KyleCripps

Kyle Cripps grew up in Cape May, NJ, and earned his musical chops on saxophone through his high school years, winning soloist awards and composing, producing, and independently releasing three albums under the name Willy Cliffton Band before he was old enough to vote. In 2008, he moved to New Orleans to pursue a master’s degree at the University of New Orleans on a full-tuition award, co-leading and arranging for the UNO Jazz Orchestra while absorbing the rhythms of the city around him.

In New Orleans, Cripps has performed with an extraordinary range of artists: Ellis Marsalis, Irvin Mayfield, Glen David Andrews, Jason Marsalis, Marcia Ball, Jimmy Heath, Clark Terry, and Gerald Veasley among them. He performs regularly with Smoke N Bones, Maid of Orleans, and Corporate America, and is a regular contributor to several brass bands.

Cripps has become one of the leading practitioners in New Orleans of the harpejji — a unique electric instrument played horizontally like a keyboard but fretted like a guitar — and performs on it regularly at the New Orleans Jazz Museum. He was a founding staff member of the New Orleans Jazz Institute’s Saturday Music School, helping to develop jazz curriculum for young students.