Giacomo Gates

Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff can RSVP on WesNest.

Enjoy a rousing concert by Giacomo Gates, Jazz Vocal Instructor, who brings a masterful and fun approach to improvisation, entertaining as it is studied, and rooted in the bebop tradition of artists such as Jon Hendricks, Babs Gonzales, King Pleasure, and most of all Eddie Jefferson. A gifted educator, Gates has been teaching at Wesleyan University since 1999, where he places technique hand in hand with the passing down of oral traditions and exposure to the profound creators in the jazz legacy, a methodology he cites as a cornerstone of the jazz tradition.

Giacomo Gates does more than sing “a bunch of songs.” He is truly an entertainer, for all ages and styles. His sheer joy, exuberance, wit and unlimited creativity make him one of jazz’s most compelling artists. Over the past three decades, Gates has released ten albums on various labels, and has appeared frequently in DownBeat magazine’s “Critics Poll” and in the Jazz Journalists Association’s “Jazz Awards.” In addition to his own touring from Canada and Europe to Russia and Australia, Gates has performed and recorded with numerous other artists, including Kurt Elling, Lou Donaldson, Freddie Hubbard, Rufus Reid, Sheila Jordan, Jon Faddis, Peter Washington, Ben Riley, and Billy Taylor.

In the 2024 DownBeat magazine Critics Poll, Gates was ranked as one of the top “Male Vocalists,” following Kurt Elling, Gregory Porter, Theo Bleckmann, and Tony Bennett.