Saxophonist Sonya Jason has been playing Yamaha alto saxophones since 1973 and has been a Yamaha Artist since 1994. This internationally acclaimed recording artist and winner of ASCAP’s Popular Music Award in Composition became a Recording Academy Voting Member in 1991.
Sonya is best known for her all original Warner Music Discovery release, Tigress. Her accessible, passionate style of contemporary jazz garners rave reviews from the media and has enjoyed heavy airplay rotation on music outlets worldwide. More than 100 music recordings have featured her saxophone work, including 4 releases as solo artist. Sonya has contributed to recordings with Sheila E., Yellowjacket’s bassist Jimmy Haslip, Pete Escovedo, Alphonso Johnson, Vinnie Colaiuta, Bill Cunliffe, Joyce Cooling, and Grant Geissman to name only a few.
Winner of the prestigious Phil Woods scholarship to Berklee College of Music in Boston, Sonya graduated summa cum laude majoring in performance and arranging. Since beginning her full-time professional music career in 1985, she has led her own bands in many thousands of live performances. Playing for the King of Thailand His Majesty Bhumibol Adulyadej at his Golden Jubilee International Jazz Festival in Bangkok and at the Cervantino International Music and Arts Festival throughout Mexico were just two of more than 60 music festival appearances around the world. In addition, Sonya has been invited to perform for a number of Los Angeles celebrities including Hugh Hefner, Merv Griffin, and three of the LAPD’s Chiefs of Police.
Her band performed as opening act on the same bill with such well-known artists as Earth Wind and Fire, Ramsey Lewis, Natalie Cole, Tom Scott, Stanley Clarke/George Duke Project, K.C. and the Sunshine Band, Bobby Caldwell, Richard Marx, Chuck Berry, Ramsey Lewis, Manhattan Transfer’s Janis Siegel, Smokey Robinson, Spyro Gyra, Lionel Hampton, and Mose Allison.
As a featured band member with other artists, Sonya has appeared live with The Brothers Johnson, big band trumpeter Ray Anthony, Narada Michael Walden, Debbie Reynolds, Barry Manilow, Shirley MacClaine, Mary Tyler Moore, Rose Marie, Carol Channing, Dick Van Dyke, Nelson Braxton of the Braxton Brothers, to name a few.
Just one of her many honors was being asked, in 2005, by the Grammy Foundation to perform in Los Angeles with the Montclair Women’s Big Band, Monica Mancini, Mindi Abair, and as opening act for Diane Schuur and Shirley Caeser in Mavericks of Music: Celebrating the Contributions of Trailblazing Women.
For 40 years, Sonya ran a thriving music teaching studio where she mentored private students, conducted school clinics, and created a popular series of ongoing Jazz Workshops, all while remaining active as a performer and recording artist. Currently, she follows her passion to perform and record music wherever and whenever she wishes, especially throughout Northern California and as a featured artists during the Whitefish Summer Music Concert Series in Montana.
Phil Woods, an artist for whom giving compliments comes only once in a blue moon, said of Jason, “The lady can play! Emotion and fire well-tempered by a sensitive, warm approach. And she’s funky as hell!”