2026 Jazz Hero Eli Yamin

A prolific jazz and blues pianist, composer, singer, and producer, Eli Yamin has dedicated himself to passing on the knowledge he’s gleaned from elder masters. The East Patchogue, Long Island native was nurtured in the jazz bands of Illinois Jacquet, Walter Perkins, and Barry Harris and exceptionally mentored by Amiri Baraka. Yamin was 19 when he met that intellectual, poet, playwright, and noted jazz journalist in Newark while working for the jazz radio station WBGO. Baraka’s dedication to cultivating community by organizing grassroots events made a deep impression on the young man, and under Baraka’s mentorship Yamin was introduced to Black arts: music, dance, theater, and poetry.

Always looking for ways to promote jazz, Yamin has written three youth-oriented musicals: Nora’s Ark, Holding the Torch for Liberty, and Message from Saturn, performed across the United States, and internationally in four languages. As a jazz and blues champion, he’s performed in more than 25 countries, on stages including Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and Jazz at Lincoln Center.

Yamin has been recognized for leadership and excellence in youth jazz education with the 2024 AATS Awardfrom the American Academy of Teachers of Singing. Following wise elders’ ways and devising some of his own, he’s initiated intergenerational jazz programs with community concerts for youth, educators, and local residents, and co-founded the Jazz Power Initiative, a nonprofit (he serves as managing and artistic director) reaching generations of youth (ages 11-17) in Washington Heights, Inwood, Harlem, and the Bronx with jazz arts education in dance, voice, theater, and piano. Eli was founding director of Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Middle School Jazz Academy, running it for 10 years. All that demonstrates how he’s unusually giving, and seemingly always warmly upbeat. Recognition as a 2026 Jazz Hero is a testimony to Eli Yamin’s daily commitment to spreading knowledge and love of jazz