Lance Bryant

Biography

Jazz saxophonist and vocalist Lance Bryant is known in the jazz community as a skillful and thoughtful saxophonist and arranger. Lance is also very much a vocalist at heart, having grown up singing in church and later on the New York swing scene. He presents very personal, soulful and imaginative interpretations of jazz standards and original material. Lance has been touring and recording with some of the finest musicians of the New York/New Jersey area for over twenty five years. He has traveled extensively with Phyllis Hyman, Jon Hendricks, Pete "LaRocca" Sims, Wallace Roney, Abdulah Ibrahim, Bootsy Collins, and James Williams, Count Basie Orchestra and served as principal arranger and musical director of the Lionel Hampton Orchestra. Lance’s music is often tinged with the sound and spirit of Gospel music, an extension of his background. His recordings a solo artist include Psalm (2002), Testify! (2002), Count It All Joy (2006) and As For Me and My House (2008).

"That Lance Bryant is a gifted saxophonist and arranger, there was never any doubt. But his music, most written and sung by him, shows that his talents far exceed that of mere horn playing and arranging."

-James McBride, writer and jazz musician

"The greatest achievement of a jazz musician is to transcend the idiom; to get to a place where the music one writes or performs is not considered jazz per se, but rather great music and great performance with a jazz sensibility. Lance's first steps toward that lofty goal is the beginning of a new sound."

-Branford Marsalis, (from the CD "Psalm" notes)

Background photo by Dion Tucker

Lance plays Jody Jazz mouthpieces. — **Lance plays Jody Jazz m**outhpieces.

Lance endorses RS Berkeley saxophones