PASCAL BOKAR AFROBLUEGRAZZ BAND
An award-winning jazz composer, guitarist and vocalist, Dr. Pascal Bokar Thiam presents a global musical banquet from his native France to his Senegalese and Malian roots. Anchored in bebop, he has performed with Dizzy Gillespie, Donald Byrd, Donald Bailey and Donald Brown.
Pascal is the “father” of the funky, jazzy, bluesy, bluegrass-y, joyous and thoroughly infectious music performed by his AfroBlueGrazz band. He has performed at more than a dozen jazz festivals around the country, including the 2024 Elk Grove Music Fest, Strawberry Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival, the Kansas City Jazz & Blues Festival, the Houston International Jazz Festival and the Nashville Rocking by the River Festival.
Pascal is featured in Scott Yanow’s book, The Great Jazz Guitarists: The Ultimate Guide. An alumnus of the famed Berklee College of Music, he is the 1983 recipient of the College’s Jim Hall Jazz Master Award for guitarists, and the Outstanding Jazz Soloist Award presented by Dizzy Gillespie and James Moody.
He earned a Master’s Degree from Cambridge College in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a Doctorate Degree in Education with honors from the University of San Francisco, where he is currently a member of the faculty.