Jazz Gallery Mentoring Series: Charles Altura & Jonathan Paik at Black Squirrel Club

Charles Altura: guitar
Jonathan Paik: piano
Harish Raghavan: bass
Jeremy Dutton: drums

Charles Altura, with his distinctive voice and innovative approach, blending traditional jazz with contemporary inflections, has secured a place as one of the most influential guitarists of his time. The Grammy-nominated artist was identified early by the New York Times as a "blazingly precise young guitarist" hailed for his "quicksilver technique".

Originally from the San Francisco Bay area, after graduating from Stanford University with a degree in Anthropology, he quickly became known for his work with Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Terence Blanchard (including the Oscar-nominated soundtrack for “The BlacKkKlansman”), Ambrose Akinmusire and Tom Harrell. He has also toured and/or recorded with Tigran Hamasyan, Christian McBride, Ravi Coltrane, Jeff Ballard, Aaron Parks, Dayna Stephens and Thundercat. Charles is known for his effortless fluidity on guitar and is a much sought-after recording artist....

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Charles Altura: guitar
Jonathan Paik: piano
Harish Raghavan: bass
Jeremy Dutton: drums

Charles Altura, with his distinctive voice and innovative approach, blending traditional jazz with contemporary inflections, has secured a place as one of the most influential guitarists of his time. The Grammy-nominated artist was identified early by the New York Times as a "blazingly precise young guitarist" hailed for his "quicksilver technique".

Originally from the San Francisco Bay area, after graduating from Stanford University with a degree in Anthropology, he quickly became known for his work with Chick Corea, Stanley Clarke, Terence Blanchard (including the Oscar-nominated soundtrack for “The BlacKkKlansman”), Ambrose Akinmusire and Tom Harrell. He has also toured and/or recorded with Tigran Hamasyan, Christian McBride, Ravi Coltrane, Jeff Ballard, Aaron Parks, Dayna Stephens and Thundercat. Charles is known for his effortless fluidity on guitar and is a much sought-after recording artist.

Jonathan Paik is a Los Angeles-born, New York-based pianist and composer. Having been heard with the likes of Michael Formanek, Jahnvi Madan, David Binney, Alfredo Colon, Joe Morris, and Charles Downs, he plays to unconditionally uplift the music and people around him.

About The Jazz Gallery Mentoring Series

Mentorship has always been a key theme in jazz history. Most of today’s great jazz musicians were raised through informal channels and gained invaluable experience working alongside their heroes. Future generations of great jazz will depend on the continuation of this community-minded mentoring tradition that is, unfortunately, becoming less common as jazz education has become more formalized in conservatory and university settings.

The Jazz Gallery developed its Mentorship Program to cultivate a group of senior-level jazz musicians as mentors and to provide aspiring musicians with the opportunity to learn the music and business of jazz under the guidance of their contemporary heroes.

These young musicians will have the opportunity to learn by preparing for and performing in 4 concerts that are booked as a mini-tour, which will provide mentees with the opportunity to deepen their creative practice and performance skills. This will also teach mentees more practical skills of being working artists—skills set that are not taught in conservatory classrooms.

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