Snarky Puppy has postponed a run of upcoming shows following the death of longtime keyboardist Shaun Martin this past weekend.
“Due to the loss of our brother, Shaun Martin,” the band wrote in an announcement on Tuesday, “we have decided to postpone the four concerts we had scheduled this week. … We hope you understand and look forward to coming back to the stage very soon.” The four postponed dates include August 8th at Lincoln Hill Farms in Canandaigua, NY, August 9th at Suffolk Downs in Boston, MA, August 10th at Hot August Music Festival in Cockeysville, MD, and August 11th at Richmond Jazz & Music Festival in Richmond, VA.
Martin passed away on Saturday, August 3rd after spending over a year under close medical supervision while recovering from a stroke suffered in April 2023. He is survived by his wife Monica Wilson Martin and his son Harlem Martin.
As of now, Snarky Puppy is due to return to the stage in Tokyo, Japan on September 22nd as part of the city’s Blue Note Jazz Festival. The 5x Grammy-winning jazz fusion ensemble will return to the States from there for a late-September/early-October run featuring shows in St. Louis, MO (9/26), Long Beach, CA (9/28), San Diego, CA (9/30), and Santa Barbara, CA (10/1) in addition to a four-show SF Jazz residency in San Francisco, CA (10/3, 10/4, 10/5, 10/6). Snarky Puppy is also scheduled to headline Jam Cruise next February. For a complete list of upcoming Snarky Puppy tour dates, head here.
Friends and peers of Martin’s will host a benefit concert on September 14th at Dallas’ The Black Academy of Arts and Letters to both honor his musical contributions and raise funds to help cover the medical bills now left to his family. Billed as A Salute to Pianist Extraordinaire Shaun Martin, the event’s lineup includes his former collaborators Erykah Badu and Snarky Puppy, as well as singer-songwriter Norah Jones, who was a classmate of Martin’s at both BTWHSPVA and UNT. Robert Glasper, Terrace Martin, Cory Henry, and many more. Tickets and more details are available here.
“We lost a music legend and, more importantly, a beautiful, luminous human being,” the band said in a social media post on Sunday. “Shaun Martin touched so many people during his life and through the beautiful immortality of music, will continue to do so. There’s so much that can be said but words can’t do justice. Rest in peace.”
As Martin’s longtime Snarky Puppy bandmate Mark Lettieri wrote in a social media post on Monday, “Shaun. We travelled thousands of miles together, played thousands of notes, talked thousands of lines of shit to each other. We used to joke and say it was like Richard Pryor and Gene Wilder. With more chords. There’s so much more I could say about everything we experienced in the last 18 some odd years of hanging out and making noise – except that it was just the best. You were the best, and you made everyone around you better. You were larger than life. An absolute force of music, entertainment, and love. A mentor, and a brother to me and so many more. I’m so thankful for you, and what you brought to our lives, our art, and our community. You will be with us forever.”
Read our full obituary for Shaun Martin here.
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