The Jazz Gallery: Sasha Berliner

The Jazz Gallery
1158 Broadway, 5th Fl.
New York, NY 10001

Sets at 7:30pm and 9:30pm

The show involves a new instrumentation that Sasha has not yet explored in live settings, so it will end up as an inventive experiment in sound and collaboration. Sasha will be debuting new music from her upcoming third studio album, as well as brand new compositions that have yet to be recorded. It is best described as contemporary jazz meets warped tape loops and modular effects.

Sasha Berliner is a musician, composer, producer, and band leader from San Francisco, CA. Sasha got her major start on the NYC scene, shortly after moving there to attend The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music, when she debuted at NYC Winter Jazz Fest in 2018, followed soon after by Atlanta Jazz Fest and Burlington Jazz Fest in the same year. Sasha was the also first US recipient of the LetterOne “Rising Stars” Jazz Award in 2019, where she headlined 10 reputable jazz festival throughout the U.S. And Canada. This gave Sasha her her first official foray in to touring as a band leader and facilitated the creation of her debut album, “Azalea” (2019). Shortly after, Sasha was named the 2020 Downbeat Critics’ Poll winner of the “Rising Star – Vibraphone” category. She was both the first woman, and at 21, was the youngest individual in the poll’s history to be granted the win. This is also around the time Sasha first performed with musicians such as Nicholas Payton and Tyshawn Sorey, who later recorded that sextet on an album entitled “Unfiltered” (2019). Sasha’s music work remains primarily based in New York City and Los Angeles after receiving her Bachelor’s degree from The New School. She has gone on to headline international venues like Newport Jazz Festival, The Blue Note, Portland Jazz Festival, Xjazz Berlin Jazz Festival, Transition Festival in Utrecht, and Monterey Jazz Festival. She has also commissioned works for Modern Marimba (Sarasota, FL) and the SWR NewJAZZ Meeting (Baden-Baden, Germany) as artist in residence for fall 2021, which resulted in her suite of live music entitled “Tabula Rasa”. In addition to performing with her own band, her recent notable performances have been with musicians such as Christian McBride, Justin Brown, Marcus Gilmore, Gerald Clayton, Pedro Martins, and Cecile McLorin Salvant. She was a guest lecturer at esteemed universities like University of Champaign-Illinois, UC San Diego, Berklee College of Music, and University of Denver, before taking a part time position teaching Jazz Ensemble and Composition at University of California Irvine and California University of the Arts. Her last studio album, “Onyx”, featuring musicians such as Jaleel Shaw and James Francies, was released on JMI Recordings under the partial guidance of Steve Mandel, the music director for The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and past producer/engineer at Electric Lady Studios. The album was #1 on Jazzwise’s “Charting the Jazz Message” chart and Bandcamp Daily for best jazz albums of November 2022, Editor’s Pick for Jazzis, and voted one of the best jazz albums of the year by UK Vibe, Textura, Jazz Vinyl Collector, the 17th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Poll, and Jazzis (honorable mention). Sasha has been awarded grants from NYFA, Mid Atlantic Arts’s Jazz Road, University of California Irvine, and The Louis Armstrong Foundation to fund her ongoing artistic endeavors. She is currently working on her third studio album, “Axial”, which encompasses her dual influence of the west and east coast jazz scenes and delves into new post production techniques and electronic infusions more than her past two studio albums.