Monday Night Jam Session: Ernest Melton at the Blue Room

In 2013 the American Jazz Museum's Gerald Dunn told the jazz blog Plastic Sax to hear a kid playing with a youth band at the 18th & Vine Jazz and Blues Festival. The kid was Ernest Melton. "Melton, 17, floored me," Plastic Sax wrote.

He was born in Goldsboro, North Carolina, and grew up in the church, the son of a Primitive Baptist preacher. He moved to Kansas City at 10, picked up the tenor that year at Longfellow Academy, and at 14 joined a jazz program through the American Jazz Museum. He was gigging by 15. Berklee College of Music accepted him, but he couldn't afford to go, so he kept learning on Kansas City bandstands. He studied with tutors in classical orchestration, big band arranging, and Afro-Cuban drumming.

His trio cut The Time of the Slave Is Over in one day, with nothing written out; the blog called it "filled with righteous fury." He's also the saxophonist on Blue Devil Revival's 2026 EP, Birth of a Revival, issued through the Mutual Musicians Foundation.

On a 2020 stream with the James Ward Band, Plastic Sax heard him "test the textural limits" of standards by Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Wayne Shorter while his bandmates played them straight. Monday his band is Eric Kaplan on piano, Sebastian Arias on bass, and Jaylen Ward on drums.

The Blue Room, 1600 E 18th St, Kansas City, MO 64108. Monday, November 2, 2026, at 7 pm. $10 general admission; complimentary for AJM members, musicians, and students.