2x GRAMMY® Winner & Jazz Messenger Bobby Watson

“An adroit jazz performer with an aggressive, fluid style influenced by his early years with drummer Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers” — All About Jazz

For more than three decades now, multi-GRAMMY-nominated saxophonist, composer, arranger and educator Bobby Watson has contributed consistently intelligent, sensitive and well-thought out music to the modern-day jazz lexicon. After Watson’s tenure with the Jazz Messengers that incorporated more than a dozen recordings – the most of any of the great Jazz Messengers, the gifted Watson became a much-sought after musician, working along the way with a potpourri of notable artists including, but not limited to: drummers Max Roach and Louis Hayes, fellow saxophonists George Coleman and a younger Branford Marsalis, celebrated multi-instrumentalist Sam Rivers and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. In addition to working with a variety of instrumentalists, Watson served in a supporting role for a number of distinguished and stylistically varied vocalists including Joe Williams, Dianne Reeves, Lou Rawls, Betty Carter and Carmen Lundy.

All told, Watson, the immensely talented and now-seasoned veteran, has issued some 30 recordings as a leader and appeared on 100-plus other recordings, performing as either co-leader or in support of other like-minded musicians. Not simply a performer, the saxophonist has recorded more than 100 original compositions including the music for the soundtrack of A Bronx Tale, which marked Robert DeNiro’s directorial debut. Numerous Watson compositions have become classics such as his “Time Will Tell,” “In Case You Missed It” and “Wheel within a Wheel,” each now oft-recorded titles that are interpreted by his fellow musicians both on the bandstand and on other recordings.