Mike Marcus
Bass
Ethan Ostrow
Piano
Ethan Ostrow is a Berkeley-born jazz pianist, composer, and singer, now based in Minneapolis, whose music draws on jazz, funk, rock, and hip-hop. A Manhattan School of Music graduate mentored by Stefon Harris and Phil Markowitz, he has raised more than $55,000 for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through his 'Concert for a Cure' series.
Kito Gamble
Piano
Elli Martens
Drums
Ellie Martens, who performs as Purplecat, is a drummer from Berkeley, California, known for a highly improvisational style. Martens has played with Brad Mehldau, Arturo O'Farrill, Emmanuel Michael, and Ambrose Akinmusire, and leads a group that performs original contemporary and modal jazz.
Pele Greenberg
Drums
Pele (Pele-Or) Greenberg is a Berkeley-born drummer, percussionist, and composer who graduated from The New School's jazz performance program in New York, where he studied with Andrew Cyrille, Kendrick Scott, and Rodney Green. He came up through the Berkeley High School jazz program and has performed in Northern California and New York, including with the indie rock trio Black Bones.
Willie Wertheimer
Trumpet
Steve Hogan
Bass
Steve Hogan is an Oakland-based bassist who plays in The Hogan Brothers, a jazz/funk/fusion trio with his brothers Colin (keys) and Julian (drums). The brothers grew up in the East Bay, where their parents were involved with Gamelan Sekar Jaya, and they work as sidemen for R&B, funk, hip-hop, and Latin artists.
William Harvey
Trumpet
William "Bill" Harvey is a Berkeley-born trumpeter who is principal trumpet of the Oakland Symphony and Opera San Jose and has played with the California Symphony since 1994. He studied at San Francisco State and Boston University, and teaches at UC Berkeley and the Young People's Symphony Orchestra.
Steven Schlossberg
Trombone
Daveed Diggs
Saxophone
Oakland-born Daveed Diggs, a graduate of Berkeley High and Brown University, is a rapper, actor, and writer. He created the roles of Lafayette and Jefferson in the original Broadway cast of Hamilton, earning Tony and Grammy awards, and fronts the experimental hip-hop group clipping.
Photo: Sarah K Joyce, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Diego Fernandez-Kim
Trombone
Remee Ashley
Trombone
Remee Ashley is a Berkeley-raised trombonist, composer, arranger, and educator who studied at the Manhattan School of Music (BM, MM) and the University of Southern California (doctorate). He has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Apollo Theater, and Dizzy's Club with artists such as Maria Schneider and Kurt Elling, and now leads his own quartet and mentors students in Berkeley and Oakland schools.
Leo Zurita
Piano
Alexis Angulo
Voice
Alexis Angulo was a member of Berkeley High's Jazz Combo A, which won first place in its division at the 2017 Charles Mingus High School Competition in New York.
Max Schwartz
Bass
Max (Maxwell) Schwartz is a bassist and composer who works in jazz and bluegrass. He toured for three years with Laurie Lewis and the Right Hands, was a two-time GRAMMY Jazz Combo member, played in the SFJAZZ High School All-Stars, and studied at the University of Miami Frost School of Music in the Stamps Jazz Quintet.
Laurel Fink
Saxophone
Laurel Fink is a tenor saxophonist from Berkeley, California, who graduated from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University in 2025 and works in the Bay Area and London across jazz, funk, fusion, and soul. She co-leads the Haffner/Fink Quintet and has performed with Warren Wolf, Kassa Overall, and Marcus Shelby.
Rabiah Kabir
Flute
Rabiah Kabir is a flutist from the East Bay who stretches the idea of what jazz can be, bringing a storyteller's sense to her playing. Her music is reflective and conceptual, shaped by her experience as a mixed Black woman. She traces her love of music to the records her father played while cooking in their Berkeley kitchen, from Charles Mingus and Philip Glass to Eric B. & Rakim, Toots and the Maytals, and Natacha Atlas.
Camille Kerani
Saxophone
A Berkeley High alumnus who rose through the SFJAZZ High School All-Stars program to attend UCLA, Kerani has emerged as one of the most exciting young voices in contemporary jazz, blending technical command with a fearless spirit of improvisation. Equally rooted in tradition and experimentation, Kerani represents a new generation of artists expanding jazz’s language with intelligence, emotional depth, and striking originality.
