COUNTDOWN 2027 COLTRANE FESTIVAL X: James Carter Quintet

*PLEASE NOTE: All 6:00PM and 8:00PM shows at Smoke are Dinner Shows

$25.00 / $40.00 / $50.00 / $55.00 – Mon, Tue, Wed, Fri, Sun

$25.00 / $50.00 / $60.00 / $65.00 – Sat

James Carter – saxophones

Stacy Dillard – tenor & soprano saxophones

Sharp Radway – piano

Hilliard Greene – bass

Khalil Kwame Bell – drums

“One of the most muscular and forceful players in jazz history.” – Oakland Tribune

Smoke’s 14th annual Coltrane Festival, Countdown 2027, comes to a close with its final week, as Detroit saxophone powerhouse James Carter leads a hard-swinging quintet to bring the festival home in the new year.

A master of the entire saxophone family, from soprano to bass, Carter first made his name as a teenage stand-in for Lester Bowie and went on to work with Wynton Marsalis, Herbie Hancock, Christian McBride, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and his cousin, violinist Regina Carter. He has won DownBeat’s Critics and Readers polls for baritone saxophone in several consecutive years, and even appeared on screen as Ben Webster in Robert Altman’s Kansas City. TIME praised his “sweet, sinuous tone,” while the Los Angeles Times noted he can also play “with a surprisingly soft and tender sound.”

Carter is joined on the front line by fellow tenor saxophonist Stacy Dillard, setting up a two-tenor summit in the tradition of the great tenor battles. Dillard moved to New York in 2002, shortly after Wynton Marsalis heard him at a Cincinnati jam session and told him, “Man, you can play.” He has since become a fixture of the New York scene, working with pianists Eric Reed and Cyrus Chestnut and drummer Willie Jones III, among many others.