Sharel Cassity

"Gratitude"
Sharel Cassity
Sunnyside Records
Street Date: March 29, 2025

Saxophonist and woodwindist Sharel Cassity’s new release, Gratitude, shares with audiences and listeners a conversation of joy, hope, and celebration. Featuring a hard-swinging rhythm section comprising 8x Grammy Award-winning bassist and composer Christian McBride, drummer Lewis Nash, and pianist Cyrus Chestnut, plus trumpet master Terell Stafford and Cassity's longtime collaborator, trombonist Michael Dease. With its persistently effervescent and positivity-focused spirit, the ebullient Gratitude offers something new from the multi-instrumentalist and iconic rhythm trio.

Gratitude is laden with smart and intoxicating hooks, emotionally uplifting and nuanced improvisation, and arrangements that reflect a musicianship well-informed by the work of jazz’s all-time heaviest hitters. That’s not surprising, given that, from collaborators to media coverage, Cassity has a career stamped with high scores across the board. She’s worked with artists including Aretha Franklin, Vanessa Williams, Grammy-award-winner Jennifer Hudson, and Top 40 singer-songwriter Natalie Merchant. She’s also shared stages with Herbie Hancock, Wynton Marsalis, Dee Dee Bridgewater, and Roy Hargrove—among many others—and the albums she’s released as a bandleader have garnered favorable reviews by the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, and JazzTimes, as well as a cover story for Downbeat Magazine.

Growing up in Oklahoma, one album that became Cassity’s personal guiding light was McBride’s Gettin’ to It. After moving to New York City in 2000, which she called home until briefly relocating to Qatar in 2015, she worked her way up in the performing scene and eventually came to play alongside each member of the rhythm section featured on McBride’s album. Cassity decided to assemble that same rhythm section—McBride, Nash, and Chestnut—for the making of Gratitude.

Gratitude isn’t the first time Cassity has recorded with Nash and Chestnut, who appeared on her 2014 Venus Records release, Manhattan Romance, with Rufus Reid. She also has had prior experience performing with McBride, with whom she toured Aspen as a member of his big band in 2009. Cassity first met Nash in a masterclass while she was a student at Juilliard, and not long after, performed with him professionally in 2008 in the Dizzy Gillespie All-Star Big Band. The All-Star Big Band, of which Cassity became a member in 2009, was also where Cassity met Chestnut, who quickly became a mentor. After that period of performing in the big band together, Cassity toured Japan with Nash’s big band, which included Chestnut, Steve Wilson, and Terell Stafford.

Of the release, Cassity comments, “Gratitude is a heartfelt journey, bridging some of my earliest influences in jazz with a deep appreciation for the present … Two essential cultural elements of jazz are community and mentorship, and I'm eternally grateful to have had both. The remarkable individuals I've had the privilege to learn from, collaborate with, and draw inspiration from throughout my career have shaped me into who I am today.”

Cassity’s descriptions of the meaning behind each of her compositions on Gratitude offers deeper insights into that theme, as well as the record’s potential for significant influence and recognition within the jazz world. On the opening track, “Magnetism,” she says, “We can attract and repel people’s ideas and energies and navigate the strong energy currents around us.” This sets the tone for the remainder of the album, whose buoyant moods only reinforce Cassity’s high ideals.

The title track, “Gratitude,” was originally inspired by the love Cassity has felt from her family and friends, but at first, she struggled to compose a melody for it, setting it aside many times. She eventually found inspiration while sitting at the piano and thinking of the support and guidance she received from Jimmy Heath, who passed away in 2020. The melody, she says, then “wrote itself … A little gratitude can go a long way toward changing one's momentum, and Mr. Heath was both grateful and adamant about positivity.”

Capping it all off is “The Promise,” whose heartfelt message—one based on a pinky promise Cassity made to her young son—seals the sentiment behind Gratitude. “The unspoken promise a mother makes to her child is infinite,” she comments. In addition to Cassity’s five original compositions, the album also features arrangements of Charlie Chaplin’s “Smile” and Richard D. Johnson’s “Stick Up!” and “Suspect.”

Cassity’s roots are in classical music, which today informs her proficiency on her instruments, as well as her ability to imbue melodies—whether her own or from a standard—with a unique depth of artistry. At age 10, she placed third in the Disney International Piano Concerto Competition, and was offered a full scholarship to North Texas State University for classical saxophone at 18. She instead attended the University of Oklahoma, then later earned a BFA in jazz and contemporary music from The New School in 2005, before enrolling at Juilliard on a full scholarship for a master’s in music. She graduated in 2007.

Today, in light of Gratitude’s release, Cassity reflects on how far she’s come, and the abundance she enjoys in her experiences and relationships. “As you listen,” she says, “may you find your own reasons for gratitude throughout the tracks, inviting you on a journey of reflection, resilience, and celebration.”

"Evolve"
Sharel Cassity & Elektra
Relsha Music
Street Date: April 6, 2018

Comprised of a rich sonic landscape ranging from soul and jazz to rock and electronica Elektra's mission is to create groove based creative music that appeals to a modern audience. Cassity's material for this project includes both original music as well as crafty reincarnations of popular songs. Elektra includes some of the most renowned musicians in the industry today including trumpeters Ingrid Jensen, Marcus Printup and Freddie Hendrix, bassist Linda Oh, guitarist Mark Whitfield, pianists  Miki Hayama and Richard Johnson, vocalist Christie Dashiell, drummers Jonathan Barber and Lucianna Padmore and harpist Riza Printup. Evolve is indeed a celebration of evolution, and Cassity, with the help of this melting pot of talented musicians, delves into three separate stems of this particular subject. Showcasing a collection of artful originals and reimagined compositions by Alicia Keys and Bjork, Cassity confronts the evolution of music, her own personal and artistic evolution and a push for evolution of the social climate (race and gender) in the United States.

From performing with jazz fusion big bands such as the Revive Big Band led by Igmar Thomas and Nicholas Payton’s Television Studio Orchestra, to recording with folk singer Natalie Merchant to listening to Roy Hargrove’s RH Factor, Kenny Garrett, late Miles Davis, A Tribe Called Quest, Q Tip, Bjork and Robert Glasper, Sharel Cassity, throughout her decade-long career, has been exposed to an array of inspiring influences. Upon realizing that by continuing to only pursue traditional jazz, she would never totally fulfill her own abilities, Cassity began creating modern, relevant music that although still rooted in the rich jazz history, was innovative, creative and evolutionary. “I had to be honest to all of the music that had influenced me, that made up who I am in this day and time,” explains Cassity.

Simultaneously, she also became aware of the fact that she had subconsciously classified herself as a “musician, a saxophonist” and now desired to explore every other potential pathway she could take, away from solely being a performing musician. She says, “I realized that I could create in any direction that I wished, go where I wished, do what I wanted--and that music would always be there no matter where I went.”

Following a performance alongside Herbie Hancock and Jimmy Heath, Cassity recorded Evolve the next day and that night flew to the middle east to perform at Jazz @Lincoln Center Doha and teach at Qatar Music Academy. Being away, building a new life with her husband and starting a family fueled more of her creativity than she had ever expected.

Many of the songs on this album are anthems and prayers for change, love and hope, and so highlights the evolution of the current social climate. Cassity stands against any form of racism hate, discrimination or negativity and continues to hope for a universal agreement and unity on this particular stance. “Armed with information from our elders, paired with our own creativity, musicians have a responsibility to create music that reflects and reaches listeners in the current world we live in,” says Cassity in Evolve’s liner notes, adding, “I want to put out music that encourages the world to fight against that; to encourage people to dream for better, because there is always better.”