Pianist Eric Lewis—better known as ELEW—grew up in a New Jersey household where music wasn't just a hobby; it was the foundation. "I am the fourth generation of classical musicians in my family," he recalls. His great-grandmother ran a neighborhood music school, with four pianos on the first floor and another in the basement. Practicing felt like "just another chore," right alongside washing dishes and mowing the lawn.

That early immersion, complemented by conservatory training at Manhattan School of Music on a Rodgers & Hammerstein scholarship, equipped him with top-tier skills—and mentors who refined his sense of timing and touch. A local Philadelphia legend—Gerald Price—first guided him toward jazz, and at MSM, a "legendary Mingus pianist" helped him internalize bebop's rhythmic sharpness and a flexible, Harlem-influenced stride feel that went beyond the typical oom-pah left hand.

The technique and discipline paid off. ELEW's journey through jazz involved touring with Wynton Marsalis and a transformative period with Elvin Jones. Winning the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Competition didn't immediately lead to the industry recognition he expected. "After winning the Monk competition, much to my dismay, I wasn't considered record label material," he says. But one phone call changed everything: Elvin Jones invited him into the band. For two years, ELEW describes it as "just like father and son… absolute nectar," a nightly masterclass in feeding off and building on Elvin's volcanic energy. Memories backstage with Jones, McCoy Tyner, and Freddie Hubbard still burn bright; you can hear the awe in his voice when he recounts those green-room hangouts that felt like standing inside the lineage.

The next pivot was artistic and personal. Frustrated by industry gatekeeping and determined to connect more directly with audiences, ELEW began exploring what exactly "energy" sounds like on the piano. A student recommended he listen to Linkin Park's Meteora (Warner Brothers Records). He did—and the similarities surprised him. The band's drums and "screaming singer" evoked the same intensity he'd experienced with Elvin and Coltrane. More than that, the lyrics—"Crawling in my skin/These wounds, they will not heal," spoke to the anxiety and pain he had felt himself. Jazz standards offered composure; rock provided catharsis. "What if I could create a piano style… threaded through the guitar-driven ethos of rock for that particular audience?" he wondered. "Rockjazz" was born: "mostly rock and some jazz," as he describes it—a deliberate shift from fusion's usual balance.

Rockjazz reimagined the solo piano as a vibrant installation. Standing at the instrument, using prepared-piano textures and inside-the-strings effects, ELEW delivered a performance that worked in clubs, at tech conferences, even at Oscar parties and Fashion Week. The aim wasn't novelty; it was emotional energy. "All the betrayal I felt… led to my fiery and intense way of playing rock," he says, framing the style as a survival tactic that required—and displayed—serious technique. It also broadened his reach, eventually paving the way for a new chapter with one of pop's most talented songwriters: Sting.

ELEW's story is a love letter to that songbook and the craft of translation. He recently started the North American leg of Sting's My Songs 3.0 tour, and his ongoing solo album ELEW Plays Sting explores both the hits and the deep cuts. " 'Message in a Bottle' is a fantastic tune that captures the psychology of someone trying to get their message out," ELEW says. The metaphor resonates twice—first for the narrator in the song, and again for the pianist wrestling a famous melody into his own language. He proudly speaks of his "fantastic left hand," which allows him to split the keyboard into counterpointed voices: bass lines with weight, tenor melodies with bite, inner parts that braid the whole together.

The project is primarily a solo portrait series—what ELEW calls "piano portraiture"—featuring one announced guest: alto saxophonist Immanuel Wilkins on "Walking on the Moon." The song list intentionally features Sting's career: "I'm playing the biggest hits… as well as a few obscure ones," he says, including an Ornette-leaning track connected to The Dream of the Blue Turtles. What comes through is less of a covers album than a conversation between composers: exploring how to honor melody and harmony while shifting the mood through different instruments and styles.

This work hasn't been casual. "I've been working on this over and over… I worked myself into bad health one time on this thing," ELEW admits, half-laughing at his own perfectionism. Still, the timeline is tight: he's aiming to share tracks in September. The urgency isn't about deadlines as much as doing justice to music that has meant something to him—as a fan, as a bandmate on the tour, and as an artist trying to balance feeling, form, and fire.

This brings us to four solo shows at SFJAZZ's John Henderson Lab, where ELEW performs Sting live for an audience. The experience promises to be unique and exhilarating. Expect a burst of energy from the start. "It's going to be a wonderful couple of nights—high, high, high energy, high, high, high virtuosity," he says. The program will likely kick off with "Message in a Bottle" and then shift depending on how the evening unfolds. Since Sting's repertoire is full of variety—agile grooves, shadowy ballads, clever hooks—ELEW plans to "thread the needle" rather than stick to a fixed set. And yes, he'll bring his full arsenal: inside-piano muting, percussive taps, prepared sounds, all the "special effects" that, in his hands, feel more like orchestration choices than stunts.

If the album explores how Sting sounds on the piano, the shows will focus on how that sound behaves in a room—bringing in risk, variation, and the kind of quick, in-the-moment decisions that shaped ELEW from the start. That journey—from Camden's five-piano household to the Monk Competition, from Elvin's rhythmic honesty to a new conversation with rock anthems—comes down to one goal: find where virtuosity and energy collide. Or, as ELEW says with a grin: "I'm just going to release the Kraken."

ELEW at SFJAZZ — Joe Henderson Lab
Saturday, Sept. 13 — 7:00 p.m. & 8:30 p.m.
Sunday, Sept. 14 — 6:00 p.m. & 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: visit SFJAZZ.org and search “ELEW Plays Sting.”

This article accompanies the Backstage Bay Area interview with ELEW and draws on his conversation about musical origins, his connection to Sting, and the forthcoming album and SFJAZZ shows.

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