Tom Altura
Bass
NA
Brian Timar
Bass
NA
Peter Apfelbaum
Drums
As a Berkeley High senior, Peter Apfelbaum started the 17-piece Hieroglyphics Ensemble, made up mostly of classmates. Several went on to notable careers, among them pianist Benny Green, saxophonist Craig Handy, trumpeter Steven Bernstein, and, later, saxophonist Joshua Redman. The group put out its own first album, Pillars, in 1979, and Apfelbaum has since played on 78 albums as a leader or sideman.
James Small
Drums
Drummer James Small went to Willard Middle School and Berkeley High, where he played in the BHS Jazz Band. After graduating he went to Berklee School of Music in Boston. Fast forward to now, and he is known as "StickNasty," playing drums for Grammy-winning artist Fantastic Negrito. The band got nominated for a potential fourth Grammy win for the song "Oh Betty" and StickNasty is featured in the video. (He's the lead actor with the beard, and he's drumming on the side of the chicken coop.) For more about his early career, read his profile on Berkeleyside in 2016.
Elena Pinderhughes
Flute
A flutist and singer, Elena was featured in an HBO special on young musicians when she was 11. She has played at Carnegie Hall, the White House, the Kennedy Center, Monterey Jazz Festival, and Coachella, and has recorded with Herbie Hancock, Childish Gambino, Common, Lupe Fiasco, and fellow BHS Jazz alum Ambrose Akinmusire.
Here she is playing with Kenny Barron at the Montreal Jazz Fest in 2016.
Michael Aaberg
Piano
Oakland-raised Michael Louis Aaberg is an East Bay multi-instrumentalist, producer, and teacher. He has released three albums on his own Tiger's Eye Records and has toured, recorded, or produced for artists including Ambrose Akinmusire, Derrick Hodge, Lalah Hathaway, and Goapele. Drawing on Miles Davis, Stevie Wonder, Herbie Hancock, and Parliament-Funkadelic, he pairs vintage gear with a contemporary sound.
Benny Bock
Piano
El Cerrito native Benny Bock studied at Berkeley High and Oberlin Conservatory and now works in Los Angeles as a pianist, producer, songwriter, session player, and sound designer. His recording and stage credits include Feist, Sarah McLachlan, Blake Mills, Rick Rubin, Bruce Hornsby, Lucy Dacus, Sam Gendel, and Van Dyke Parks.
Colin Hogan
Piano
San Francisco-born pianist Colin Hogan played in the Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble and studied with Jazzschool founder Susan Muscarella before earning a BA in piano performance at Cal State East Bay. He has played on five continents with jazz greats including James Moody, Peter Erskine, Bob Brookmeyer, Roy Ayers, and Maria Schneider, and appeared with Larry Graham at the 2004 California Music Awards. He now plays with the Tommy Igoe Groove Conspiracy, the Jazz Mafia, and The Hogan Brothers (with his brothers Steve and Julian). He teaches at Cal State East Bay and the California Jazz Conservatory, and has taught at SFJAZZ and Longfellow Middle School.
Ben Ball
Saxophone
NA
Yanos Lustig
Saxophone
Yanos Lustig, known on stage as Johnny Bones, has played saxophone with the California Honeydrops for well over a decade and on more than 14 of the band's albums. The group blends roots music, Bay Area R&B, Southern soul, Delta blues, and New Orleans second line, and its shows are built around getting the crowd dancing and singing along.
David Murray
Saxophone
A legend of jazz, the Village Voice declared David Murray “musician of the decade” in 1980.
He is one of the most prolific artists in jazz history, releasing some 265 albums as a leader or co-leader and another 100 with other artists and groups, most importantly the World Saxophone Quartet.
He started on alto saxophone under music teacher Phil Hardymon at Longfellow Elementary School in 1965.
Joshua Redman
Saxophone
Saxophonist Joshua Redman played in the Berkeley High jazz program before winning the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition in 1991. He has led celebrated bands and recorded widely since, including for Blue Note Records, with a sound rooted in the jazz tradition but very much his own.
Paco Avila
Trombone
NA
George Gaebler
Trombone
NA
Ambrose Akinmusire
Trumpet
Oakland-born trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire was in the BHS Jazz Ensemble when saxophonist Steve Coleman heard him play. At 19, while studying at the Manhattan School of Music, he toured Europe with Coleman's Five Elements. He has since released five albums on Blue Note Records, drew strong praise from DownBeat for his debut, and played on Kendrick Lamar's 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly.