Isaiah Collier & The Chosen Few

Twenty-four-year-old Isaiah Collier is a musical virtuoso in the truest sense of the phrase. He began playing saxophone at age 11, and his intuitive proficiency earned him attention early on. Ever since, his band Isaiah Collier and The Chosen Few has been turning ears.
 
There’s a regal, elegant manner to Isaiah’s stage presence: he’s over 6 feet tall, thin, deep brown, with high cheekbones. When not playing, he is patiently waiting – not contemplating his next move, but listening to the musicians who accompany him, listening to their stories. He explains that he’s never really hearing himself, he’s hearing others play: some people have fire, others have air. “That’s how I hear. There has to be a balance.”
 
He has released three albums to date, I am (11) – Beyond (Division 81 Records, 2022), Return of the Black Emperor (JAZZ, 2018), and Cosmic Transitions (JAZZ, 2021). As far as where he plans to take his music, Collier says, “I reach backwards and forwards simultaneously when creating art and what is ahead of me is the past.”