Julián & Friends

Tue, Apr 07

The Julián and Friends composers showcase, created to celebrate and serve as a platform for young composer-instrumentalists, is in its fourth year at the Jazz Showcase. Each presentation seeks to expand the intergenerational conversation of jazz with experimental and forward thinking original programs. This presentation features the magnificent Cuban drummer Marcos Morales. JULIÁN PUJOLS QUALL Julián is a Dominican-American pianist and keyboardist, improviser, composer and educator from Chicago who has performed classical and jazz repertoire throughout the continental United States as well as in the Dominican Republic, Spain, Belgium, Puerto Rico and Mexico. A classically trained artist, Peabody Conservatory graduate, and DePaul University National Concerto Competition for Young Performers First Prize Winner, their work has found a home in jazz performance, improvisation and cross-cultural collaboration since developing experimental collaborative programs as a founding member of the Peabody Improvisers Collective. They are a curator for the Discoveries Hear & Be Heard series at Fulcrum Point New Music Project, and a 2025 National Association of Latino Arts and Culture Institute Fellow. Julián has been lead instructor for the Afro-Caribbean Jazz Combo at the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center After School Matters and is currently an accompanist at The Joffrey Ballet’s Grainger Academy. They are the host of “The Changes”, a trilingual interview show presenting local and international musicians on Lumpen Radio. Julián completed a 2024 Banff Center for the Arts Jazz and Sonic Arts composition/performance residency, released the single Rothko; Tlaloc and Totec with Carrier Records in 2023, and most recently had their compositions Chord Prelude and Moriviví premiere at the DiMenna Center for New and Classical Music during the 2024 Yarn/Wire Institute Festival in New York. Julián´s compositions are central to two projects they direct: Julián and Friends, a collaborative composition concert series running since 2022 at The Jazz Showcase, featuring guest artists such as Corey Wilkes, Lorin Benedict, Levi Lu, Brandon Woody, Kweku Sumbry, Lenard Simpson, Vincent Davis and Marques Carroll, and Mamey, a jazz project founded in 2023 centering on Dominico-Haitian music.  Mamey debuted in Belgium and has performed throughout Chicago including at the Old Town School of Folk Music, The Jazz Showcase, Fitzgerald´s, and Chicago Park District´s Night Out in The Parks series. The group completed a spring of 2024 South Arts Jazz Tour of the East Coast and a 2025 tour of the East Coast and the Caribbean and will release its debut album in early 2026 thanks to a Pathways to Jazz grant.  MARCOS MORALES A Cuban drummer, composer, producer, and graduate in Symphonic Percussion from the Professional School of Music in Matanzas, Cuba in 2014, Morales’s work combines performance, improvisation, and sonic exploration, grounded in Afro-Cuban rhythm and contemporary music practices.He has performed internationally in venues and festivals such as WOMAD Festival in Sydney, Queen Elizabeth Hall in London,Playboy Jazz Festival in Los Angeles, and the Seoul Dechi Art Hall in South Korea, collaborating with artists including Daymé Arocena, Roberto Fonseca, Harold López-Nussa, Joe Lovano, Celeste White, and Orquesta Aragón, among others.Mercurio Sessions is the central artistic project of Marcos Morales, dedicated to spontaneous improvisation and collaborative sound exploration. Conceived as an open creative platform, the project brings together musicians in unique sessions where music emerges organically without stylistic limitations.Recent Mercurio Sessions recordings have featured collaborations with musicians such as Lorin Benedict, Logan Kane, Dion Kerr, Odalys Caro, Flora Flora, Zach Muth,Rasiel Aldama, Marc Decho, Jason Hayashi, among others. JUSTIN DILLARD Born and raised on the west side of Chicago and attending both Vandercook College of Music and The Velvet Lounge, his studies at both institutions gave him the honorable privilege to work with innovators locally and globally performing/recording with and/or receiving tutelage from the likes of: Branford Marsalis, Robert Irving III, Ornette Coleman, the late jazz master Von Freeman and Roscoe Mitchell to name a few. Howard Reich (Chicago Tribune arts critic) writes: “A new generation of jazz improvisers has emerged in Chicago in recent years, but few are more promising than organist/pianist Justin Dillard. Musically, Dillard tends to be all over the keyboard, drawing upon the examples of virtuosos such as Dr. Lonnie Smith, Eddie Harris and McCoy Tyner. But there’s something more to Dillard’s work as well; a quest for new ideas in music, in the manner of his AACM mentors.”  Justin has performed on national television (ABC) with his organ expose’ The DOT; and has played in various genres spanning Avant Garde with the late tenor master Fred Anderson to a Dave Matthews tribute band (Crash). He continues to transform his career by composing for and performing with his vast array of ensembles; all while accompanying great musicians all over the world.