NYC’s unique jazz prayer service, Sundays at 5 since 1965. All are welcome. Free to attend!

ABOUT MEGUMI YONEZAWA (piano)

Megumi Yonezawa is from Hokkaido, Japan. She began studying classical piano at the age of six. She graduated from Berklee College of Music with a degree in both Performance and Jazz Composition. After her graduation from Berklee, Megumi received a scholarship from Japan as a trainee of the Hokkaido Cultural Foundation’s Overseas Artist Training. With her scholarship, she had the opportunity to further her research of Jazz in the United States.

After her graduation, she was recommended by Jason Moran and became the regular pianist for saxophonist Greg Osby and acquired countless performance experiences at prominent clubs and festivals such as the Village Vanguard, Carnegie Hall, Montreal Jazz Festival, North Sea Jazz Festival, Umbria Jazz Festival, Rochester International Jazz Festival and Trondheim JazzFest. Megumi plays on Greg Osby’s Blue Note Records album “Public“. The album features Nicholas Payton, Robert Hurst, Rodney Green and Joan Osborne.

Other projects as a side woman, she played on vibraphonist Mike Pinto’s album “Little Green Men,” released on Steeplechase Records in 2010. Megumi also plays on guitarist Jostein Gulbrandsen’s “Looking Ahead” released in 2018 on the Norwegian record label Curling Legs Records. The group played at Trondheim JazzFest in Norway, Rochester International Jazz Festival and Nordic Jazz Festival In Washington DC.

In 2016, Megumi released her first album as a leader titled “A Result of the Colors” with bassist John Hébert and drummer Eric McPherson on the prestigious record label Fresh Sound New Talent. She received the highest ranking, 5 stars from All About Jazz reviewer Tyran Grillo. In 2018 Megumi’s trio was invited to play at the Rochester International Jazz Festival where she also did a solo piano performance. She is also became a member of a trio with drummer Ken Kobayashi and bassist Masa Kamaguchi. They released the first album “Boundary” in 2018 for the record label ESP-Disk. “Boundary” received a 4 star review in Downbeat.

Most recently, she has released her second leader album, “Resonance” with bassist Mike McGuirk and drummer Mark Ferber on Sunnyside Records on May 27th, 2022.

ABOUT THOMAS MORGAN (bass)

Bassist Thomas Morgan began playing the cello at 7, eventually switching to upright-bass at 14. In 2003 he received his bachelor’s degree in Music from the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied with Harvie Swartz and Garry Diall. He has also studied briefly with Ray Brown and Peter Herbert. Morgan has worked with David Binney, Steve Coleman, Joey Baron, Josh Roseman, Brad Shepik, Steve Cardenas, Timuçin Şahin, Kenny Wollesen, Gerald Cleaver, Adam Rogers and Kenny Werner.[1] He has also collaborated with Jakob Bro, Dan Tepfer, Jim Black, John Abercrombie, and Masabumi Kikuchi, and he has performed with the Sylvie Courvoisier-Mark Feldman Quartet.

Morgan was featured prominently on the 2017 ECM album Small Town in a duet setting with guitarist Bill Frisell. The album documents a 2016 live performance at the Village Vanguard.

In 2014, Morgan’s own trio, featuring keyboardist Pete Rende and drummer Dan Weiss, was reviewed in the New York Times by jazz critic Ben Ratliff, who called Morgan, “a jazz musician whose presence in a recording or a performance almost automatically [makes] it worth your time.”