RJAM Professor Receives National Jazz Education Network Award
The award is given to a musician who has distinguished themselves by living up to the Jazz Education Network’s mission of advancing the art of the jazz community.
David Sánchez (Credit: Nino Fernandez).
Roots, Jazz, and American Music (RJAM) Department Professor David Sánchez has been named as the 2025 LeJENd of Latin Jazz Award Recipient by the Jazz Education Network (JEN), an organization of educators and musicians dedicated to the music. Sánchez has been teaching at SFCM since 2017.
“It’s humbling to join a list of amazing artists and past recipients of the LeJends of Latin Jazz ‘Keepers,’” Sánchez says. “I can think of other artists who deserve the acknowledgment, and I just feel honored to be part of the lineage of this art form. I’m grateful to JEN and especially to all of you who dare to share your experiences through art, for inspiring me and spreading love, which we need so much nowadays in the world.”
Sánchez is a cornerstone of the RJAM Department’s faculty, and one of SFCM’s faculty who also work as part of the SFJAZZ Collective. Warren Wolf (vibraphone), Matt Brewer (bass), and Edward Simon (piano) round out the SFCM portion of the SFJAZZ Collective’s roster; the group is led by renowned saxophonist Chris Potter and is about to embark on a residency at New York’s famed Birdland in March. SFCM’s RJAM undergraduate program takes a holistic view of "traditional" and Latin jazz from its inception to its current status, offering students apprentice-based models of performing and composing.
Born in Puerto Rico, Sánchez originally studied drums before switching to saxophone, and arrived in the U.S. to study in 1998. Gigging in New York led him to tours with legends of jazz like Eddie Palmieri and Dizzy Gillespie, which built into recordings with some of the biggest names in jazz, including pianist Kenny Barron, drummer Roy Haynes, guitarist Pat Metheny, and bassist Charlie Haden, whose album featuring Sánchez, Nocturne, won a GRAMMY Award (as did Haynes’ with Sánchez, Habana). Sánchez’s own album as leader, Coral, picked up a Latin GRAMMY Award in 2005.
The Jazz Education Network was founded in 2008 by Mary Jo Papich and Dr. Lou Fischer to unite educators across the country. In a little over ten years, the organization expanded to include just shy of 5,000 members nationwide, and its annual conference now brings together thousands of attendees from across the globe.
Learn more about studying Roots, Jazz, and American Music at SFCM.