Lafayette Gilchrist is an American jazz pianist and composer. As of January 2014, he lived in Baltimore. He has had a long association with saxophonist David Murray, with whom he has toured internationally.
Gilchrist leads an octet/nonet named the New Volcanoes, and a trio called Inside Out. Gilchrist acknowledges multiple influences on his music: "I come from hip-hop culture, [...] I'm not a rapper. I'm not a DJ. I'm not a dancer. But I feed off of all that. All of that's part of what I grew up in, what I grew up around."