Ambrose Akinmusire (born 1982, Oakland, California) is an American avant-garde jazz trumpeter and composer who has recorded for Blue Note and Nonesuch Records. He won both the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition and the Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Competition in 2007, and has since topped the DownBeat Critics' Poll trumpet category for most of the 2010s. His music moves freely between post-bop, contemporary chamber music, and hip-hop - he appears on Kendrick Lamar's landmark 2015 album To Pimp a Butterfly - and he currently serves as Artistic Director of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Performance at UCLA.
Akinmusire released the duo album Slo-Mo Neon Luminate Hoverings with guitarist Mary Halvorson on Nonesuch Records on June 12, 2026.
Akinmusire toured Europe with the Brussels Jazz Orchestra in a program titled '(...)What's Not There: A New Perspective on Miles', with stops in Budapest, Tilburg, Birmingham, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Brussels, Bruges, and Hamburg.
Akinmusire received a Grammy nomination for honey from a winter stone in the Best Alternative Jazz Album category at the 2026 Grammy Awards.
Akinmusire released honey from a winter stone on Nonesuch Records on January 17, 2025, described by the New York Times as among the most intimate music of his career.
Akinmusire was named Artistic Director of the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz Performance at UCLA, returning to the program from which he graduated in 2007.
![Ambrose Akinmusire Quartet [18:30] — Klub Jassmine, Warsaw](/images/events/104186.webp)
Trumpeter and composer Ambrose Akinmusire, winner of the Thelonious Monk Competition, performs at Klub Jassmine. His music blends jazz with elements of classical music and hip-hop.
Two leading jazz musicians—trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire and pianist Craig Taborn—bring their "Bloom & Decay" collaboration to Cologne Philharmonie.