Henry Conerway

Drummer Henry Conerway III has become a leading presence on the modern jazz scene since moving to New York in 2015, as evidenced by his ongoing work with such global touring artists as; the iconic Freddy Cole; the stalwart Jazz at Lincoln Center trumpeter, Marcus Printup; 2015 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Vocal Competition Winner, Jazzmeia Horn; Grammy nominated trumpeter, Russell Gunn; Count Basie Band director, trumpeter Scotty Barnhart; and several residencies with Jazz at Lincoln Center in Doha, Qatar.

His notable performances include such esteemed venues as: The Atlanta Jazz Festival; Jacksonville Jazz Festival; Savannah Jazz Festival; National Black Arts Festival; Toronto Jazz Festival; The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; The United Trombone Summit (Indiana University) featuring Slide Hampton, Steve Turre, Curtis Fuller and Bill Watrous; Birmingham Jazz Festival; The Gulf Coast Ethnic & Heritage Festival; performed at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, CA in A Tribute To Ray Charles; the Mount Vernon Jazz Series in Golden, CO with jazz masters Nicholas Payton and Russell Malone; and notable NYC jazz clubs as Minton’s, Birdland, Smalls, Smoke; Jazz at Lincoln Center and its Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola.

Conerway, a proud Detroit native, made extraordinary use of the many educational and cultural opportunities of that formidable city, performing as a high school student on The Detroit Jazz Festival stages and spending several years studying under the tutelage of the late, great trumpeter, Marcus Belgrave as a member of the Detroit Symphony’s Civic Jazz Orchestra. His thirst for the jazz idiom was nurtured there by his mother, a lover of music, who made sure he experienced live performances of all types; and his father, a brilliant classical violinist, who also shared a deep and abiding love for jazz music in all its incarnations.

While matriculating at Atlanta’s historic and prestigious Morehouse College (B.A. in Music Composition), Henry co-founded the group, Jaspects, which quickly became a staple in that city's music scene and successfully sold thousands of their own recordings, while booking their own tours and forming creative collaborations with such luminaries as Maroon 5’s P.J. Morton; Grammy nominated Janelle Monáe; Tyler Perry’s Tony Hightower, and Chantae Cann; who can each be heard on Jaspects' recordings. Henry has also composed original works for film and performed in theatre settings including the Tony Award nominated Shuffle Along, or, the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed, on Broadway.