Guitarist and composer Avi Rothbard is one of New York’s prominent jazz guitarists and a jazz clinician. Born and raised in Kibbutz Gan Shmuel, Israel, Avi Rothbard has moved to Boston Mass in the summer of 1995, after receiving a scholarship to attend Berklee College of Music. During his Berklee years, Mr. Rothbard has received The Jimmy Hendrix Award, Boston Jazz Society Award, Guitar Dpt. Achievement Award and The William Leavitt Award. Mr. Rothbard holds a Masters degree in jazz studies from the City College of New York and is also a 2013 recipient of the Bronx Council on The Arts award(BRIO) in the instrumental music category. A prolific composer, Rothbard’s compositions are featured in several recordings of his peers. In 2014 , Avi Rothbard has won the John Lennon Award for the jazz category. Since residing in New York City in 1999, Avi Rothbard has led and co-led ensembles in some of the major jazz venues around the world. Mr. Rothbard has worked with jazz veterans, as well as the new generation of jazz masters such as Ben Riley, Jeremy Pelt, Freddy Cole, Wayne Escoffery, Gregory Porter, Ray Drummond, Alex Blake, Mike Clark and Jay Leonhart, to name just a few. Avi Rothbard’s name is included in Scott Yanow’s book: “The Great Jazz Guitarists: The Ultimate Guide” "Young Lions" is a term that jazz journalists have been using to describe the long list of straight-ahead, acoustic-oriented jazz improvisers who were born in the '60s, '70s, and '80s, and London native Wayne Escoffery is among the many Young Lions who started building his catalog in the early 2000s. Escoffery, who plays post-bop and hard bop, is a tenor saxophonist with a big, full tone; his influences on the tenor have included, among others, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, and Sonny Rollins. Escoffery plays the soprano sax as a second instrument, and his most obvious inspirations on the soprano include Coltrane and Shorter. But whether he is on the tenor or the soprano, Escoffery has maintained a decidedly straight-ahead perspective that is quite faithful to the spirit of the Young Lion movement. Notes by Alex Henderson