Photo- Yerba Buena Gardens Festival - San Fransisco
Jonathon Haffner has worked continuously for over two decades within New York City’s downtown music, film, and art scenes, building a career across genres, disciplines, and international stages.
For over a decade, he performed and recorded with filmmaker and poet Jonas Mekas, accompanying live poetry and creating live scores to Mekas’ films. These collaborations included performances at the Serpentine Gallery in London, Hiro Ballroom in New York City, and The Stone, founded by John Zorn. His film work also includes The Hottest State, directed by Ethan Hawke with music by Jesse Harris.
Haffner has performed with Cyndi Lauper at Lincoln Center and appears on the Grammy-nominated album NYC by Brazilian Girls. He toured extensively with Butch Morris, appearing on more than 15 recordings. He appears on Louis Cole’s albums and video productions, and has performed with him in New York and Los Angeles.
He performs with The Great Lakes Quartet led by Wadada Leo Smith, alongside the late Jack DeJohnette and John Lindberg. Their release on TUM Records was named a Top 10 Box Set of the Year by The New York Times, and the ensemble has performed at the Berlin Jazz Festival, the Leibnitz Festival in Austria, and Jazz em Agosto in Lisbon, Portugal.
His solo album, Life on Wednesday (produced by David Binney), featuring Craig Taborn and Wayne Krantz, was invited to perform at the North Sea Jazz Festival, in a concert also featuring Nasheet Waits and Marc Ducret. Following the North Sea, he led his own ensembles at the Vilnius Jazz Festival in Lithuania, as well as the Nublu Jazz Festival and Winter Jazz Fest in NYC.
He co-leads projects with Kenny Wollesen and Dalius Naujo, released Rasa Rasa on John Zorn’s Tzadik label, performs with Rocket Sci on Nublu Records, and is a co-leader of the band Big Shapes with Dave Harrington (of Darkside) and Max Jaffe. Big Shapes will release its second album in spring 2026. Haffner is also completing a new collaborative quartet album to be released in 2026, including Matt Nelson, Tim Dahl, and Brian Chase of Yeah Yeah Yeahs.