Trumpeter Ambrose Akinmusire's first brush with music was the piano at age 3. In his teens, the Oakland, California native showed great promise, playing with the Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble and collaborating with such jazz luminaries as Joe Henderson, Joshua Redman, Steve Coleman and Billy Higgins, all this before turning 18. A Manhattan School of Music and University of Southern California graduate, Akinmusire studied with the likes of Vincent Pinzerella, Lew Soloff, Terence Blanchard and Laurie Frink. A competition-winning artist and sought-after sideman, he started on a solo path with 2008's Prelude to a Cora. When the Heart Emerges Glistening followed three years later.