Jazz Series curator and musical anchor Chuck Lamb, a member of the Brubeck Brothers Quartet since 2002, is a dynamic and emotive pianist, as well as a prolific composer of jazz, fusion, classical, and world music.Chuck Lamb's special guest for this month's JAZZ at Caffe Lena is Russell Haight (DMA, University of Texas, 2009). Russell is a saxophonist specializing in jazz theory and improvisation and serves as jazz coordinator at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York. In the jazz idiom he has performed with luminaries such as Bobby Shew, Bill Watrous, Jim McNeely, and George Duke; in the commercial idiom, he has performed with Christopher Cross and earned a Grammy nomination with blues artist Ruthie Foster in 2021.

In 2017, Haight released Destination, his first album as a leader, which won a Silver Medal in the Global Music Awards; in 2019, he released his book, Odd-Meter Etudes for Saxophone with Mel Bay Publishers. He has presented or performed at the International Saxophone Symposium, North American Saxophone Alliance, Jazz Education Network, and Texas Music Educators Association conferences.