The Cindy Blackman Santana Group

Aurélien Budynek, Guitar

Aurélien Budynek has a legendary career. Having been living in New York City for more than 10 years, Budynek has had lots of opportunities with music. His sprawling resumé includes credits to the New York Broadway productions of ‘Hamilton’, ‘Book of Mormon’, and ‘School of Rock’. 

Budynek has also played alongside legends such as Cindy Blackman Santana, Lenny Kravitz, Vernon Reid, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Sting. These performances have taken him around the world. Budynek has played in over 30 countries on 4 different continents. In addition to performing with these aforementioned people, he was one of the founding members of the rock group DareDevil Squadron.

Budynek takes his skills off the stage as well. He has done many different things in the instructor role. He has taught rock, funk, and jazz classes in the form of both skype and in person lessons. While doing classes, Budynek also has experience conducting ensembles. 

Zaccai Curtis, Piano

Zaccai Curtis has an impressive resume. Curtis regularly performs with Lakecia Benjamin, Christian Scott, Donald Harrison, Eddie Palmeiri, Brian Lynch, the Mambo Legends, Abraham Burton, Ralph Peterson, Ray Vega, Avery Sharpe, and of course Cindy Blackman Santana.He is also the winner of the ASCAP Young Jazz Composer’s competition. He won 3 years in a row from 2003 to 2006. But his skills are not exclusive to music performance.

He also is the Professor of Music at the University of Hartford: Jackie Mclean Jazz Studies Division and also the University of Rhode Island. With the intent of aiding his students, he wrote two books. He wrote “Art of the Guajeo” and “Theory of Common Voicing”. Both of these he uses in his teachings at the universities. 

Zaccai Curtis has contributed lots to the music industry. He developed the record label TRRcollective with his brother Luques. Under this label, he produced and released the GRAMMY nominated album, ‘Entre Colegas’ by Andy Gonzalez.

Curtis also has assisted in making music more accessible for a lot of different people in the industry. He created the first ever music news app that was developed mainly for record labels, artists, and venues.

Felix Pastorius, Bass

While Felix Pastorius grew up as a part of a musically inclined family, he most definitely made a name for himself. Growing up in Florida and the son of bass legend Jaco Pastorius, Felix was surrounded by instruments. While he studied most of the instruments that were accessible to him he decided on the bass which he now plays in many different ensembles. 

While of course playing with Cindy Blackman Santana he has also played with many different groups. He has performed with Robert Thomas Jr., Victor Wooten, Bobby McFerrin, and Jeff Coffin’s band, the Mu’tet, who he tours with. He is also a member of the band Social Experiment. In 2012, Pastorius started touring with the band the Yellowjackets.

Just like many of the other people who play with Cindy Blackman Santana, Pastorius also has private lessons where he teaches aspiring musicians. He compliments this with writing books on music theory. His book, ‘Hot Dog Dinners for 4 String Electric Bass’, focuses on the four most common scales in western music and their structure. All of his books have a focus on education and sharing his experience with other musicians.

David Gilmore, Guitar

David Gilmore was born in Cambridge, MA and studied pianos, drums and percussion growing up. It was relatively immediate that he got attached to the guitar though. At fifteen he started taking guitar studies with John Baboian and Randy Roos. He then attended New York University to further his musical studies. 

Following his learnings, Gilmore has had a long and successful career. Starting in 1987 and still playing today, Gilmore has quite the discography. He has worked with Wayne Shorter, and appeared on his grammy award winning album, High Life. Gilmore was also voted a “Rising Star'' by DownBeat Magazine’s Critic’s Poll. In addition, in 2008, Gilmore received the 2008 Chamber Music America, New Jazz Works Composer’s grant.

Gilmore doesn’t only perform either. He also teaches Guitar Studies at the Berklee College of Music. He also has master classes around the world where he has the ability to share his skills with his students.

Emilio Modeste, Saxophone

Emilio Modeste is a child prodigy. Born in Newport News, Virginia, Modeste has been playing instruments since a young age. He started off playing the violin at three years old and then quickly followed that up with the piano and drums at age five. Though this is not what Modeste has gained fame from. That was from the saxophone. 

Modeste started playing the alto saxophone prior to middle school. He played in the Jazz Standard Youth Orchestra playing with kids much older than him. Modeste just continued to improve, playing in Australia and London in high school as a part of his school’s Jazz Ensemble. By the age of fifteen, Modeste had started his professional career. 

He started off by playing with Wallace Roney as a member of his band, The Wallace Roney Quintet. Modeste is on Wallace Roney’s final album titled Blue Dawn-Blue Nights. 

In addition to playing with Roney, Modeste has also shared the stage with Lenny White, Gary Bartz, Jon Batiste, Buster WIlliams, and Steve Turre.

