Chicago Jazz Hero
Illinois
John Foster’s story is really the story of Chicago’s jazz community and how its members collectively carve out a pathway for the music to continue to thrive. Although he grew up in difficult circumstances, he was introduced to jazz at Dixon Elementary school by powerhouse educator and saxophonist Diane Ellis, who generated a long list of far-flying students; John took to the music as a guiding light. By 8th grade, in 2006, John, playing alto sax, had joined the Jazz Institute of Chicago’s newly formed Jazz Links Student Council, a soon to-be-engine for young jazz students to practice leadership and performance skills. Following Chicago’s long tradition of mentorship, stalwart tenor man Ari Brown quickly took him under his musical wing.
At the JIC we soon learned that John not only had impressive musical skills, he was also gifted as an organizer. He had phone numbers of a huge breadth of young players in town and in Chicago’s suburbs. With his hallmark enthusiasm and a bit of bravado, he drew them one-by-one into the formation of a 15-piece ensemble — the Foster Meets Brooks Big Band — that debuted on the main stage of the Chicago Jazz Festival, just a week before he took off for New York City to attend The New School Jazz program.
After graduating, having gained his taste of the Big Apple, John returned to Chicago and to the Jazz Institute, where he now he mentors the members of the Jazz Links Student Council he helped to launch almost 20 years ago and where as Managing Director of Programs and Education Initiatives he continues to find new avenues of opportunity for the generation of jazz musicians he’s now helping to raise. John is simply indispensable to the Jazz Institute — he’s busy at all events, before and after. His formidable musical skills, kind heart, patience, generosity, industriousness and inventiveness are a reflection of the collaborative nature of the rich Chicago jazz environment in which John Foster is a prominent but modest activist, advocate, altruist, aider and abettor of jazz — that is, a Jazz Hero.
— Lauren Deutsch
2025 JJA Jazz Awards Recipient
Tangible Sound Photography
Former Executive Director of Jazz Institute of Chicago
