Name: The Chris Mondak Band
Start: 2024-10-09T19:30:00-05:00
Location: Blue Strawberry STL

Award-winning jazz bassist and composer Chris Mondak returns to St. Louis on Wednesday October 9. Chris and his band were frequent visitors to St. Louis when Chris was based in Illinois, but this is their first local performance since Chris moved to Nashville in 2020, and their first-ever performance at Blue Strawberry.
A 2020 graduate of the New England Conservatory, Chris studied there with jazz legends Cecil McBee and Dave Holland. Chris also has performed with musicians such as Shelly Berg, Dave Douglas, Joel Frahm, Wycliffe Gordon, Jeff Hamilton, and Marvin Stamm. Chris has toured extensively, including two multi-week tours in China, and week-long runs in Mexico and Panama.
Chris is a prolific composer. Upon release of his 2019 CD Eternal Youth, Blurt Magazine commented “with Chris Mondak, the future of jazz is bright indeed.” Chris followed in 2022 with Glass Spheres (Summit Records), which reached #17 on the national NACC jazz chart, and that led All About Jazz to label Chris as “one of the talented young lions of the jazz world today.” Chris’s newest CD, Blank with Colour (Summit Records) was released in October 2023. Blank with Colour has amassed extensive radio play, spending nine weeks in the top 100 of the national Jazz Week chart. Chris has received two international jazz composition awards—one in Italy in 2023 for “Begetting,” a tune on Blank with Colour, and one in China in 2019 for “Always Smiling,” which Chris recorded and performed during his stint with the Nextgen Jazz Quartet.
The Chris Mondak Band includes Nashville’s top young jazz musicians. Their live shows combine sophisticated musicianship with electrifying, high-energy performances.