Sam BAUM

Pianist and composer

Photo by Nora Sun

FROM MY SHINY IMAGINATION, ORIGINAL COMPOSITIONS BY PIANIST & COMPOSER SAM BAUM, RELEASES ON MARCH 27, 2026, IN RECOGNITION OF WORLD AUTISM AWARENESS DAY AND NATIONAL AUTISM AWARENESS MONTH

FEATURING SPECIAL GUEST APPEARANCES BY

DAN BLOCK, BOBBY SANABRIA & DAVID AMRAM

AND THE SPECIAL AUDIENCES AND MUSICIANS JAZZ ENSEMBLE WITH LEV GARFEIN, SARAH TURKIEW, TONY VENTURA, NOE SOCHA & BRAULIO THORNE

ALBUM RELEASE SHOW APRIL 27, AT 1PM

VISIONS CENTER AT SELIS MANOR

135 WEST 23RD ST, NYC

WITH SPECIAL GUESTS BOBBY SANABRIA AND DAN BLOCK

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC AND FREE ADMISSION

THE FIRST SINGLE,"ELBA'S RHYTHM DANCE," IS STREAMING NOW

VIDEO “ELBA’S RHYTHM DANCE” ON YOUTUBE

“It’s a joy to witness the activities of SAM involving musicians and audiences with special needs. I love seeing the enthusiasm of Sam Baum and his wonderful colleagues playing music. it's a lesson of life for everyone." — 17X Grammy nominee, jazz pianist and composer Fred Hersch

"This music harkens back, melodically and harmonically, to another era — the ’30s and ’40s. I hear Monk. I hear Horace Silver. In some of the Latin-oriented pieces, I hear Pérez Prado." — 7X Grammy nominee, drummer and composer Bobby Sanabria.

From My Shiny Imagination: Music by Sam Baum is the forthcoming album by pianist and composer Sam Baum, to be released in April 2026 in conjunction with World Autism Awareness Day. Recorded January 4, 2026 at Old Soul Studio in Catskill, New York, the album presents a complete program of Baum’s original compositions.

The recording is closely connected to Special Audiences and Musicians (SAM), the New York–based nonprofit organization founded in 2017 by trumpeter and educator Jeffrey Nussbaum, Baum’s father, and dedicated to supporting jazz musicians with disabilities. Through SAM, Nussbaum has built working jazz ensembles and presented performances in hospitals, senior centers, schools, residences for blind adults, and union venues across New York City and the surrounding region. Musicians are engaged on a paid, professional basis, with many performances contracted through the American Federation of Musicians’ Local 802.

The music on From My Shiny Imagination is performed by the Special Audiences and Musicians Jazz Ensemble, with Baum on piano alongside violinist Lev Garfein, baritone saxophonist Sarah Turkiew, bassist Tony Ventura, guitarist and harmonica player Noe Socha, and conga player Braulio Thorne. Three guest artists appear on the session: Dan Block, a Juilliard-trained clarinetist and saxophonist who served as musical director; Bobby Sanabria, a Berklee-trained drummer, bandleader, and educator; and composer and multi-instrumentalist David Amram, who appears on penny whistle.

Several members of the ensemble bring long personal and professional histories to the project. Socha, blind since infancy, has long anchored the group’s sound. “Noe has really big ears,” Nussbaum says. Turkiew, an autistic baritone saxophonist and composer, earns Nussbaum’s description as “a monster player.” Ventura, a New York–area bassist who contracted polio as a child, brings decades of experience as a working musician. Thorne, also blind, first sat in on congas through a SAM residency before joining the ensemble more formally. Garfein, who is on the autism spectrum, came to the project through pianist Fred Hersch’s circle.

Sanabria is explicit about the standard he brings to the project. “I don’t want people to look at this recording as some quirky kind of oddity,” he says. “I want it judged on its musical merits — good music, played by great musicians.”

“As instrumental musicians, we don’t have the luxury of lyrics,” Sanabria continues. “If a singer performs something like ‘Good Morning Heartache,’ you know immediately what it’s about. When you’re playing that feeling on an instrument, everything has to come through the sound.” He adds, “I’ve taught and worked with autistic musicians in schools and on bandstands, and I don’t lower the bar for anybody.”

Sanabria hears Baum’s writing within a longer musical continuum. “This music harkens back, melodically and harmonically, to another era — the ’30s and ’40s,” he says. “I hear Monk. I hear Horace Silver. In some of the Latin-oriented pieces, I hear Pérez Prado.”

Rehearsals are limited by design, a practice Nussbaum applies across SAM ensembles. “We tend to learn the material on the gig,” he says. “I feel the group learns it on a deeper level when the pressure is on.” He adds, “Jazz, ultimately, the highest goal is individual expression.”

Before founding SAM, Nussbaum spent more than three decades as a New York City special education teacher. He is also the founder of the Historic Brass Society, an international organization devoted to early brass music and historically informed performance, which he led for decades while producing scholarly journals, organizing conferences in the United States and Europe, and presenting performances at universities and cultural institutions.

Baum began playing jazz piano at age 13 and gravitated early toward improvisation and composition. He studied with teachers including Danny Mixon and Dan Kaufman. His music draws on jazz piano study, synagogue repertoire, Afro-Caribbean rhythms, blues, and swing. Many of the pieces are written for specific people and moments in his life, with titles he assigns immediately upon completing each composition. He arrives at sessions with completed works and a clear sense of form. He participates in New York State’s Self Direction program, which supports his adult life and musical work.

