Tomeka Reid: In Tribute to Duke Ellington

About Tameka Reid

Described as a “new jazz power source” by The New York Times, cellist and composer Tomeka Reid has emerged as one of the most original, versatile, and curious musicians in Chicago’s bustling jazz and improvised music community over the last decade. Her distinctive melodic sensibility, always rooted in a strong sense of groove, has been featured in many distinguished ensembles over the years. 

Reid released her debut recording as a band leader in 2015, with the Tomeka Reid Quartet, a vibrant showcase for the cellist’s improvisational acumen as well as her dynamic arrangements and compositional ability. The quartet’s second album, Old New, released in October 2019 on Cuneiform Records, has been described as “fresh and transformative — its songs striking out in bold, lyrical directions with plenty of Reid’s singularly elegant yet energetic and sharp-edged bow work.” In spring 2024, Reid released the quartet’s third album, 3+3, which Chris May writes for All About Jazz, “is as transportingly good as jazz gets.” Winter of 2026 will see the release of the quartet’s latest work on Out of Your Head Records, entitled dance! skip! hop! 

Reid has been a key member of ensembles led by legendary reedists like Anthony Braxton (Zim Sextet) and Roscoe Mitchell (Roscoe Mitchell Quartet, Art Ensemble Of Chicago), as well as a younger generation of visionaries including flutist Nicole Mitchell (Black Earth Ensemble, Artifacts), vocalist Dee Alexander (Evolution Ensemble), and drummer Mike Reed (Loose Assembly, Living By Lanterns, Artifacts). She is also a member of Tomas Fujiwara’s 7 Poets trio, Myra Melford’s Fire and Water, Dave Douglas’s Gifts Quintet, Craig Taborn Trio, and Angelika Niescier’s Beyond Dragons. Reid also composes for the Tomeka Reid Stringtet, an ensemble of improvising strings that varies in size from seven pieces to sixteen pieces with a conductor and explores her love of stringed instruments and rhythm, and for the Tomeka Reid Septet, which began as a tribute to Duke Ellington’s 125th birthday. 

In 2013, Reid launched the first Chicago Jazz String Summit, a three-day international festival of cutting-edge string players. 2026 will see its 12th iteration. From 2019 to 2021, Tomeka Reid received a teaching appointment at Mills College as the Darius Milhaud chair in composition. In 2022, she was the Artist in Residence for the Moers Jazz Festival and a Visiting Roth Scholar. She was a visiting professor at Dartmouth College from 2023 to 2025, and she received her doctorate in music from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, in 2017. Reid is also a 2022 MacArthur Fellow and Herb Alpert awardee, a 2021 USA Fellow, and has received awards from the Foundation of the Contemporary Arts in 2019 and 3Arts in 2016.