For his latest project, Lovano brings together eight innovators, all free thinkers who span generations and move fkuidly across genres. His Universal Jazz Ensemble, which debuted in fall of 2019 at Lincoln Center, is designed "to create the music inside the music, always following the sound, wherever it takes us," he says. As with so many of his project, this one assembles a never-before-heard combination of creative artists. They are: trumpeter Graham Haynes, singer Judi Silvano, guitarist Liberty Ellman, pianist Kenny Werner, bassist John Patitucci, and drummers Andrew Cyrille and Tyshawn Sorey. Each is a respected composer, bandleader, and instrumentalist, and each embodies the many expressions of jazz, Cyrille has played with Coleman Hawkins and Cecil Taylor; Patitucci with Wayne Shorter and Norah Jones; Ellman with Chico Hamilton, Henry Threadgill, and the Groove Collective.
And then there;s Lovanom who has toured with Woody Herman's big band, mastered the bebop vocabulary of Charlie Parker, explored the songbooks of Enrico Caruso and Frank Sinatra, and ventured into what he calls the "inner world of sound" with percussion master Paul Motian. His projects are many, but they are never "just coat hangers; he personalizes them into some of the most generous, liberating music out there," says The New York Times. Now Lovano has composed a book of music specifically for the Universal Jazz Ensemble: "We'll play together as an ensemble, and we'll play in different groupings - as duos, trios, quartets within the group, all these combinations of those amazing personalities. It's going to be some spiritual music, man -- universal music from the cosmos."