*PLEASE NOTE: All 7PM and 9PM shows at Smoke are Dinner Shows $25 | $40 | $50 | $55 Christian Sands – piano Marvin Sewell – guitar Eric Wheeler – bass Ryan Sands – drums “In addition to being a technically adroit, harmonically sophisticated player, Sands is one of the most profoundly rhythmic young pianists in jazz today.” – Downbeat Pianist and composer Christian Sands celebrates his new release, Embracing Dawn, with a stunning quartet featuring guitarist Marvin Sewell, bassist Eric Wheeler, and drummer Ryan Sands. An emerging jazz force, Sands has collaborated with jazz luminaries such as Christian McBride, Gregory Porter, Geri Allen, Esperanza Spaulding, and Warren Wolf, among many others. His virtuosic technique and compelling musical vision encompass and reexamine the entire language of jazz. Whether it’s stride, swing, bebop, progressive, fusion, Brazilian, or Afro-Cuban, he expresses himself through an extensive vocabulary of patterns, textures, and structures, all the while maintaining a strong sense of understatement, sensitivity, taste, and swing — hallmarks for as long as he has been playing. The Boston Globe calls Sands “a fabulously gifted instrumentalist, a piano protege of Dr. Billy Taylor, Geri Allen, Jason Moran, and Vijay Iyer.”