David Leon
About
David Leon is a Cuban-American saxophonist, woodwinds player, composer, and improviser living in Brooklyn, New York. His work is guided by a persistent search for vitality through autonomy, contradiction, hyperbole, and humor. His work with the saxophone investigates alternate methods for producing a tone, refinement of these techniques, and development of a distinct vocabulary using these sounds; he melds this timbral approach with melodic and rhythmic phrasing from Cuban folkloric traditions, narrative playing, Free Jazz & avant-garde esthetics, and microtonality to reveal a personal conceit.
David is a 2024/2025 Jerome Artist Resident at Roulette Intermedium. In 2024, he was named a Music Composition Fellow by the CINTAS Foundation and was commissioned by Roulette to support the creation of A Divine Echo, a hybrid work of chamber music and wordless puppet theatre. In 2023 and 2021, he was recognized by the New Music USA Creator Development Fund and was selected to perform alongside pianist Kris Davis as part of The Jazz Gallery’s Mentoring Series in 2018. In 2017, he was the winner of the ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer’s Award and debuted a new quartet at the Newport Jazz Festival in August of that year.
David currently leads multiple ensembles include a newly-formed quartet with Brandon Seabrook, Henry Fraser and Kayvon Gordon, Locomotive - a double horns-guitars-percussion trio co-led with Adam O’Farrill, and Thumbs - a duo with multi-reedist Yuma Uesaka. March 2024 saw the release of Bird's Eye - a woodwinds-gayagum-drumset trio recording out on Pyroclastic Records described as “stately and buoyant, intricate and sly” (The Wire) and “unlike anything else” (PostGenre). His debut album Aire de Agua was praised as “a splendid debut from a young saxophone player who, starting with the right foot, promises to make a name for himself in the creative jazz scene” (JazzTrail). He has also released two albums in the Current Obsession series that documents improvisations with current collaborators.
David has contributed to projects led by composer-improvisors Stephan Crump, Cory Smythe, Lesley Mok, Tomas Fujiwara, Nick Dunston, Lisa Hoppe, Jason Nazary, Aaron Quinn and others. Performing across a wide range of musics, he has collaborated with folkloric mavericks Manley ‘Piri’ Lopez and Miriam Elhajli, indie artists from 37d03d, Childish Japes and Caroline Rose, composers William Britelle, Vicente Hansen Atria and Alec Goldfarb, reggaeton artists Rauw Alejandro and Romeo Santos, puppeteers Yuliya Tsukerman, Emily Batsford (Cumulo) and Official Puppet Business (Andy Manjuck & Dorothy James), contemporary artist David Zink Yi, balkan brass band Slavic Soul Party and others. He has performed for The Stone, Roulette Intermedium, Arts for Arts, ::SEEDS::, Barbés, National Sawdust, The Hollywood Bowl, David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, Teatro Nacional de Cuba (Havana), Arsht Center (Miami), DACAMERA (Houston), CENART (Mexico City), and notable jazz venues including The Jazz Gallery, Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Birdland, Close Up, Cornelia Street Cafe, The Appel Room (JALC), Jazz at Lincoln Center Shanghai, WDNA Jazz Gallery and The Fish House.
His work has been recognized by Roulette Intermedium, The CINTAS Foundation, The Jazz Gallery’s Mentoring Series, New Music USA, Metropolis Ensemble, Detroit Composer’s Project, Compositum Musicae Novae, the National Youngarts Foundation, and the ASCAP Foundation.