About

eff Walton is a saxophonist, composer, and educator now based in Los Angeles after 18 years in New York City. Jeff’s listeners across the US know him for his personal saxophone sound, inventive compositions, and exciting live shows.

Jeff’s album Pack Animals was released in the summer of 2025, featuring Santiago Leibson on piano, Eli Heath on bass, and Chase Elodia on drums. Jeff has also performed with Jacob Sacks, Marta Sanchez, Brent Birckhead, Cheryl Pepsii Riley, Hank Jones, Neta Raanan, Danny Jonokuchi, The New York Pops, Choral Chameleon, Joey Dosik and Theo Katzman of Vulfpeck, and many others.

”Jeff’s attractive tone, a beguiling mix of light and shade, draws the listener right in, his ideas unfolding at their own pace. He’s poised, confident, and unpredictable.”
-Liner notes by Vinnie Sperrazza, jazz drummer and writer

Jeff studied jazz saxophone at the University of Michigan with Donald Walden and Geri Allen, where he also studied English 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 comedy. 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.

Jeff has led his jazz quartet at Shapeshifter Lab, The Bandshell in Central Park, IBeam Brooklyn, The Earl Gallery, and other venues. In 2014, Jeff was invited by Geri Allen to lead an ensemble at the Stone, which produced the electro-acoustic project “get-back.” In addition to playing jazz, Jeff has also been both a regular on the NYC R&B scene and has also performed with classical saxophone ensembles at Manhattan School of Music, NYU, 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.

“New record is killer, man!! Congrats! Your sound has a beautiful resonance to it that the record really does justice to, and I love the tunes and your lines!”
-Text from Mark Dover, GRAMMY-winning clarinetist of IMANI Winds

Jeff composes for 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, including a murder ballad, an e.e. cummings poem, a setting of “Grendel,” and piece about Oxford shoes.

In 2014 he founded the band program at Uncommon Ocean Hill Middle School – the first band program in the Uncommon Charter Schools network – which he directed for 11 years. 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. 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. These arrangements are available by contacting Jeff.