Bruce Katz learned piano at five and found his reason for playing it at ten, when a Bessie Smith record reached him and stayed. The music that grew from that moment runs through Hammond B3 and piano with equal authority: blues and American roots shaped by jazz, stretched by improvisation. Three decades on, Katz has carried that sound from Berklee’s lecture halls to Gregg Allman’s touring band. The Bruce Katz Band plays Colony Woodstock on Thursday, September 24.
About the Show
Katz is the player other musicians call when they need a blues pianist who can hold a shuffle and follow it somewhere unexpected. He has appeared on more than 85 albums by other artists, with collaborators that include Ronnie Earl, John Hammond, Delbert McClinton, and Gregg Allman (the latter for six years, from 2007 to 2013). He spent nearly five years touring with Ronnie Earl’s The Broadcasters and fourteen years as an Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music, a background that explains something about the precision that runs beneath the improvisation.
His most recent release, Back In Boston Live (2025), catches the band across two sold-out nights at The Fallout Shelter in Norwood, Massachusetts—their first live record in 16 years. It charted at No. 8 on the Billboard Blues Chart. Living Blues Magazine described it as “a perfect showcase for Katz’s virtuosity and unmatched improvisational skill”; Blues Blast Magazine was more direct: “Bruce and his band are certainly at the top of their field.” A new studio album is planned for early 2027, with all band members contributing original material.
This September stop in Woodstock follows a busy 2026 itinerary: a “Sunshine Tour” through Florida and the South, then a ten-city “Heartland” run through the Midwest. Katz brings a ten-time Blues Music Award nomination record, including a 2025 nod, along with a 2019 BMA win for Best Acoustic Album for Journeys to the Heart of the Blues (with Joe Louis Walker and Giles Robson). The current lineup of Katz, guitarist Aaron Lieberman, and John Medeiros Jr has, by the band’s own account, reached a point where members “instinctively know what is going to happen next.”
Venue & Logistics
Colony Woodstock opened in 1929 as a hotel with big band performances in its great room. Today it is a 150-capacity music venue on Rock City Road—one of the Hudson Valley’s more enduring small rooms. Doors open at 6 p.m., with the show starting at 7 p.m.; the set runs approximately three hours.
Tickets
Tickets are $17–$23. Those under 18 must attend with a parent or legal guardian. Buy tickets