“Johnston explores the limits of his instrument with a hankering for originality…running away and never looking back.”
San Francisco Bay Guardian, “Pick of the Week,” July 5 – 11, 2006.

“fantastic…with a big bell tone and a tart phrasing style that really cuts through.”
Signal to Noise #48

“a resourceful improviser who writes vivid, episodic themes.”
Downbeat Magazine, June 2007, “25 Trumpeters for the Future.”

Ontario-born trumpeter Darren Johnston has built a web of alliances, from avant-guard excursions with the likes of the ROVA saxophone quartet, Myra Melford, and Ben Goldberg, to straight-ahead jazz outings with the likes of bassist Marcus Shelby. He was recently listed by Downbeat Magazine as one of “25 Trumpeters of the Future.”

As a band-leader he is best known for his work with the United Brassworkers Front, an octet (two trumpets, two trombones, tuba/bass trombone, electric guitar, acoustic bass, and drums) that references many diverse styles, from Bach chorales to Mexican brass bands, to Angolan protest songs to “new music” and free-jazz, and whose second CD, “In Between Stories”, was recently released on Evander Music. Another new release in '07, "Reasons for Moving," featured Fred Frith and Larry Ochs, and was released on the Not Two label. Other projects include the The Nice Guy Trio - an ensemble of trumpet, accordion, and bass, which performs original compositions and songs from folk traditions around the globe, and the Transit Collective, featuring fellow Canadian jazz visionaries David Braid, Nick Fraser, Jon Maharaj, and San Francisco based alto saxophonist Evan Francis.

Johnston received his Bachelor's in jazz performance at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, where he studied with trumpeter Pat Harbison. More recently, he studied at Mills College in Oakland, CA, where he earned his Master's in composition, and where he had the opportunity to study with Fred Frith, Chris Brown, Alvin Curran, Annie Gosfield, Joelle Leandre, and Maggie Payne. Johnston's time at Mills was instrumental not only in exposing him to the compositional techniques and music of masters from Brahms, to Schoenberg, to Pauline Oliveros and beyond, but also exposed him to many improvisational techniques outside of those used in the traditional jazz canon, which in many ways have improved his abilities in traditional “straight-ahead” jazz.

Johnston has received commissions to write for dance, most notably for the San Francisco based company Robert Moses’s Kin, and for Amy Seiwert’s Im’ij-re, as well as two commissions through Intersection for the Arts’ “Jazz Commissioning Program,” and commissions to write for the gaming company Electronic Arts. Primarily, however, he writes for his own various projects and those of others in which he participates, including two new works for the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra. In 2007, through “Meet the Composer,” Johnston received a “Creative Connections” grant, which allowed him to develop a lecture-demo program with the aim of increasing audience awareness of his compositional and improvisational process, and more generally, to provide the audience, many of whom new to jazz and improvised music, with a sense of what to listen for in improvisatory music.

Photo by Todd Brown