About

Jeff Walton is a saxophonist, composer, and educator, now based in Los Angeles after 18 years in New York City.

Jeff’s album Pack Animals, his debut as a leader, will be released June 27, 2025 on Jules Records. The recording features Jeff playing his original compositions along with Santiago Leibson on piano, Eli Heath on bass, and Chase Elodia on drums.

Jeff studied jazz saxophone at the University of Michigan with Donald Walden, where he also studied improvisation with Geri Allen. While at Michigan, Jeff also studied creative writing and won a Hopwood Award for his short fiction. After graduation, this interest in language led him to teach English as a Second Language and translate Italian comedic theater. But since a brush with hearing loss in 2011, Jeff has re-dedicated himself to music and forged diverse paths as an artist and teacher.

As a saxophonist, Jeff has led his jazz quartet in shows at IBEAM, the Bandshell at Central Park, and the Drawing Room. In 2014, Jeff was invited by Geri Allen to lead an ensemble at the Stone, which produced the electro-acoustic project “get-back.” Jeff has been a regular at R&B jam sessions in New York City, and has also performed with classical saxophone ensembles at Manhattan School of Music and Queens College. In 2015, Jeff also began singing in choirs, and has performed with Empire City Men’s Chorus, Choral Chameleon, Brooklyn Community Chorus, as well as Essential Voices USA along with the New York Pops at Carnegie Hall.

Jeff writes compositions and arrangements for his jazz bands as well as classical ensembles: string quartet, mixed chorus, men’s chorus, and chamber wind groups. As a composer, Jeff has studied with Vince Peterson and Jeff Parola at the Choral Chameleon Summer Institute; and with Narcis Bonet and Michel Merlet at the EAMA Summer Program in Paris, where Jeff was immersed in the teachings of Nadia Boulanger. He currently studies composition with Jacob Sacks, and has been working on a men’s choir program for including a murder ballad, an e.e. cummings poem, a setting of “Grendel,” and piece about Oxford shoes.

Since 2011, Jeff has coached jazz and rock bands at middle schools, and in 2014 he founded the band program at Uncommon Ocean Hill Middle School – the first instrumental middle-school program in the Uncommon Charter Schools network. At UOHM, every 7th grader learns an instrument with a team of specialist teachers and then plays in a big band in the 8th grade with Jeff. Students learn musical fundamentals and ensemble skills while rehearsing Jeff’s arrangements of songs by Prince, Juvenile, Fela Kuti, Whitney Houston, Beres Hammond, Kendrick Lamar, Rebirth Brass Band, and more.