Julian Gerstin Sextet at Milford Arts Council

About

Global jazz with lively Caribbean drums and sparkling trumpet, velvety clarinet and muscular piano.

Julian Gerstin has spent a lifetime playing music of the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, and the U.S. — funk, R&B, and jazz, from jazz’s New Orleans origins to the avant-garde. Gerstin founded the Sextet to bring his wide range of instruments and influences to a jazz setting, where they serve as a platform for his fellow musicians’ creativity.

The group includes five of New England’s most creative talents: the electrifying clarinet virtuoso Anna Patton; versatile trumpeter Don Anderson; pianist Eugene Uman, who like Julian ranges across traditions and from funky grooves to experimentalism; bassist Wes Brown, whose career spans gigs with early jazz master Earl “Fatha” Hines to avant-gardists like Wadada Leo Smith and Anthony Braxton; Ben James, who was John Tchicai’s drummer for several years and can both swing and go “out there.”