“By mining traditional Navajo “spinning songs” of love, healing and courtship, and marrying them to jazz and funk lines, Anderson and his trio have taken a place at the forefront of a vibrant Native American jazz scene. ” - Michael Powell
“Anderson has developed a slew of spin-off projects that have quickly gained notice and rightly marked him as a community-minded Indigenous individualist,” - Dan Bilwasky
“When New Mexico trumpeter Delbert Anderson needed new inspiration for his jazz trio, he rolled out to an Aztec library and looked for Indigenous music. As a man of Navajo descent himself, he wanted to dig deeper into his ancestry. What Anderson found was a tape of “spinning songs”—essentially, songs dictating social interaction—chanted by Navajo chiefs. ” - Morgan Enos
Welcome
Delbert Anderson creates Diné inspired musical pathways. Anderson preserves his cultural music by creating a foundation of new Diné melodies and fuses them through jazz, jam and funk. Each path serves Indigenous culture through stories, healing, history and collaboration.
Anderson has been featured on The New York Times, JazzTimes, Grammy.com, NASA, NPR Music Top 10, Smithsonian Magazine, Yahoo/Mic.com, TEDx, PBS, FNX Television and much more. Anderson has also been awarded the Cultural Capital Fellowship 2023 from First Peoples Fund, Jazz Road Touring Grant 2023 from South Arts, Arts Forward 2022 funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 2021-22 Presenters Consortium for Jazz Award from Chamber Music America funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, 2022 Collective Spirit Award by First Peoples Fund, 2022 Jazz Road Creative Residency from South Arts funded by Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 2021 Emerging/Leaders of Color Program from Western States Arts Federation and the 2019-22 Native Launchpad Award by Advancing Indigenous Performance with Western Arts Alliance.