues.

He also spent time in the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Band, and had road assignments with Dionne Warwick, Sarah Vaughan, Anita O’Day and Manhattan Transfer. Mayer’s compositions have been recorded by Les McAnn, Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra, Nancy Wilson, Gladys Knight, Ernie Watts and Jackie Ryan.

Recordings under his own name date from 1996 to the present with nine Jon Mayer Trio releases plus the solo "Live" CD called The Art of the Ballad. Most recently is Jon Mayer Trio Live at the Atheneaum.

Visitors are asked not to park on Arlington Drive or any of the surrounding residential streets. It is the garden's efforts to be a good neighbor that allows it to operate in a residential zone. On Sundays, most convenient is the parking lot on Madeline Drive that we share with a nearby school. From there it is just a short walk on the sidewalk around the block to the garden.

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