Donovan Mixon Quartet

Chicago-based guitarist and composer Donovan Mixon is a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and a Resident Artist with the Jazz Institute of Chicago. He is the recipient of the 2025 Evanston Mayor’s Award for the Arts and the creator of Finding Center: A Sonic Memoir (2025), a deeply personal and expansive musical work.

Mixon performs with the AACM’s historic Great Black Music Ensemble, appearing at festivals and events including the Chicago Jazz Festival and Pitchfork Music Festival. In additon he conducts workshops in the historic AACM music school. Donovan is also a teaching artist for the Jazz Institute of Chicago in which he conducts workshops in Chicago public schools and currently serves on the adjunct faculty at Oakton College.

He is also the founder and curator of Donovan’s Garage, a monthly Chicago concert series and performance laboratory that has hosted more than 70 jazz musicians and continues to cultivate a growing, engaged audience.

A former Berklee College of Music professor and National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Composition grantee, Mixon spent nearly two decades performing and teaching in Europe and Turkey. He is the author of Performance Ear Training, an acclaimed book that reimagines how musicians develop listening skills and his fictionalized autobiographical novel Ahgottahandleonit published in 2017 by Cinco Puntos Press.

Tom is a Chicago-based musician whose performance career includes extensive work in jazz and blues, both locally and abroad. From 2000–2008, he toured Europe with blues legends Lurrie and Carey Bell while maintaining an active presence on the Chicago scene. He has also performed with jazz greats including Von Freeman, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Russell Malone, and others, and continues to perform in the U.S. and internationally with a variety of ensembles.

Dexter Sims is a veteran Chicago-based electric and acoustic bassist, composer, and educator whose performance career spans jazz, gospel, R&B, theater, and recording work. Known for his groove, sensitivity, and stylistic range, he has performed and recorded with artists including Randy Weston, Wynton Marsalis, Terri Lyne Carrington, Dee Alexander, George Freeman, Oscar Brown Jr., Robert Irving III, and Alex Bugnon. He has also served for more than 25 years as bassist for the Wooten Choral Ensemble, while remaining active in Chicago’s theater and music communities through ETA Creative Arts Foundation, Black Ensemble Theater, Nile Music Inc., and music education initiatives.

Tyrone Blair Bio

Tyrone Blair is a seasoned Chicago-based drummer with extensive live performance experience throughout the United States and abroad, including tours of Europe and Greenland with the U.S. Armed Forces Professional Entertainment Program. Equally at home on acoustic and electronic drums, Blair has performed with a wide range of artists and ensembles, including Dee Alexander, Jerry Butler, Charles Earland, Phil Cohran Ensemble, Orbert Davis, Audley Reid, Billy Foster, Frank Russell, and many others. His work spans jazz, gospel, R&B, funk, film, television, and recording projects, reflecting a versatile career rooted in strong musicianship and deep performance experience.