From My Shiny Imagination follows Baum’s earlier albums — The Compositions of Sam Baum with the Special Audiences and Musicians Jazz Ensemble (2022) and More Tunes by Sam Baum with the Special Audiences and Musicians Ensemble (2024) — and builds on years of live performances in concert halls, hospitals, senior centers, schools, and union venues. Those projects drew support and testimonials from musicians including George Coleman, Fred Hersch, Scott Robinson, Jimmy Owens, Ray Vega, and Amram.

The album takes its title from a four-movement suite of the same name that anchors the program. It opens with “Elba’s Rhythm Dance,” which Baum wrote for Elba, a longtime figure in his life who has belonged to Baum’s extended family since her teenage years and will serve as his guardian in the future. “Sam writes for people in his life,” Nussbaum says. “High Man Blues” follows as a straightforward 12-bar blues. “Juggling Through the Gym,” a jazz waltz, draws on Baum’s school years.

The four-movement suite From My Shiny Imagination comprises “Gleaming at the 70th Minute of the Gold Odlin,” “As Low As a Snake,” “Creeping Further Than a Golem,” and “March of the Chair Girl.” “Creeping Further Than a Golem” carries a pronounced klezmer inflection shaped in part by Block’s clarinet playing. Baum has also accompanied Shabbat services, and synagogue repertoire forms part of the musical vocabulary that surfaces in his writing.

“Dancing with the Calypso Noon Borrowers,” one of the album’s central pieces, builds around a calypso-inflected groove and features Amram on penny whistle. “That’s one of the main pieces on the record,” Nussbaum says. Baum wrote “Amber’s Elsadoor” for Amber, Elba’s daughter, after repeated requests; its title references the film Frozen, which Amber loved. The album closes with the rollicking “Gliding in the Sock Hole.”

Baum’s inimitable writing remains the throughline, shaped through repeated performance and professional practice. “There are a lot of younger players who are absolute virtuosos,” Nussbaum says. “But frankly, many of them sound very much alike. Sam really has his own voice.”

Track Listing

1.   Elba’s Rhythm Dance

2.   High Man Blues

3.   Juggling Through the Gym

4.   Gleaming at the 70th Minute of the Gold Odlin

5.   As Low As a Snake

6.   Creeping Further Than a Golem

7.   March of the Chair Girl

8.   Dancing with the Calypso Noon Borrowers

9.   Amber’s Elsadoor

10..Gliding in the Sock Hole

Performances 2026

June 18 - Autism Pride Day - Special Audiences and Musicians Ensemble, Bronx Music Hall, Bronx Music Heritage Center, Bronx, NY, special guests Bobby Sanabria and Dan Block, 4PM, free admission, open to the public,

ABOUT SAM BAUM

Sam began to play jazz piano in 2005 when he was 13, and immediately it was clear that jazz was Sam's language. Like many people on the autistic spectrum, Sam had never found the standard give and take of conversation easy or natural. Jazz improvisation, on the other hand, is where Sam is most clever, expressive, and naturally at home. Under the expert and caring guidance of his teachers, Trudy Silver, Danny Mixon, David Dormeus, Gary Dial, Dan Kaufman and Adam Rafferty, Sam has blossomed as a musician, becoming more and more skilled in the complex language of jazz improvisation and creating his own very expressive and personal style. Other notable musicians Sam has encountered on his short musical journey so far. Jimmy Owens, Reggie Workman,Robert Redd, John Jensen, Billy Taylor, Roni Ben-Hur, Jeff Warschauer, Gili Sharett, Tardo Hammer, Vinnie Martucci and Roswell Rudd, all of whom have all been helpful and deserve heartfelt thanks.

Since 2018 Sam has been actively engaged in performances with Special Audiences and Musicians, Inc, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing performance opportunities for jazz musicians who have been under-represented in the professional music community; mainly musicians with disabilities, senior jazz musicians and female jazz musicians. Sam was the inspiration for the creation of this important organization. In January 2022 Special Audiences and Musicians released its debut album, “The Compositions of Sam Baum” The Special Audiences and Jazz Musicians Jazz Sextet performed 11 of his original tunes. Digital copies as well as physical CDs can be obtain from bandcamp as well as all the major streaming platforms. In addition to jazz, Sam has explored klezmer and other areas of popular music. We look forward to Sam's musical future.



ABOUT SPECIAL AUDIENCES FOR MUSICIANS (SAM)

Special Audiences and Musicians, Inc. is a 501-C with a commitment to provide cultural enrichment by way of musical performances in nursing homes, hospitals, assisted-living homes, and other such institutions in New York and the Tri-State area, with musicians drawn from three under-represented groups; musicians with disabilities, senior musicians, and women. These three groups will occasionally be joined by other musicians. Special Audiences and Musicians, Inc. will provide a much needed service with musical performances in such institutions including nursing homes, hospitals, assisted-living homes, and other related institutions. The therapeutic, social and emotional benefits from live musical performance are well established. Utilizing musicians with disabilities, female musicians and senior musicians will provide valuable performance opportunities to those under-represented musicians who have much to offer in terms of artistic expression.