Palenke Arts proudly presents Tiffany Austin Quintet's The Love Epoch. At times dynamically soaring and soulfully meditative, this quintet project celebrates the love and legacy of spiritual jazz pioneers like Pharaoh Sanders, John Coltrane & Sun Ra through classic and original works.

Tiffany Austin

San Francisco Bay Area jazz vocalist Tiffany Austin appeared suddenly on the national scene in 2015 with the release of Nothing But Soul, one of the decade’s most widely hailed debut albums. The fact that she’d just graduated from the UC Berkeley School of Law made her emergence that much more spectacular. With her second album, Unbroken, the Los Angeles native stakes a claim as a formidable songwriter and intrepid musical explorer.

Far more than a collection of songs, Unbroken is a timeless meditation on African-American culture’s extraordinary resilience, with a soul-steeped affirmation that embraces blues and swing, spirituals and R&B, bebop, post-bop, and her own Louisiana Creole heritage. Produced by Grammy Award-winning jazz champion Richard Seidel, the album features a stellar cast of jazz veterans, including pianist Cyrus Chestnut, bassist Rodney Whitaker, and drummer Carl Allen.

When Tiffany Austin arrived in the Bay Area in 2009, she had decided to put music on the back burner. After about five years of supporting herself in Japan singing pop and soul, she was ready to pursue a different path via a scholarship to UC Berkeley School of Law. 

While the Los Angeles native wasn’t closing the door on the arts (“I went to law school with an eye to be an advocate for artists,” she said), she seemed set to trade in her career singing in bars for a new one as a member of the bar.

Since graduating from the Berkeley School of Law in 2012, Austin has indeed become an advocate for artists. But instead of putting down the microphone, she’s become one of the Bay Area’s most potent cultural advocates by raising her voice. One of jazz’s most soulful vocalists, she’s also become a highly effective organizer and educator with an array of projects and pursuits spanning the entire region.