Jeff "tain" Watts at Allentown Jazzfest at West Park

Through an exciting new partnership with Radio Ola 99.5FM and The City of Allentown, our JazzFest at Noches de Ritmo event will feature 5 TIME GRAMMY WINNER Jeff “Tain” Watts and his quartet.

This performance is FREE to the public and will be held weather permitting.

Jeff “Tain” Watts is an acclaimed jazz musician, drummer and composer based in Easton, Pennsylvania. With 5 GRAMMY awards on his resume, Jeff has had a lengthy recording career as a sideman to many prominent jazz artists, including both Wynton and Branford Marsalis.

His compositional skills now command equal attention. Jeff initially majored in classical percussion at Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University, where he was primarily a timpanist, followed by enrollment at the Berklee School of Music. Jeff joined the Wynton Marsalis Quartet in 1981 and proceeded to win three Grammy Awards with the ensemble: Black Codes From The Underground, J Mood and Marsalis Standard Time. Watts left Wynton Marsalis in 1988. After working with George Benson, Harry Connick. Jr. and McCoy Tyner, he joined the Branford Marsalis Quartet in 1989, winning Grammys for I Heard You Twice the First Time and Contemporary Jazz....

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Through an exciting new partnership with Radio Ola 99.5FM and The City of Allentown, our JazzFest at Noches de Ritmo event will feature 5 TIME GRAMMY WINNER Jeff “Tain” Watts and his quartet.

This performance is FREE to the public and will be held weather permitting.

Jeff “Tain” Watts is an acclaimed jazz musician, drummer and composer based in Easton, Pennsylvania. With 5 GRAMMY awards on his resume, Jeff has had a lengthy recording career as a sideman to many prominent jazz artists, including both Wynton and Branford Marsalis.

His compositional skills now command equal attention. Jeff initially majored in classical percussion at Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University, where he was primarily a timpanist, followed by enrollment at the Berklee School of Music. Jeff joined the Wynton Marsalis Quartet in 1981 and proceeded to win three Grammy Awards with the ensemble: Black Codes From The Underground, J Mood and Marsalis Standard Time. Watts left Wynton Marsalis in 1988. After working with George Benson, Harry Connick. Jr. and McCoy Tyner, he joined the Branford Marsalis Quartet in 1989, winning Grammys for I Heard You Twice the First Time and Contemporary Jazz.

In the film and television industry Jeff has appeared as both a musician on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno and as an actor, Rhythm Jones in Spike Lee’s “Mo Better Blues”. Jeff joined Kenny Garrett’s band after returning to New York in 1995 and continued to record and tour with Branford Marsalis as well as Danilo Perez, Michael Brecker, Betty Carter, Kenny Kirkland, Courtney Pine, Geri Allen, Alice Coltrane, Greg Osby, McCoy Tyner, Steve Coleman, Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Harry Connick Jr, and Ravi Coltrane.

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