Jasper Dutz

Jasper Dutz is a woodwind player and composer based in New York City, best known as the lead alto saxophonist in Arturo O'Farrill's Grammy-winning Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra. Raised in Los Angeles, he began on the clarinet at age seven and later attended the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts before graduating from the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music on a full scholarship, where he studied with Lee Konitz, Reggie Workman, and Jane Ira Bloom. As a bandleader he released Ever After in 2023, a set of American Songbook standards, followed by Jiji's Song in 2024, a project drawing on his Japanese heritage to blend traditional Japanese harmony with jazz improvisation. He co-leads the Harlem-based Three Hunters Trio and has performed or recorded with Nels Cline, Lenny Pickett, Jon Batiste, and Ron Carter.