Snarky Puppy

The once Texan, now New York-based quasi-collective Snarky Puppy has gone from the best-kept secret to one of the most respected names in instrumental music. Although still "underground" in many respects, the band earned its first Grammy Award in early 2014 (for Best R&B Performance), followed by two more in the subsequent years, and has earned high praise from critical stalwarts like the BBC, Village Voice, The Guardian, New York Times, and Washington Post, as well as the world’s most respected musicians, from Pat Metheny to Prince. Since 2014, their albums have topped Billboard Jazz, Billboard Contemporary Jazz, Billboard Heatseeker, and iTunes Jazz charts. The band has always used live performance as its chief form of evangelism, and over the last 8 years has maintained a more intense tour schedule than almost any band in the idiom with over 1,200 performances.