Doug Lawrence plays the Great American Songbook featuring Dan Trudell, Hillary Smith and Pete Amahl

Albuquerque’s own legendary tenor saxophonist, Doug Lawrence, presents an evening of music by America’s finest composers, from George Gershwin to Duke Ellington to Rogers and Hart, Cole Porter, Bessie Smith Jimmy Webb, Neal Hefti, Billie Holiday, Dizzy Gillespie, Johnny Mandel, Marilyn and Alan Bergman, Jerome Kern and more. A Grammy winning saxophonist, Lawrence, has worked and recorded with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Ella Fitzgerald, Tony Bennett, Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams, Nancy Wilson, Bobby Short, Rosemary Clooney, George Benson and many other iconic American artists who made the Great American Songbook famous. For the last 30 years, he has toured the world as featured soloist with the twenty-time Grammy winning Count Basie Orchestra, and, tonight, he is joined by some of New Mexico’s finest, including the vocal dynamo, Hillary Smith; guitar virtuoso, Dimi DiSanti; trumpet ace, Paul Gonzales; the ever-swinging John Trentacosta on drums, and longtime collaborator, Hammond B3 organ maestro and “Downbeat Award Winner,” Dan Trudell. At the end of the first set, NMJW founder, Pete Amahl— the ever-so swinging drummer and 2026 recipient of the NM Governor’s Award for the Arts—will play a couple of tunes with his long-time friend and collaborator, Doug Lawrence. The performance will be followed by a short ceremony honoring the founders of the Jazz Workshop 50 years ago and the legacy which they created.