Wil Blades, Nicholas Payton and Otis McDonald

Description

Wil Blades 

No less a jazz organ authority than the legendary Dr. Lonnie Smith has called Wil Blades “the future,” anointing him the heir apparent to “carry on the legend [and] the legacy of the organ, of the B-3.” Over the past twenty years, Blades has grown to be one of the most in-demand Hammond organ players, achieving international recognition. In 2017, Blades won Downbeat Magazine’s “Rising Star” critic’s poll for organ, after being nominated every year since 2006. Blades has performed and recorded with a who’s who of legendary musicians including John Lee Hooker, John Scofield, Nicholas Payton, Idris Muhammad, Charlie Hunter, Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, Terrace Martin, Melvin Sparks, Joe Louis Walker, Donald Harrison Jr, Karl Denson, Jason Marsalis, Adam Deitch, Stanton Moore and many more. 

Nicholas Payton

As a leading voice in American popular music, the Grammy Award-winning Nicholas Payton is a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, composer, producer, arranger, essayist, and social activist who defies musical and artistic categories. All the while, he honors the tradition of what he terms “postmodern New Orleans music,” as well as the spirit of Black American Music, of which he states, “There are no fields, per se. There are lineages.”

Otis McDonald

From the mind and ears of producer/multi-instrumentalist, Joe Bagale, comes a sound that is fresh but tangibly rooted in nostalgia. The name is Otis McDonald. The mission? Good Music. In 2015, Bagale released 80 tracks for free, under the name Otis McDonald. In 2019 Bagale released a full length album, “People Music,” in collaboration with his YouTube subscribers and took over Studio D at the historic Hyde Street Studios, in San Francisco. Whether it’s performing, writing, producing, or coming up with new ways to engage with his fans, Otis McDonald plans on giving the world a dose of the past while always looking to the future.