Over the course of his career, John Escreet has earned a reputation as one of the most active and widely-celebrated pianist/composers working in jazz and improvised music. His prolific output is reflected over the course of 9 diverse and critically acclaimed albums - the most recent being his 2022 release Seismic Shift featuring his acclaimed piano trio with Eric Revis on bass and Damion Reid on drums. During the course of his time in New York, John performed and recorded with pretty much everybody of note on the music scene there. He now resides in Los Angeles, California where he continues to forge ahead with a multitude of creative projects, fully immersing himself in LA's thriving musical community.

As well as being a leader of prolific output, Escreet is also a much sought-after sideman. Over the past decade he has been mostly associated with the Grammy award-winning drummer Antonio Sanchez, touring extensively across the globe with his band "Migration", becoming an integral part of that group’s sound and development. He also recorded on 3 of Sanchez's albums - New Life (2013), The Meridian Suite (2015) and Lines In The Sand (2019).

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In 2023 John collaborated with the celebrated British electronic artist Floating Points, performing his landmark work "Promises" to a sold-out audience at The Hollywood Bowl in an epic concert that featured a full string orchestra as well as several leading lights of the electronic music world (Four Tet, Caribou.)

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Originally bursting on to the scene with his  2008 debut album Consequences, Escreet quickly earned a reputation as one of the most exciting new pianist/composers to have emerged in recent years, with Downbeat magazine proclaiming “John Escreet’s recent debut Consequences signals the jumpstart of a new voice in jazz." Similar praise followed for his 2010 sophomore release Don’t Fight The Inevitable, of which the New York Times’ Ben Ratliff said “… on an ambitious second album, the pianist John Escreet seems to be thinking about where jazz can go next. He’s using lots of structure and instrumental texture, cruising through different languages, straight-ahead and free and in between; it’s like a tour of the last 25 years of serious jazz." 2011 saw two releases - The Age We Live In, and Exception To The Rule, followed by 2013’s Sabotage and Celebration, all of which received widespread international critical acclaim. 

The next additions to this impressive catalog were 2014's Sound, Space and Structures, and 2016’s The Unknown - both of which feature his working Trio with John Hébert on bass and Tyshawn Sorey on drums, paired with the master free-jazz saxophonist and elder statesman Evan Parker. The Unknown also marks Escreet’s first live album, recorded in Europe over the course of 2 concerts. 2018 saw Escreet return to composed music immersed in electronics - Learn to Live - which among other things features Escreet extensively using the Prophet 6 synthesizer to expand his musical palette. In 2022 in a post-pandemic world, Escreet debuted his new acoustic piano trio which stripped away all of those externalities and shone a spotlight on his spectacular piano playing. 

Over the years, John has worked with a vast array of acclaimed artists such as Chris Potter, Nicholas Payton, Ambrose Akinmusire, Mark Turner, Tyshawn Sorey, David Binney, Amir ElSaffar, Alex Sipiagin, Melissa Aldana, Wayne Krantz, Adam Rogers, Marcus Gilmore, Eric Harland, Greg Osby, Dan Weiss, Matt Brewer, Jamie Baum, John Hébert, Evan Parker, Will Vinson, Seamus Blake, Logan Richardson, Jim Black, Nasheet Waits, Justin Brown, Ari Hoenig, Eric Revis, Harish Raghavan, Nir Felder, Nate Wood among countless others. 

In 2021, John was a recipient of the highly-coveted South Arts Jazz Road Creative Residencies Grant worth $40,000. Previous awards include the prestigious Chamber Music America New Jazz Works Grant in 2009, as well as the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming in 2011. In 2013, Escreet was commissioned by the Jazz Gallery to write a new work as part of their Residency/Commissions for 2012-2013, for which he wrote an extended work for string quartet and piano trio. 2014 saw John being awarded the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation USArtists International grant to tour with his Quartet, and recently in 2015 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM), his Alma Mater - awarded to past students who have distinguished themselves in the music profession and made a significant contribution to it in their particular field.

John is also an active educator, and has given clinics and classes at institutions across the globe. He currently teaches at the Hancock Institute in Los Angeles, and was previously on faculty at The New School during his time in New York. He has been in residence as a professor at Siena International Summer Workshop (Italy), Langnau Jazz Nights (Switzerland), International Jazz Platform (Lodz, Poland), Creative Jazz Clinic (Velenje, Slovenia), Mahidol University (Thailand) among others. 

His music is often described as "eclectic" and is perhaps best summed up by the New York City Jazz record:

“Escreet is a musical omnivore who embraces aspects of contemporary classical music, Frank Zappa, dance music, electronica and a wide swath of jazz, from bop to avant-garde. What comes out is uniquely personal - some of the most inventive and distinct jazz around today."