Mentorship has always been a key theme in jazz history. Most of today’s great jazz musicians were raised through informal channels and gained invaluable experience working alongside their heroes. Future generations of great jazz will depend on the continuation of this community-minded mentoring tradition that is, unfortunately, becoming less common as jazz education has become more formalized in conservatory and university settings.
The Jazz Gallery developed its Mentorship Program to cultivate a group of senior-level jazz musicians as mentors and to provide aspiring musicians with the opportunity to learn the music and business of jazz under the guidance of their contemporary heroes.
These young musicians will have the opportunity to learn by preparing for and performing in 4 concerts that are booked as a mini-tour, which will provide mentees with the opportunity to deepen their creative practice and performance skills. This will also teach mentees more practical skills of being working artists—skills set that are not taught in conservatory classrooms.
Mentors, along with their regular collaborators, will work with their mentees to prepare the young artists for four professional performances that will be presented at The Jazz Gallery and our partnering presenters in the NY, CT, and PA area. Mentees are thrown into unknown and high-level musical situations surrounded by senior-level artists. With guidance from their mentors, mentees will develop not only their musicianship, but also learn about managing their career in music and about professional conduct.
Personnel:
Tim Berne – Saxophone
Tyler Bullock II – Piano
John Hebert – Bass
Tim Angulo – Drums
About the artists:
Tim Berne
Tim Berne has been declared “a saxophonist and composer of granite conviction” by The New York Times. Acclaim for the first, eponymous ECM album from Berne’s quartet Snakeoil came from far and wide, with The Guardian calling it “an object lesson in balancing composition, improvisation and the tonal resources of an acoustic band.”With the release of his second ECM album, Shadow Man, All About Jazz affirmed Snakeoil as “Berne’s most impressively cohesive group yet.”). You’ve Been Watching Me, saw Berne leading a quintet version of Snakeoil, adding guitarist Ryan Ferreira to the core group with Matt Mitchell, Oscar Noriega and Ches Smith.
Since learning at the elbow of St. Louis master Julius Hemphill in the ’70s, the Syracuse, New York-born Berne has built an expansive discography as a leader. In his pace-setting ensembles over the past few decades, he has worked with a who’s who of improvisers, including Joey Baron, Django Bates, Jim Black, Nels Cline. Mark Dresser, Marc Ducret, Michael Formanek, Drew Gress, Ethan Iverson, Dave King, Herb Robertson, Chris Speed, Steve Swell, Bobby Previte, Hank Roberts, Tom Rainey and Craig Taborn. As a sideman, Berne has made ECM appearances on recent albums by Formanek (The Rub and Spare Change; Small Places) and David Torn (prezens). The New York Times summed him up by saying: “Few musicians working in or around jazz over the last 30 years have developed an idiomatic signature more distinctive than Tim Berne.”
Tyler Bullock II
Tyler Bullock II is a dynamic pianist and composer located in New York City. Since moving from Nashville to attend the Juilliard School, where he earned his BM in 2025, Tyler has already established himself as one of the most promising pianists of his generation, having worked with Samara Joy, Sean Jones, Dee Dee Bridgewater, The Baylor Project, Herlin Riley, Willie Jones III, Sherman Irby, Ulysses Owens Jr., Bruce Williams, Curtis Lundy, Roy Hargrove Crisol and The Roy Hargrove Big Band – where he has been the regular pianist since 2022. In 2023, Tyler recorded an album with Ulysses Owens Jr.’s Gen Y Band at Rudy Van Gelder studio that spent 8 weeks at #1 on the Jazz Radio Charts.
Tyler has toured internationally and played at top festivals and venues like Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center, The Newport Jazz Festival, Monterey Jazz Festival, The Jacksonville Jazz Festival, Caramoor Jazz Festival, The Vancouver Jazz Festival, Blue Note NYC & Tokyo, Dizzy’s Club NYC, and The Cotton Club in Tokyo.
Regularly leading his own band, Tyler often plays in venues around New York City such as The Jazz Gallery, Smalls, Mezzrow, Dizzy’s, and Ornithology. While his trio serves as the foundation for most of Tyler’s performances, he frequently collaborates with horn players and vocalists to bring into fruition the full range of color that he hears while writing his original compositions. Intending to combine the lineage of jazz with his own fresh perspective, Tyler weaves powerful musical narratives in his compositions that serve as a framework for his group to unleash their creativity.
In 2022, Tyler was honored at the National Young Arts top winner in jazz piano. He was also chosen for Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra Jazz in 2021 and for the NYO Jazz All-Stars in 2023. In 2024, he was selected to participate in the acclaimed Betty Carter Jazz Ahead program at The Kennedy Center.
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