For almost twenty years, John Yao’s adept talent as a trombonist, composer and arranger has helped cement his place on the New York City jazz scene. Yao’s lyrical soloing and expressive, round tone combined with his creative hunger for exploring the boundaries of harmony and rhythm in his compositions/arrangements have established him as a unique musical talent and forward-thinking jazz talent. Masterfully leading and composing the music for both his large and small ensemble, Yao has released five albums as a leader. First was John Yao Quintet’s debut album In the Now (2012) followed by Presence (2017). In between, Yao released his first triumphant big band album Flip Flop (2015) by John Yao and His 17-piece Instrument. His latest project, John Yao’s Triceratops, has released two albums How We Do (2019) and Off-Kilter (2022). In 2023, Yao earned a place in the Rising Star Trombone and Rising Star Big Band categories in the DownBeat Critics Poll.

As a trombonist, he has worked extensively as a sideman for Grammy-award winning ensembles, such as the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra and the Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, Manuel Valera's Cuban Express Big Band and has also performed with Paquito D’Rivera, Eddie Palmieri, Danilo Perez, Chris Potter and Kurt Elling, among others. Yao has founded and leads several of his own bands, each of which feature his adventurous, boundary-pushing compositions. John Yao’s Triceratops has been called “complex, modernistic and updated, full of counterpoint, it’s very accessible and so much fun” by Hot House Jazz. Downbeat called Presence (See Tao Recordings, 2017) “Yao’s most searching release to date, the album is marked by greater openness and ensemble elasticity.” Midwest Record says Flip-Flop (See Tao Recordings), the 2015 release by John Yao & His 17-piece Instrument (“JY-17”), is “a must set for big band fans that want to hear something that takes the form into the future, this blows the ears open in a mighty way.”

As a composer, he writes for his band John Yao and His 17-piece Instrument and has been commissioned to write works for other professional ensembles and artists, such as the Grammy Award-winning Afro-Latin Jazz Orchestra, Band of Bones, Afro-Bop Alliance Big Band, Luis Bonilla, Joe Bowie, Joe Fiedler, JMI Jazz Orchestra and HGM Big Band to name a few. His works have been performed nationally and internationally by college and high school ensembles, including Temple University, Indiana University, Iowa University, University of North Carolina, New Jersey City University, University of Illinois at Chicago, Binghamton University, HGM Orkestar in Zagreb, Croatia; and New Trier High School, Harvard Westlake School, and Townsend Harris High School. He was a member of the BMI Jazz Composers workshop from 2012 to 2014 under the guidance of Jim McNeely and Mike Holober.

In 2015, Yao pioneered a crowdsourcing campaign and founded the “Big Band & Beyond Concert Series.” The goal of the series was two-fold: to challenge himself to produce new big band works and perform them with JY-17 at each concert, and to expose audiences to new ideas of what big band is and what it sounds like today. As Elliot Simon of the NYC Jazz Record put it, “This ain’t your granddaddy’s big band.”

An in-demand educator, Yao serves as Assistant Professor of Trombone at Berklee College of Music and Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College and as Adjunct Professor of Music at Molloy University. He is an active guest artist and soloist at colleges and universities throughout the United States and abroad.

For booking information contact john@johnyao.com