Playing by ear from a very early age and experimenting with improvisation drew Gadi Lehavi naturally to jazz. A visit to New York opened a door to the world, where he was discovered by Ravi Coltrane, who invited him to play together at the famous Village Vanguard and Birdland jazz clubs.

Since then, Gadi Lehavi has been performing in music festivals around the world and already had the privilege of performing and collaborating with some of the greatest musicians of our time. Among them: Ravi Coltrane, Chick Corea, Dave Liebman, Bobby McFerrin, Eli Degibri, Phil Wilson, Kurt Rosenwinkel and Eddie Gomez.

Gadi is a graduate of the Rimon School of Jazz & Contemporary Music where he studied with pianist, composer and arranger Rami Levin, and with pianist and composer Avi Adrian. He also studied classical piano with Dr. Michal Tal and with Professor Jonathan Zack

Drummer, pianist, and composer, Elé Salif Howell was born and raised in San Francisco California. Elé is the drummer for the spirited jazz ensemble Richard Howell and Sudden Changes who recently released the CD Mangaku.

Throughout his career Elé has performed in numerous venues, including: Yoshi's —Oakland & San Francisco, SFJazz Center, the Fillmore Jazz Festival, the Malcolm X Jazz Festival, San Francisco Jazz Festival, the Herbst Theater, the Healdsburg Jazz Festival, Portfest World Music & Jazz Festival, the Paramount Theater, as well as the XJAZZ Festival and famed jazz club the Badenscher Hof in Berlin.

Elé has performed with renowned artists such as Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, George Cables, Regina Carter, Steve Turre, Esperanza Spalding, Sean Jones, Salif Kieta, John Santos, John Scofield, Billy Harper, Shawn Thwaites, John Handy, Avery Sharpe, Eddie Marshal, Mathew Stevens, Braxton Cook, Ronda Benin, and Hilton Ruiz, among others.

During the 1940s and '50s, John Coltrane developed his craft as a saxophonist and composer, working with famed musicians/bandleaders Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, and Miles Davis. Coltrane turned the jazz world on its head with technically marvelous, innovative playing that was thrillingly dense and fluid in its understanding of the genre; his virtuosity and vision could be heard on the now revered albums Giant Steps, My Favorite Things and A Love Supreme, among many, many others. He died from liver cancer at 40 years old on July 17, 1967, in Huntington, Long Island, New York.

Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda ("Turiya") was an American jazz pianist, organist, harpist, composer, vocalist, and swamini. After establishing herself as a pianist on the fertile Detroit scene of the late 1950s, she met saxophonist John Coltrane in 1963, and they were married two years later, collaborating through the final years of John’s life. After his death in 1967, she issued her solo debut, A Monastic Trio, playing both piano and harp, and released seven albums between 1968 and 1972. She recorded one more album, 1995's Translinear Light for Verve, produced by her son, Ravi Coltrane. She died in 2007.

Learn more about John and Alice Coltrane at thecoltranehome.org.