Tim Armacost

Tim Armacost (born December 8, 1962) is an American jazz musician (tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, composition) and music educator who dedicates himself to "maintaining the tradition of tonally bound improvisation". He has collaborated with many famed musicians across several countries and is/was in such well-known musical groups as Bunch Of Five, David White Quintet, IN Trio, New York Standards Quartet, OYEZ, Rick Hollander Quartet, Shingo Okudaira Quartet, The Intercontinental Jazz Trio, and Ugetsu.

He is based in New York City.

Tim Armacost was born on December 8, 1962, in Los Angeles, California, and was raised in Los Angeles, Washington DC, and Tokyo, Japan. He showed musical talent at a young age, learning clarinet when he was eight years old, in Tokyo. By the time he was sixteen, he switched to tenor saxophone and had already begun playing with big bands in and around Washington DC. 

When he was 18, he moved to Los Angeles, California, where he performed with Bobby Bradford and Charlie Shoemake. Bradford and Shoemake taught him the fundamentals of melody and harmony and also exposed him to many jazz greats who influenced his music, such as Sonny Rollins, Hank Mobley, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Ornette Coleman, Freddie Hubbard, Tom Harrell, Sonny Stitt, Pete Christlieb, Harold Land, and Clifford Brown.

In 1981-1985, Armacost studied (Asia studies) at Pomona College, Claremont, California. In 2006-2008, he attended Queens College, Queens, New York, graduating with a Master's degree in Jazz Composition. 

After graduating magna cum laude from Pomona College, Armacost relocated to Amsterdam, Netherlands, and worked there for seven years, until 1991/92. During that period, he played and recorded in various European countries with various artists, for example, with German jazz pianist Klaus Ignatzek, American drummer/pianist/composer Rick Hollander, Dutch pianist Rob van den Broeck, German pianist Walter Lang, and Dutch jazz musician Hendrik Meurkens. While in the Netherlands, he also taught music, eventually becoming the head of the saxophone department of Sweelinck Academy at Conservatorium van Amsterdam (1986 – 1991).

Armacost then left Amsterdam and moved to New Delhi, India, around 1992 to further his music career and learn about classical Indian music and its rhythms. There, he was taught by the tabla player Vijay Ateet and performed frequently with Indian jazz and classical musicians, after his "apprenticeship". He returned to India in 1998 to perform at the Jazz Yatra, Mumbai's international jazz festival. Later, he incorporated Indian music elements in his 2007 album Rhythm & Transformation.

In 1993, he made New York City his new home. In 1996, he recorded on Concord Jazz his debut album Fire with Gerald Cannon (bass), Billy Hart (drums), Shingo Okudaira (drums), Alan Varner (engineer), Kenny Barron (piano), and Allen Farnham (producer). It was followed by Live At Smalls (1998), in which trumpeter Tom Harrell and pianist Jonny King also performed. 

In the following years, he would collaborate with Shingo Okudaira even more, for example in the Intercontinental Jazz Trio with the Dutch bassist Joris Teepe.

Armacost also belonged to a jazz ensemble Ugetsu, with German trumpeter Peter Tuscher, Australian trombonist Adrian Mears, German pianist Bernhard Pichl, German bassist Martin Zenker, and German drummer Dejan Terzic. They recorded several albums in Europe, including Live In Athens ‎(1997), Live In Shanghai ‎(1999), and Cape Town Blues (2000).

During this time, he also worked with Kenny Barron, Roy Hargrove, the David Murray Big Band, Maria Schneider Orchestra, Randy Brecker, Al Foster, Jimmy Cobb, Victor Lewis, Peter Erskine, Don Friedman, and Joris Teepe.

In 2000, Armacost with his quartet—pianist Bruce Barth, bassist Ray Drummond, and drummer Billy Hart—released his third album The Wishing Well, on Double-Time Records.

In 2007, he released a Western jazz and Indian music fusion album Rhythm & Transformation on ArtistShare. In addition to his quartet, the album also had Ray Spiegel playing the tabla and Eddie Henderson playing the trumpet.

In the 2010s, Armacost was a member of the New York Standards Quartet with pianist David Berkman, drummer Gene Jackson, and double bassist Daiki Yasukagawa. He has also been a co-leader with Craig Bailey of the Brooklyn Big Band, recording Live At Sweet Rhythm in 2009 on Candid Productions Ltd. He has also worked with the group Hornz in the Hood with fellow saxophonists Craig Handy and Ravi Coltrane.

Armacost's most recent album, 2017's Time Being (on Whirlwind Recordings,) features bassist Robert Hurst, drummer Jeff "Tain" Watts, and pianist David Kikoski. The album received a four-star review in Downbeat magazine. The following year, he worked on David Berkman's album Six of One.

He is also a part of a trio named In Trio with Christian Finger and Harvie S—in 2019, they released an 11-track album Cascade on Centaur Records.

Armacost has also composed for the legendary trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, New York. 

As a music educator, Armacost teaches regularly at the Jamey Aebersold and Stanford Summer Jazz Workshops, at Queens College in New York City, and as a clinician at various universities in the United States, Japan, and Europe. His performances in Japan have included such notable Japanese musicians as Terumasa Hino, Motohiko Hino, Fumio Karashima, Nobuyoshi Ino, Fumio Itabashi, Shingo Okudaira, Benisuke Sakai, Kiyoto Fujiwara, and Yutaka Shiina.

Between 1986 and 2014, Armacost was involved in 44 recording sessions.