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Known for his adventurous, genre-bending jazz,
Logan Richardson is an American-born, Paris-based alto saxophonist. He has been a professional musician since he was 16, and came to wider recognition after moving to New York and issuing his 2007 debut, the post-bop-influenced
Cerebral Flow. He has performed with a variety of jazz musicians including
Joe Chambers,
Billy Hart, Butch Morris,
Greg Osby,
Stefon Harris,
the World Saxophone Quartet,
Arthur Blythe, and
Jason Moran. He is also a member of
the Next Collective. While he is well versed in the jazz tradition, he has proven to be an eclectic, forward-thinking artist whose albums like 2015's
Shift (which featured guitarist
Pat Metheny) and 2018's
Blues People showcase his love of mixing jazz with searing rock fusion, hip-hop, electronic rhythms, and Americana.
Richardson was born in 1980 in Kansas City, Missouri. His parents were both avid music fans who collected recordings ranging from vintage soul and R&B to Motown, funk, pop, rock, and gospel. He began formal musical education on the flute at the age of 12. At 14 he added alto saxophone while at the Paseo Academy of Fine and Performing Arts. His first exposure to jazz was seeing
Max Roach live at the American Jazz Museum. While in high school he studied with visiting artists including
Kenny Burrell,
Frank Foster,
Houston Person,
Max Roach,
Shirley Scott,
Clark Terry, and
Bobby Watson.
Richardson also took advantage of jazz courses such as Jazz at Aspen, where he encountered
Ray Brown,
Bobby Hutcherson,
Christian McBride, and
Renee Rosnes. At age 16 he began performing professionally -- including a gig with
Jay McShann. At 19, he left Kansas City, first for the Berklee College of Music in Boston, and then for New York City's New School University. In New York he studied with
Hart,
Greg Tardy, and
Chambers as well as privately with
Gary Bartz and
Vincent Herring, among others. He began leading his own group in 2005. That same year he appeared on
Chambers'
The Outlaw. In 2006, he was a member of
Tardy's studio band on Steps of Faith.
Richardson's debut as a bandleader was with
Cerebral Flow, issued in 2007 by Fresh Sound, New Talent. It was followed a year later by Ethos on Inner Circle Music. He has been a member of drummer
Nasheet Waits' (who appeared on Ethos) band
Equality since 2009. In 2011,
Richardson played on
Hart's universally acclaimed Sixty-Eight. In addition to playing music, he taught at clinics in New York. In 2013, the
Next Collective issued
Cover Art on Concord Jazz. The same year,
Richardson contributed to
Gerald Clayton's album
Life Forum.
The saxophonist began to split his time between N.Y.C. and Paris, France, but made the European city his home base in 2014. He signed with Blue Note in 2015 and enlisted an all-star group to appear on his debut for the label: it included
Waits on drums, bassist
Harish Raghavan,
Jason Moran on piano and Rhodes, and
Pet Metheny on guitar. Entitled
Shift, it was released in early 2016.
Richardson's fourth album as a leader, the sonically expansive
Blues People, arrived in 2018. ~ Thom Jurek