New Jazz Underground

New Jazz Underground, an American trio, have been described as “an innovative and ultra creative collective striving to establish themselves as a defining voice for the genre of Jazz and beyond”. Their music signals a merging of traditional sensibilities in Jazz with the modern influence of swing, hip-hop, house/afro-beat, and afro-cuban music. Listeners were introduced to the trio’s undeniably fresh sound through viral videos of the band performing in their living room. Millions viewed videos such as: “they can hate but we still swingin’”, “f**k/s**t/c**t/jazz”, “sad boy jazz”, as well as many others featuring the band's exuberant chemistry, effortless musicality, and raw ambition in sound.

Abdias Armenteros (Saxophonist/Composer), Sebastian Rios (Bassist/Composer), TJ Reddick (Drummer) have each been lauded as some of Jazz's most promising young artists in their own right. After meeting while students at The Juilliard School, the trio began playing in the parks of NYC during lock-down in 2020. They shortly began posting to their Youtube channel that has since grown to over 85k+ subscribers. Releases such as “MF Doom Suite”, “Harlem to Havana”, and “cook/swing/work/relax” fully demonstrate the trio's reverence towards Jazz's icons, yet still contend in a vision to establish their own voice in the expression of new sounds that transcend genre lines. New Jazz Underground is the 2023 DCJazzPrix™ Winner. Rios is a 2024 ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award Winner. Both Reddick (BM’ 20) and Armenteros (MM’ 22) are Juillard School Graduates. Armenteros is the youngest member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. Reddick and Rios have played as sidemen for the likes of Jon Batiste, Sullivan Fortner, Emmet Cohen, and ELEW, among many more. Rios is a long-time student of the legendary bassist, Ron Carter. The group most recently was featured on NPR Music for their release “Cook/Swing/Work/Relax.”

The trio not only performs, but boast their composition and production skills across a variety of mediums. Rios was a featured composer for the 2019 “New Dances”, the first ever collaboration between the Jazz and Dance divisions at The Juilliard School. He was also commissioned by Jazz at Lincoln Center to write a Suite to be performed by the trio at the 2023 Caramoor Jazz Fest. Rios’ compositions for the collective bring forth each member’s sound in a way that transcends the sum of their individual efforts. These gestures of collective musical identity are made real through the vehicle of composition tailored to each member’s unbridled talent, inspiring skill set, and transformative emotion. Creating a new standard for Jazz presentation through their online videos, New Jazz Underground have blazed a path for young Jazz musicians in the modern music landscape. Each video is produced independently, all video and music production are done in-house. Their videos attract millions of music fans through their seemingly clickbait presentation. However, when audiences click they are met with an authentic musical expression steeped in both modernism and tradition that provides a soulful perspective to a deeper world of music. Listeners who wouldn’t normally enjoy Jazz are brought into the music creatively through young artists who are dedicating their lives to its legacy and promise of new creative paths.

NJU has a keen interest in helping students, not much younger than themselves, to develop a deeper understanding of Jazz music and the elements surrounding the creative process. Armenteros, Rios, and Reddick each have their own student studios as well as years of experience teaching students from middle school through college in topics such as Jazz history, theory, and application. Rios developed the program, “Creative Video in Modern Music” to teach intermediate to advanced Jazz students to produce their own music, and have a better understanding of the modern media landscape. Dynamic and powerful performers, New Jazz Underground possess far-reaching talents that are re-energizing the contemporary music world from the inside out. They dedicate themselves to the music continually and serve as a burgeoning benchmark for the future of Jazz to come.