PHILADELPHIA, PA — A master jazz pianist with a career spanning Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, Betty Carter, Freddie Hubbard and Ray Brown is coming to Germantown for an evening designed to connect Philadelphia’s next generation of musicians with one of the music’s veteran voices.
The Heart of Jazz Foundation and Imani Records will present Benny Green in a solo piano performance Sept. 19 at Settlement Music School, with the New Philly Sound opening the evening.
The New Philly Sound is a collective of young Philadelphia-area musicians supported by the Heart of Jazz Foundation. The group reflects both the city’s deep jazz history and its emerging talent, making its appearance alongside Green especially fitting for an organization focused on nurturing young musicians.
Green began playing piano at age 7 and gave his first paid performance at 12. By 15, he had appeared at the Monterey Jazz Festival with the festival’s High School All-Stars.
His professional career accelerated while he was still a teenager. Green began performing around the San Francisco Bay Area with trumpeter and NEA Jazz Master Eddie Henderson before joining vocalist Betty Carter’s band at 17. He toured internationally with Carter for four years and performed on her Grammy Award-winning album “Look What I Got.”
Green later spent more than two years with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and performed with the Freddie Hubbard Quintet and Ray Brown Trio. His recording career has also included a duet with Diana Krall on her Grammy Award-winning album “All for You.”
Since 1991, Green has led his own trio and recorded for Blue Note, Telarc, Criss Cross Jazz and Sunnyside. He has released five albums on Sunnyside since joining the label in 2014, with another planned for this fall.
- What: Benny Green Solo Piano, presented by the Heart of Jazz Foundation and Imani Records, with an opening performance by the New Philly Sound
- When: Saturday, Sept. 19, 2026, from 6 to 9 p.m.
- Where: Settlement Music School, 6128 Germantown Avenue, Philadelphia, PA
- Cost/Tickets: Tickets are available through Eventbrite.
- More Info: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/imani-records-and-heart-of-jazz-presents-benny-green-solo-piano-tickets-1995917184026
A Lesson Beyond the Concert Stage
Green’s visit will extend beyond the Saturday performance.
The following day, he will lead a master class with members of the New Philly Sound, offering the young musicians feedback and insight drawn from decades of performing, recording and teaching.
“This will be a tremendous opportunity for the kids to learn from a master jazz musician,” Heart of Jazz founder Joe Monaghan said. “We’re tremendously honored to have Mr. Green here.”
The master class fits closely with the Heart of Jazz Foundation’s mission. Founded in 2023, the nonprofit works to nurture future jazz musicians through university scholarships and mentorship, community performances and opportunities for musicians of different ages to perform.
The organization also aims to bring jazz programming back into communities where the music once flourished while introducing new audiences to the art form. More information is available at https://theheartofjazz.org/.
For Germantown audiences, the Sept. 19 concert offers a chance to hear Green’s decades of jazz experience distilled into a solo piano performance. For the young musicians sharing the bill — and sitting down with him the next day — it offers something equally valuable: a direct connection between Philadelphia jazz’s future and a musician shaped by some of the art form’s most important bandleaders.
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