Sarah Kramer Bio
“Well, you dangerous already!”
–Bo Diddley once said of Sarah Kramer’s trumpet playing after performing together at the House of Blues.
Raised in West Orange, New Jersey, Sarah Kramer began playing trumpet at the tender age of nine. At sixteen Kramer picked up the guitar and started writing her own songs. Soon she was taking the train to New York City to busk in Washington Square Park. While an undergrad at Bard on a Nesuhi Ertegun Jazz scholarship awarded by trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith, she frequently crossed the mighty Hudson River to play Woodstock’s renowned Tinker St. Cafe.
After college Kramer spent a few years performing in Taos, New Mexico, then headed south to New Orleans, where she spent eight years exploring and honing her craft within a wide variety of musical styles: Blues, Jazz, Latin, Brass Band, Reggae, Klezmer, Alternative Rock, etc. While sitting in with legends like Levon Helm, Eddie Bo, Cyril Neville, Snooks Eaglin, Walter “Wolfman” Washington (and many more) she also developed her own sound while performing original songs with her band, The Sarah Kramer Project.
In 2003 Kramer brought her horns to Los Angeles. She performed live with a myriad of bands at various venues all over town—The Roxy, The Troubadour, The Viper Room, etc—while also working as a session player. She played trumpet on the title track of Leonard Cohen’s Dear Heather (see discography for full list).
Sarah returned to her east coast roots in 2007, spending a stint in New York City performing weekly with a Cuban band at Sting’s club, Socialista. However, come winter, Kramer was lured back to Los Angeles for the sunshine.
In 2013, Look for Sarah Kramer’s long awaited debut album Home, featuring nine originals and one cover (Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready”). This deeply personal collection of songs is a soulful meditation on love, loss, and redemption.
Sarah Kramer continues to perform her own material and to work as a studio musician. She can also be heard regularly sitting in with Jacksh*t at McCabe’s Guitar Shop and The Baked Potato. She currently resides in Hollywood, CA.