Hailing from a storied New Orleans musical dynasty, trumpeter Chief Adjuah has fully embraced his world-shaking heritage. Formerly known as Christian Scott, he’s a masterly improviser, stylistically venturesome composer, and far-seeing conceptualist whose improvisation-laced sound is deeply inspired by West African forms. The grandson of legendary Big Chief Donald Harrison Sr., a leader of the Mardi Gras Indians whose knowledge of Black New Orleans culture was unrivaled, and nephew of alto saxophone jazz innovator and NEA Jazz Master Big Chief Donald Harrison Jr., Chief Adjuah is steeped in jazz history and tradition. Over the past decade, he’s explored astonishingly beautiful new realms of African-inspired sound, what he calls “Stretch Music,” while also designing and playing several ground-breaking new harp-like instruments, the Adjuah’s Bow and Adjuah’s N’Goni. In the New Orleans tradition, he approaches jazz as inextricably bound to a capacious continuum of social and ritual music, a sound and sensibility that has attracted artists such as Prince, Thom Yorke, McCoy Tyner, Marcus Miller, Eddie Palmieri, and Mos Def (who’ve all featured him on projects). As much as any artist in jazz, he represents the music’s power to uplift people, transmitting essential values via rhythmic alchemy and melodic invention.

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