Jeremy Pelt

Jeremy Pelt, a passionate trumpeter recognized for his warm timbre and agile improvisational approach, unites an extensive command of jazz heritage with an exploratory strain of post-bop. Emerging in the early 2000s, he drew acclaim and drew parallels to Freddie Hubbard and Lee Morgan through several straight-ahead acoustic recordings such as 2002’s Profile and 2008’s November. Over time he evolved into a richly layered artist whose aesthetic freely incorporates 1970s fusion, funk, and Latin elements, heard on 2013’s Water and Earth and 2014’s Face Forward, Jeremy, alongside his own polished modern-jazz leanings, evident on 2016’s #Jiveculture, 2021’s Griot: This Is Important!, and 2022’s Soundtrack. Standards and ballads nevertheless stay central to his output, demonstrated by the continuing series The Art of Intimacy, Vol. 1 and The Art of Intimacy, Vol. 2: His Muse.

Born November 4, 1976 in Southern California, Pelt took up the trumpet in elementary school with a classical focus. Only after entering his high-school jazz band did he develop a strong desire to shift direction and commit to jazz professionally. That path led him to Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he studied jazz improvisation and film scoring and received his B.A. in professional music. After graduation he performed and recorded with leading figures including Roy Hargrove, Ravi Coltrane, Greg Osby, Cassandra Wilson, and the Mingus Big Band. His first album as leader, Profile, appeared on Fresh Sound in 2002; Insight followed a year later on Criss Cross.

Between 2003 and 2008 he issued several Maxjazz releases—the orchestral-tinged Close to My Heart, Identity, Shock Value: Live at Smoke, and November—each highlighting his expanding trumpet command and taste for forward-looking, harmonically daring post-bop and modal jazz. In 2010 he moved to High Note for Men of Honor, an album shaped by Miles Davis’s classic mid-’60s quintet work; his own quintet, featuring saxophonist J.D. Allen, pianist Danny Grissett, bassist Dwayne Burno, and drummer Gerald Cleaver, provided support. The same ensemble reconvened for the similarly oriented The Talented Mr. Pelt in 2011 and Soul in 2012.

With 2013’s Water and Earth, Pelt began reshaping his sound, embracing funk, Brazilian traditions, and electronic textures while assembling a new group with pianist David Bryant, saxophonist Roxy Coss, bassist Burniss Earl Travis, and drummer Dana Hawkins. A comparable lineup with Bryant and Coss also appeared on the forward-thinking 2014 album Face Forward, Jeremy. In 2015 he released his twelfth studio album, Tales, Musings, and Other Reveries, spotlighting a two-drummer quintet with percussionists Billy Drummond and Victor Lewis.

For 2016’s #Jiveculture, Pelt returned to a straight-ahead acoustic quartet format with Drummond, pianist Danny Grissett, and bassist Ron Carter. Small-group acoustic jazz and Afro-Latin rhythms likewise anchored 2017’s Make Noise!, featuring pianist Victor Gould, bassist Vicente Archer, drummer Jonathan Barber, and percussionist Jacquelene Acevedo.

An evocative recording titled The Artist arrived in 2019, drawing inspiration from the work of French sculptor Auguste Rodin; pianist Gould and bassist Archer were joined by guitarist Alex Wintz, vibraphonist and marimba player Chien Chien Lu, and percussionist Ismel Wignall. The next year Pelt teamed with pianist George Cables and bassist Peter Washington for the lyrical ballads collection The Art of Intimacy, Vol. 1.

The quintet album Griot: This Is Important! appeared in early 2021, presenting the trumpeter’s group solidified around vibraphonist Lu, pianist Gould, bassist Archer, and drummer Allan Mednard, and was issued alongside Pelt’s book of jazz interviews, Griot: Examining the Lives of Jazz’s Great Storytellers. The same quintet was featured a year later on Soundtrack, while the orchestral-tinged The Art of Intimacy, Vol. 2: His Muse arrived in 2023.