//about

Emerging from the San Francisco Bay Area, LOBE is a collective of award-winning composers, arrangers, and musicians that lives at the confluence of intricate writing, dynamic improvisation, and imaginative textures. 

The collective features Daiki Nakajima (flute, bass, tenor/soprano sax), Sam Silverstein (violin), Ethan Buck (alto sax),  Nolan Miranda (piano, synths), Mark Rau (bass, guitar), and Michael Hayes (drums). Originally united through a common penchant for rhythm-forward contemporary jazz, LOBE quickly developed an interest in building on this aesthetic with dance, folk, electronic, and pop influences. Over many years of practice, friendship, and chemistry, the group came into its distinctive voice: whimsical and unhurried, challenging but inviting, time-bending yet always attuned to the here and now. 

In Autumn 2025, LOBE is excited to showcase the culmination of the past three years of collaboration in their full-length debut album, was that on purpose?. Comprised of 8 chimeric original works and arrangements, was that on purpose? celebrates the beauty that arises from chance encounters, mundane experiences with friends, and musical relationships transcending the professional. With this release, LOBE hopes to spread the communal joy they feel every time they sit down together on stage, in rehearsal, and at the dinner table.