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Jeremy Siskind
Pianist, composer, and educator Jeremy Siskind is “a remarkable pianist” and “a rising star on the jazz scene” according to legendary pianist Marian McPartland. Siskind, from Irvine, California, began playing the piano at a very young age. By his early teens, he was performing original compositions all over the country through Yamaha’s Junior Original Concert program; twice, Siskind was even flown to Tokyo, Japan to represent the United States in front of Japanese audiences. Both his playing and composing quickly thrived upon beginning to study jazz with pianists Linda Martinez and Tamir Hendelman: he won first place in the soloist competition at the Fullerton College Jazz Festival, “Most Outstanding Rhythm Section Player” in the Reno Jazz Festival, and received scholarships from the “Friends of Jazz,” “O.C. Community Foundation Centennial Arts,” and the “Vail Jazz Foundation”; he also became the youngest winner of the American Society of Composers, Authors, & Publisher’s (ASCAP) Young Jazz Composer’s Awards while still in high school in 2002.
Siskind won a sizable scholarship to the famous Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, to study with Harold Danko, Tony Caramia, and Bill Dobbins, among others. Fascinated by opportunities at Eastman outside the jazz realm, he added a major in Music Theory to complement his Jazz Performance studies and pursued complex musical projects, including learning to improvise in the style of Debussy’s Preludes, attempting to spontaneously compose fugues, and dissecting the art of the classical Fantasia form. Recognized by his peers as well as mentors, Siskind was voted the undergraduate student representative for the Eastman Jazz and Contemporary Music Department for the 2007-2008 school year; he also received the Anne Theodora Cummins prize for most outstanding student in the humanities. Outside of school, Siskind twice took second place at the Kathleen T. and Philip B. Phillips Jazz Piano Competition; in 2006, he joined an incredible list including Bill Evans, Teddy Wilson, and Wynton Marsalis as a guest on the famed NPR show Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz; McPartland later honored Siskind as her choice for the first Marian McPartland Fellowship, a merit scholarship awarded to an outstanding Eastman jazz student. A year later, Siskind was selected as one of only five finalists nationwide in a search for the American Pianists Association’s Cole Porter Fellow; he performed in Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center in 2008, the former as part of Fred Hersch’s “Solo, Duo, Trio” workshop, a musical experience that has liberated and shaped his music ever since.
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Jeremy Siskind: Songs of Rebirth
by Jerome Wilson
In 2022, we are seeing a lot of musical projects born in some way from the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 and 2021. This song cycle by pianist Jeremy Siskind is concerned with some of the varied emotional responses people had to the upheavals of that period. Siskind wrote the material on this album for his trio with vocalist Nancy Harms and saxophonist Lucas Pino known as The Housewarming Project. The compositions are gathered onto a two-disc set with ...
read moreDoug Scarborough: The Color of Angels
by Jack Bowers
The Color of Angels, an engaging album by trombonist Doug Scarborough's sextet, blends music with a jazz heart and Middle Eastern temperament. Scarborough, who teaches at Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, has worked toward expanding the jazz idiom to encompass rhythms and harmonies from countries and regions not usually associated with the music. The endeavor's fruits can be heard and appreciated on Angels, wherein he enlists the talents of violinist Akram Abdulfattah and Mustafa Boztuy who ...
read moreStaci Griesbach: My George Jones Songbook
by William H. Snyder
Some might question why write an All About Jazz review of an album featuring songs made popular by George Jones? Duke Ellington had the answer when he said, There are simply two kinds of music, good music and the other kind ... the only yardstick by which the result should be judged is simply that of how it sounds. If it sounds good it's successful; if it doesn't it has failed." Staci Griesbach and her colleagues have made good music ...
read moreAndrew Rathbun: Atwood Suites
by Angelo Leonardi
Sassofonista e orchestratore canadese, Andrew Rathbun ha 47 anni e una ricca carriera alle spalle, svolta negli Stati Uniti con studi al New England Conservatory sotto la guida di Ran Blake e dal 1997 professionalmente a New York in vari contesti. A partire dal debutto del 1999 con Scatter Some Stones, ha inciso alcuni dischi da leader, il più noto dei quali è Sculpture (Fresh Sound 2002) inciso in quintetto col suo mentore Kenny Wheeler. Con quest'ultimo Rathbun ha collaborato ...
