A husband. A wife. An astonishing duo. The Baylor Project, 8x GRAMMY® nominees and NAACP Image Award winners, is built on the things that matter most to Marcus and Jean: love, family, faith, culture and community. Both are the children of pastors, and their musical roots run deep in the church. That spirit lives in every note, as jazz, gospel, blues and soul flow together into one unmistakable sound.

Each built a celebrated career before joining forces. Jean first rose to fame as one half of Zhané, the platinum-selling R&B/hip-hop duo from Queen Latifah’s Flavor Unit. Essence magazine counts Zhané among the R&B groups that changed the game, crediting them with laying “the groundwork for much of the modern sound” of the genre. Marcus came up in the bands of NEA Jazz Masters Cassandra Wilson and Kenny Garrett before spending a decade, from 2000 to 2010, as the drummer for the two-time GRAMMY®-winning jazz quartet Yellowjackets. As fate would have it, the two first met outside The Blue Note in New York City, a meeting that led to their first performance together. Today, The Baylor Project is one of jazz’s most celebrated duos.

Beyond creating music, Marcus and Jean set out to create a space for independent ownership and vision as artists through their own label, Be A Light, LLC. Accomplished composers, arrangers and producers, they take every song from a spark of an idea to the finished record. Their self-released debut, “The Journey,” arrived at No. 8 on the Billboard jazz chart. Then came the album “Generations,” the live album “The Evening: Live at APPARATUS” and the singles “Sit On Down” and “Walk With Me, Lord.” The industry took notice. Their work, including a featured performance on “Vulnerable (Live),” has earned eight GRAMMY® nominations across Best Jazz Vocal Album, Best Jazz Performance, Best Traditional R&B Performance and, for Marcus’s own drumming, Best Improvised Jazz Solo, plus an NAACP Image Award. But its truest measure is the way their music reaches people: songs of faith, love and resilience that cross boundaries and speak to every listener.

That connection comes fully alive on stage, where Marcus and Jean mesmerize sold-out audiences. As DownBeat magazine put it, “You don’t listen to the Baylors’ music so much as respond to it.” All About Jazz described “the palpable joy that emanated from the stage” and called Jean’s agile mezzo-soprano, known for its soul-hugging purity, “one of the best voices in jazz music today.” Modern Drummer magazine wrote that Marcus, a drummer known for his storytelling at the kit, “has cultivated a style of playing that transcends restrictions such as genre and category,” and NPR observed that when Marcus and Jean “enter a space, their love for each other and playfulness is on display.”

That magic isn’t limited to the concert hall. Marcus and Jean were personally chosen by two-time Daytime Emmy Award–winning host Tamron Hall to create the official theme for the Tamron Hall Show, Disney’s second-longest-running syndicated talk show. They answered with “GOOD LIFE,” a collaboration that moved Tamron Hall deeply and embodied everything she envisioned. Every weekday, the show opens with the Baylors, bringing jazz into the mainstream and into more than 44 million homes across America.

Off the stage, Marcus and Jean are dedicated educators. They have served as faculty at the Jazz Port Townsend Workshop & Festival and Manhattan School of Music (Jazz Voice), and lead master classes and workshops nationwide, making them natural partners for presenters’ education and community programs.

The Baylor Project pays homage to its wide-ranging musical influences, and when Marcus and Jean take the stage, there is no room for the ordinary. Every performance is a dialogue: they call, and their audience responds with hand-clapping celebration, leaving renewed, restored and full of joy.

Soulful. Melodic. Authentic. The Baylor Project.

“Jean and Marcus Baylor are a married couple whose buoyant, convivial music unites gospel, jazz and R&B.”

—The New York Times (by Giovanni Russonello)

“The Baylor Project is one of the most engaging live bands performing today.”

—Making a Scene (by Jim Hynes)

“The Baylor Project is something special to hear, and hear it you should.”

—SoulTracks (by L. Michael Gipson)