Currently he is the lead saxophonist for the Stanley Clarke N 4EVER band and the Cindy Blackman Santana band. He will be playing with the latter on April 22nd, June 11th, and June 14th of 2023.

Marc Cary, Keyboard

Cary grew up in Washington D.C. but relatively early on moved to New York City. Cary started playing in Washington D.C. but it was when he moved to New York City where audiences were introduced to his style.

Described as drawing from Randy Weston and McCoy Tyner for influence, Cary’s rhythmic style led him to play with many well-known musicians as well as a many years of successful recording.

Cary has also won the Best New Jazz Artist Award 2000- Billboard/BET. Along with that he was recognized in the Downbeat Magazine’s, “25 for the future of Jazz!” and again in 2014 for Downbeat Magazine’s, “Rising Star: Keyboard”.

Cary was also nominated for a Grammy for his work with Roy Hargrove, Betty Carter, Stefon Harris & Abbey Lincoln.

Ravi Coltrane, Saxophone

Ravi Coltrane was born in New York, but was raised in Los Angeles, California. He attended the California Institute of the Arts where he studied music focusing on the saxophone. 

After graduating, Coltrane worked often with Steve Coleman, who had a major influence on Coltrane’s musical conception. In addition to Steve Coleman, Coltrane has played with Geri Allen, Kenny Barron, McCoy Tyner, Pharoah Sanders, Herbie Hancock, Carlos Santana, Stanley Clarke, Chick Corea, and Branford Marshalis.

By 1997, Coltrane had done over 30 recordings as a sideman and was ready to move forward. Coltrane recorded his premier album, Moving Pictures, as leader.

In January of 2005, Coltrane performed in India for the first time as a part of a group of American jazz musicians sent on tour to promote HIV/AIDS awareness.

In the 2010s, Coltrane performed at the Village Vanguard and also traveled to Australia to play at the opening of Bird’s Basement.

Coltrane also is the Chairman of The Coltrane Home. This organization is dedicated to preserving the museum and research center based in his parents home in Dix Hills, Long Island.

John Medeski, Organ

Famed keyboardist John Medeski is not easily contained to a single project or genre; he is credited on over 300 works to date, most notably as one third of the groundbreaking trio, Medeski Martin & Wood.

Equally comfortable behind a Steinway grand piano, Hammond organ or any number of vintage keyboards, Medeski is a highly sought after improviser and band leader whose projects range from work with John Zorn, The Word (Robert Randolph, North Mississippi Allstars), Phil Lesh, Don Was, John Scofield, Coheed & Cambria, Susana Baca, Sean Lennon, Marc Ribot, Irma Thomas, Blind Boys of Alabama, Dirty Dozen Brass Band and many more.

Classically trained, Medeski grew up in Ft.Lauderdale, FL where as a teenager he played with Jaco Pastorius before heading north to attend the New England Conservatory. 

He released his first solo piano record, A Different Time, on Sony’s Okeh Records in 2013, and current projects include a new album in the works with his band MadSkillet (Terrence Higgins, Kirk Joseph, Will Bernard), and HUDSON (a collaboration with Jack DeJohnette, John Scofield & Larry Grenadier), plus a documentary on Medeski Martin & Wood.

Vernon Reid, Guitar

Born in London, England, Reid was raised in New York City. Reid attended Brooklyn Technical High School followed by New York University.

Reid first came to prominence in the 1980s in the band of drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. 1984’s Smash & Scatteration was a duo record with Bill Frisell. In 1985, Reid co-founded the Black Rock Coalition with journalist Greg Tate and producer Konda Mason.

Reid is best known for leading Living Colour. Early versions of the group formed in New York City in 1983, but the personnel solidified in 1985-86, and Reid led the group for about another decade. Their debut album, Vivid, was released in 1988 and sold double platinum.

In 2017, Reid debuted his semi-monthly broadcast on the streaming radio station Home. His show, titled “An Underground Railroad of the Mind”, features Reid playing vinyl records from his record collection.

JD Allen, Tenor Saxophone

An American jazz tenor saxophonist and composer. Hailed by the New York Times as “a tenor saxophonist with an enigmatic, elegant and harddriving style,” JD Allen is a bright light on today’s international jazz scene. His unique and compelling voice on the instrument – the result of a patient and painstaking confrontation with the fundamentals of the art – has earned Allen years of critical attention signaling his ascension to the upper ranks of the contemporary jazz world.

Originally from Detroit, Allen’s apprenticeship, anchored by his lengthy tenure with Betty Carter, occurred largely in New York, where he worked with legends Lester Bowie, George Cables, Ron Carter, Louis Hayes, Frank Foster Big Band, Winard Harper, Dave Douglas, Cindy Blackman, Butch Morris, David Murray, Wallace Roney, Rufus Reid and Geri Allen.