read moreAndrew Rathbun Large Ensemble: Atwood Suites
by Jerome Wilson
Andrew Rathbun is a Canadian saxophonist who has made a major musical statement here with this collection of suites, two of which are based on the poetry of author Margaret Atwood. Rathbun's writing shows the influence of another Canadian, Kenny Wheeler, in its lush sonority, the frequent gorgeous flugelhorn solos by Tim Hagans and the role of Luciana Souza, who both sings Atwood's poetry with gentle forcefulness and moans wordlessly within the orchestral ensembles, the same way Wheeler often utilized ...
read moreAndrew Rathbun: Atwood Suites
by Paul Rauch
The mingling of jazz music and poetry is not a new concept. It has always been an amiable, yet at times, uncomfortable fit. From a verse standpoint, it is in many ways liberating. While most vocalized lyrics and spoken word forms rely on rhyme to speak to cadence and rhythm, free verse poetry liberates the narrative from the confinements of structure, and much like an improvising instrumentalist, takes spoken language into a intertwining duality with the melody within harmonic dimension. ...
read moreAndrew Rathbun: Atwood Suites
by Friedrich Kunzmann
In a way, the Atwood Suites have been in the works for almost two decades. When Kenny Wheeler approached Toronto native Andrew Rathbun in search for a band in 2001, the former furthermore inquired if the latter would like a composition of his own penning to be performed beside Wheeler's Suite Time Suite." Consequently, the Power Politics Suite," which makes for the second half of the first CD, was born, with Wheeler's and vocalist Luciana Souza's sound specifically in mind. ...
read moreBJURecords To Release New CD From Pianist/composer Jeremy Siskind
Source:
Jason Byrne, Red Cat Publicity
BROOKLYN JAZZ UNDERGROUND RECORDS To Release FINGER-SONGWRITER The Sophomore Recording From Pianist/Composer JEREMY SISKIND Available May 15 FINGER-SONGWRITER features: Jeremy Siskind (piano, compositions), Nancy Harms (vocals) and Lucas Pino (woodwinds) UPCOMING EVENTS: May 30 @ 8:00 PM - Jeremy Siskind Solo Recital at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, performing works by Debussy, Michael Jackson, and music from Finger-Songwriter, 881 7th Ave, NYC Every Tuesday night in June - Jeremy Siskind with special guests at The Kitano, 66 Park Ave @ ...
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Brooklyn Jazz Underground Records to Release Simple Songs - The Debut Recording from Pianist/Composer Jeremy Siskind
Source:
Jason Byrne, Red Cat Publicity
BROOKLYN JAZZ UNDERGROUND RECORDS To Release SIMPLE SONGS (FOR WHEN THE WORLD SEEMS STRANGE) The Debut Recording From Pianist/Composer JEREMY SISKIND (Available September 28 at BJURecords.com SIMPLE SONGS (for When the World Seems Strange) features: Jeremy Siskind (piano, compositions), Jo Lawry (voice, Sting, Fred Hersch), Chris Lightcap (bass, Ben Monder, Regina Carter), Ted Poor (drums, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Shane Endsley, Aaron Parks) CD Release Events for Simple Songs: October 10 @ The Lily Pad (Cambridge, MA)October 17 @ Caffe Vivaldi (NYC)November ...
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“Extremely musical, virtuosic, packed with healthy fun and connection to the audience, and played with a beautiful touch” �" Denny Zeitlin
"Jeremy Siskind is my favorite all-time pianist" - Lea DeLaria
“Great stage presence and enthusiasm” �" Lynne Arriale
“Brilliant and Accomplished” �" Fred Hersch
“Siskind thinks as fast his as fingers move.” �" David A. Orthmann, allaboutjazz.com
“Jeremy is a gifted young jazz pianist and composer who has distinguished himself once again with his new honor from DownBeat. His pianism and musicality are strongly in evidence on his award-winning composition. His future looks brighter than ever and I am very proud to have been involved in his formative years at Eastman.” - Harold Danko (upon Siskind winning Downbeat award)
Staci Griesbach
vocalsPhotos
Music
The Color of Angels
From: The Color of AngelsBy Jeremy Siskind
Two Islands III
From: Atwood SuitesBy Jeremy Siskind
One Art
From: Finger-SongwriterBy Jeremy Siskind