Jerron Paxton & Dennis Lichtman

Two extraordinary musicians and storytellers with a mutual love of the history, stories, and significance of the music they play...

Jerron Paxton and Dennis Lichtman are world-renowned multi-instrumentalists and vocalists whose formal musical partnership began with a video shoot at the Louis Armstrong House Museum in 2017. Since 2019, the duo has toured across the United States and internationally, and they served as artists-in-residence at New York City’s Symphony Space for the 2024-25 season. They released their first duo album in 2021. 

Jerron Paxton is highly talented on banjo, guitar, harmonica, vocals, fiddle, and piano. He is a brilliant interpreter of many styles of Black folk music, including stride piano jazz from New Orleans to New York, deep blues on guitar and harmonica, rural music played on fiddle and banjo; ragtime, and other turn-of-the-century forms. He transports his audiences not only to a different time, but to a state of mind. Paxton has researched, recovered, and recorded rare music dating back to the Civil War for the Smithsonian Folkways label. 

Dennis Lichtman is a world-traveling bandleader, best known for running the famed trad-jazz jam sessions at Mona’s Bar in New York City since 2007. The Wall Street Journal described these sessions as “ground zero for an emerging late-night scene of young traditional jazz and swing players.” Lichtman is a masterful multi-instrumentalist, playing clarinet, mandolin, violin, and more. He has toured and recorded with David Byrne, The Lovestruck Balladeers, Pokey LaFarge, Ghost Train Orchestra, Jim Kweskin, and his own projects, The Brain Cloud and Mona’s Hot Four.

Paxton and Lichtman share a mutual love of the history, stories, and significance behind the music they play. Their energetic sets feature acoustic blues, ragtime, Tin Pan Alley pop songs, 1920s jazz, twin fiddle hoe-downs, and original songs and compositions. This is roots music in the true sense of the word, performed by two extraordinary musicians and storytellers. 

“[Paxton]’s a walking, talking jukebox, a gifted songwriter, and a genuine inheritor of the traditions that define roots music…With a twinkle in his eye and a sly sense of humour, Paxton mixes reverence with playfulness. His live shows are as full of charm and storytelling as they are of virtuosic banjo, guitar, piano and fiddle playing. –Blues Matters

“[Paxton and Lichtman] performed two sets of music, seamlessly alternating instruments and demonstrating a deep understanding and passion for vintage tunes composed 80 to 130 years ago.” –New Pine Plains Herald

This project is made possible with funds from the Statewide Community Regrants Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by CNY Arts.

This project is made possible with funds from the Tier Three Project Support program, a regrant program of the County of Onondaga with the support of the County Executive and administered by CNY Arts.

  ~ This project is also made possible through the support and generosity of our Folkus members. ~