Join us for a special evening with guitarist, composer, and photographer Anthony Wilson around his book Songs and Photographs, published by Little Steidl. The book project will be introduced by Nina Holland, founder of Little Steidl, followed by a visual and sonic presentation by Wilson with musicians Joshua Crumbly and Jay Bellerose.

Anthony Wilson is a guitarist and composer known for a wide-ranging body of work that moves effortlessly across genres.

With thirteen albums to his credit, Wilson’s first recording garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Large Ensemble Jazz Recording, and was followed by the critically acclaimed “Goat Hill Junket” and “Adult Themes.” His album “Power of Nine” was included in The New Yorker’s roundup of that year’s top-ten jazz albums. The celebrated “Seasons: Live at the Metropolitan Museum of Art” documents, in music and video, the story of Wilson’s collaboration with master luthier John Monteleone on a suite of music written specifically for Monteleone’s masterpiece “Four Seasons” quartet of guitars. Recent albums “Frogtown,” “Songs and Photographs,” and “The Plan of Paris” combine his deep jazz roots with a growing dedication to the art of songcraft.

The guitarist of choice for singer/pianist Diana Krall for the past two decades, Wilson has also performed live, arranged for, and recorded with a diverse roster of artists that includes Paul McCartney, Willie Nelson, Barbra Streisand, Melody Gardot, Leon Russell, and Aaron Neville, as well as with jazz greats Charles Lloyd, Ron Carter, Bobby Hutcherson, the Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, and his father, the legendary trumpeter, composer, and bandleader Gerald Wilson.

As daunting as it may seem to describe the multi-faceted career of Joshua Crumbly in one word, you couldn’t do any better than the one he’s chosen to title his debut album: “Rise.” Since making his professional debut at age 10 alongside his saxophonist father, the gifted bassist has continued on a remarkable trajectory. With the release of “Rise,” he takes the next bold leap, unveiling a stunning, uplifting vision that embraces the full spectrum of his musical experiences.

After being mentored by such iconic bassists as Reggie Hamilton, Al McKibbon, and Victor Bailey, Crumbly went on to study at the prestigious Juilliard School. By the end of his freshman year he’d been recruited to join trumpet great Terence Blanchard, recording the acclaimed album “Magnetic.” Since then he’s recorded and toured with a staggering list of genre-blurring artists including Kamasi Washington, Lizz Wright, Stefon Harris, Ravi Coltrane, Anthony Wilson, and soul singer-songwriter Leon Bridges.

Drummer Jay Bellerose grew up the last of eight children near Portland, Maine, and as the youngest of the family was indulged an early obsession with sound and the articulation of rhythms on pots, pans and other household items. Inspired in equal measure by old TV clips of Gene Krupa and Lawrence Welk drummer Paul Humphrey, Bellerose developed an approach to drumming that is as much informed by texture and melody as by groove.

While a student at The Berklee School of Music in Boston, Bellerose had his drum kit stolen, and it is hard to over-estimate the significance of the event on his future artistry: working from a hodge-podge of drums donated by friends, Jay began to discover new sonic possibilities by assembling mismatched kit configurations that varied from song to song, setting battered marching drums and bits of arcane, vaudeville-era hand percussion devices along side more conventional modern drums. The ever-changing results revealed a signature sensibility that finds Jay compared to impressionist painters as often as to drum luminaries like Sonny Greer and Al Gavin.

Jay Bellerose has performed and recorded with a vast array of diverse artists, from Allen Toussaint and Mavis Staples to Robert Plant and Alison Krauss; from B.B. King to Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and Salif Kieta–sounding appropriately distinct in each context, yet always like himself.