Three-time ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Awardee Ezra Weiss has performed with Billy Hart, Dayna Stephens, Antonio Hart, Michael Philip Mossman, Mark Gross, Vincent Herring, and Dennis Rowland, among others.

Over the years, Ezra has led bands featuring such luminaries as trumpeters Peter Evans, and Farnell Newton; saxophonist Dayna Stephens; bassists Corcoran Holt, Ameen Saleem, and Curtis Lundy; and drummers Kassa Overall, Steve Williams, Jason Brown, and Billy Hart (for whom he also served as arranger).  

The Portland, OR-based composer/pianist has released six albums as a bandleader: The Five A.M. Strut (2003), Persephone (2005), Get Happy (2007), The Shirley Horn Suite (2010), Our Path To This Moment (2012), and Before You Know It [Live in Portland] (2014). Weiss wrote the music for the Portland Jazz Composer’s Ensemble’s multimedia concert/recording From Maxville To Vanport (2018), and music and lyrics for three children’s musicals designed to introduce young people to jazz: Alice in Wonderland: a Jazz Musical (2009), Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (2010), and Cinderella (2013).  His arrangements for Derek Hines’ recording The Long Journey Home (2017) led to the formation of his own Ezra Weiss Big Band, which he leads along with his Sextet. Weiss has been listed in DownBeat Critics Polls in the Rising Star Arranger category.

His latest big band composition, We Limit Not The Truth of God, will be released by Origin’s OA2 Records in 2019.