Ben LaMar Gay Ensemble

Ben LaMar Gay is a unique composer and a versatile sound researcher who is difficult to define, with a body of work that wanders at the boundaries of music. He is a Southside Chicago native, who was raised in the tutelage of the legendary AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians).

Ben LaMar Gay is a unique composer and a versatile sound researcher who is difficult to define, with a body of work that wanders at the boundaries of music. He is a Southside Chicago native, who was raised in the tutelage of the legendary AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians). With his first instrument, the cornet, and an intuitive sense of self-production, in youth he traversed the diversity of the city's music scenes ranging from jazz to hip-hop. After a several-year residential relocation to Brazil, Gay returned to Chicago in the early 2010s and drew attention with his album Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun (2018), which served as an inventory of his seven under-the-radar years of work. He subsequently developed a comprehensive compositional practice through film scores and interdisciplinary projects. With his latest album on the International Anthem label, Yowzers (2025), he has pushed his multi-layered approach centered on a cosmopolitan understanding of the blues to a new threshold. Ben Lamar Gay will perform for the first time in Istanbul as part of the 36th Akbank Jazz Festival at Babylon on October 1. Ben LaMar Gay: Cornet, vocals, synths Edhino Gerber: Guitar Matthew Davis: Tuba Tommaso Moretti: Drums