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Bob Toabe
"What I want most (in my music) is deep and free-flowing emotional content."
About Me
Music Bio - BOB TOABE – Solo Piano ”You should be playing concerts everywhere!” McCoy Tyner ”Wow, it really transported me...like floating in space...I loved it!” Al Foster “Do you know Bobby; he’s a great piano player.” Esperanza to Hiromi “Yes, of course.” “When can we play together?” Anat Cohen ”Gifted, rare talent, musical genius, deserving the best concert grand’s, world-wide.” Hewitt Huntworth ”Yeah man, I really liked it!” Eric Jackson, WGBH ”Reminiscent of Keith Jarrett, McCoy Tyner, Debussy...though a style all his own.” “Oh yeah man…that was beautiful, just the best! Let’s do another.” Keii Chi Hashimoto BIOGRAPHY As a young boy Bobby played along the rocky New England seacoast. It was as though the salt air and ocean waves filled him with music, imbuing his creativity with a natural song and rhythm. Even as a child, his prodigious musical improvisation, rich in emotional content, brought recognition and praise from music teachers and concert audiences alike. As an early adolescent, he ventured from the piano to the study of wind, voice, strings, and a wide assortment of percussion instruments. It was in the theatre however where, as the youngest member of the Boston-based Performing Arts Repertory Company, that he developed a potently creative stage, music & performance style. By high school, the ever-industrious musician found himself forming a variety of eclectic improvisation groups. His sound was influence by a broad range of contemporary jazz, classical, and international music. He listened to Keith Jarrett, Chic Corea, Miles, and Coltrane. However, more than anything else it was his early personal meetings (at age 15) with McCoy Tyner and Pharaoh Sanders that moved and inspired the direction of his music. Today his original and fluid piano style captures concert audiences with a sound that is rich, sweet, and hypnotic. He has been a regular at the Ritz Carlton – Boston Common, and the Boston Piano Festival. At the world’s largest blues festival (Mississippi Valley Blues Festival), he appeared as a duo with the Regal Queen of the Blues - Shirley Lewis, and played a duet with Pinetop Perkins. ”What I want most (in my music) is deep and free-flowing emotional content. I want my audience to move with me over the keyboard...letting the music flow through us like a soft sweet breeze, like an ocean wave...seeking expression of our deepest needs, our essential selves.” CURRENT TOUR - Bobby is available for touring throughout the 2021and into the 2022 season. DOWNLOADS on CD Baby, iTunes, Amazon, etc. [email protected] C 508-685-5020
My Jazz Story
My House Concert Story
Oh yeah - house concerts are fabulous. I've attended many of them from groups of 20 to over 50 guests. It's so intimate and such a comfortable environment for music performance and listening. Most charge $10 - $20 per person. There's always food and drink. Of course I always bring something to drink or flowers for the host. Sometimes it's a single musician, or others that I've been to have been bands from 3 - 7 musicians. Sometimes there's a kind of showcase of different musicians through the evening. I went to one (where I was invited to play) at the home where the wonderful group Women of the World, live. It was a holiday house concert and they had invited about 8 different musicians from different cultures to perform holiday songs from their peoples. That was lots of fun and a great mix of music, musicians, and music lovers. My most memorable one featured Ali Paris and Aron Goldberg as a duo. The host had a beautiful steinway grand. It was during the day with about 30 guests in a very modern home in the woods. That was fun. I'm available at the drop of a hat if you know anyone looking for a house concert performer :)-
