The Story

Pianist-composer-bandleader Zaccai Curtis has been a formidable presence on the New York scene since for the past 20 years. A Grammy-nominated artist (for 2024’s Cubop Lives! on his Truth Revolution Recording Collective label), Curtis will be joined in his Exit Zero debut by his brother Luques on bass, Willie Martinez on timbales and Camilo Molina and Reinaldo De Jesus on conga and assorted hand percussion. 

After graduating from New England Conservatory in 2005, Curtis moved to New York City and quickly became an in-demand pianist on the scene. He has since worked as a sideman for such artists as alto saxophonist Donald Harrison, drummer Cindy Blackman Santana and Ralph Peterson, trumpeter Brian Lynch and his mambo jazz mentor Eddie Palmieri. He also co-leads The Curtis Brothers Band with his bass playing sibling Luques and teaches at the University of Hartford: Jackie McLean Jazz Studies Division.

The Sound

By putting an Afro-Cuban twist on familiar bebop classics by Dizzy Gillespie, Kenny Dorham, Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker, Curtis has forged an invigorating new sound he calls Cubop that swings while also incorporating elements of clave, tumbao and montunos. Along with originals like “Earl” (his tribute to bebop pianist Bud Powell), “Black Rice” and “Let’s Do It Again,” Curtis and his crew will put their Cubop spin on tunes like Gillespie’s “Woody’n You” and Parker’s “Moose the Mooche,” Scott Joplin’s ragtime classic, “Maple Leaf Rag,” and elegant jazz standards like “Someday My Prince Will Come” and “When I Fall in Love.”