Yotam Silberstein with John Patitucci and Joe La Barbara

Yotam Silberstein, one of the leading jazz guitarists of his generation, has gained acclaim for a sound rich in bebop and blues as well as musical folklore from South America, North Africa and the Middle East, giving his music an increasingly global thrust. His mature compositional gift and gripping interpretive finesse are vividly represented on his 2022 release Universos and his 2020 outing with Argentine multi-instrumentalist and composer Carlos “Negro” Aguirre titled En el jardín. He is a member of the John Patitucci Trio (heard on the acclaimed album Irmãos de Fé), has toured extensively with legendary Brazilian singer-songwriter Ivan Lins, and played with characteristic fire and taste on Monty Alexander’s GRAMMY-nominated Harlem-Kingston Express Live! as well as David Sanborn & Marcus Miller’s Time and the River. He has worked in bands with some of the greatest figures in jazz including George Coleman, Charles McPherson, Jimmy Heath, James Moody and Roy Hargrove, and has toured with his own groups all over the world in the most prestigious festivals and venues including the Tokyo, Umbria and North Sea Jazz Festivals as well as Kennedy Center, Jazz at Lincoln Center and more.

Born in Tel Aviv and based in New York, Yotam was discovered at a young age by the great James Moody. He has evolved into a highly influential artist of his day, hailed by JazzTimes for a musical output “struck through with passion and intimacy,” and by The New York Times as a player who “improvises in a cutting tone and writes heady original tunes that seem to tug the straight-ahead jazz tradition in new directions.” Fueled by a deep love of the jazz lineage and a joyful immersion in choro, samba, frevo, tango and other idioms, he approaches his wide-ranging influences with a near-anthropological meticulousness, conveying a sense not just of technical knowledge but also rich lived experience.