David Weiss Sextet

A master trumpeter and composer known for spearheading several vital ensembles including the all-star veteran band The Cookers, David Weiss settles in for two sets in the Joe Henderson Lab with his sextet on the heels of the release of his newest Origin Records album Auteur. 

A Queens native who began on keyboards at 10 before moving to trumpet at 13, Weiss found his way to jazz while in college, embracing free jazz and the avant-garde before studies at University of North Texas brought a return to New York and work with the likes of pianist Jaki Byard, vocalist Abbey Lincoln, and trumpeter Freddie Hubbard, among many others. 

Weiss has founded a procession of visionary ensembles since the 1990s, including the New Jazz Composers Octet, Endangered Species, and The Cookers — the ongoing band of greats he formed in 2007 — and for this engagement he revisits his enduring Sextet project. 

Weiss’s 2024 release with the group, Auteur, features saxophonists Nicole Glover and Myron Walden, pianist David Bryant, bassist Eric Wheeler, and drummer E.J. Strickland, who has been a collaborator with Weiss since his 2001 leader debut Breathing Room. Auteur presents a tour-de-force program of originals along with interpretations of the work of Freddie Hubbard and Slide Hampton.