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Ezra Weiss
Composer/pianist Ezra Weiss is “a bold, inspired figure in the contemporary jazz arranging scene.” (DownBeat) He has released seven albums as a bandleader: The Five A.M. Strut (2003), Persephone (2005), Get Happy (2007), The Shirley Horn Suite (2010), Our Path To This Moment (2012), Before You Know It [Live in Portland] (2014), and We Limit Not the Truth of God (2019). All of these albums have received substantial national and international acclaim from the press, and have spent significant time on the JazzWeek Radio Charts.
Additionally, Ezra composed the music for the Portland Jazz Composer’s Ensemble’s multimedia concert and recording, From Maxville To Vanport (2018). He also wrote the big band arrangements for Derek Hines’ recording The Long Journey Home (2017), which led to the formation of the Ezra Weiss Big Band.
Ezra currently leads his own big band and sextet, performing at major jazz festivals and clubs throughout the U.S., including Dizzy’s Club Coca-Cola, Smalls, the 55 Bar, and Tonic in NYC; Ryles in Boston; Nighttown in Cleveland; Chris’ Jazz Cafe in Philadelphia; The Triple Door in Seattle; Jimmy Mak’s in Portland; and the Catalina Bar and Grill in Los Angeles. His bands have featured such luminaries as trumpeters Michael Philip Mossman, Peter Evans, and Farnell Newton; saxophonists Antonio Hart, Vincent Herring, Mark Gross, and Dayna Stephens; bassists Corcoran Holt, Ameen Saleem, and Curtis Lundy; and drummers Kassa Overall, Steve Williams, Jason Brown, and Billy Hart (for whom Ezra also served as arranger), among others. He also co-led the Courtney Bryan/Ezra Weiss Jazz Orchestra in New York City.
Further, Ezra has composed music and lyrics to three children’s musicals: Alice in Wonderland: a Jazz Musical (2009) Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! (2010), and Cinderella (2013). All of these musicals were designed to expose young children to jazz. Alice in Wonderland and Cinderella were each named one of the Top 10 Cast Albums of 2009 and 2013 respectively by TalkinBroadway.com.
Ezra has won the ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award three times and has been listed in DownBeat Critics Polls in the Rising Star Arranger category. He holds a Bachelors in Jazz Composition from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and a Masters in Jazz Piano Performance from Queens College. His teachers have included Wendell Logan, Neal Creque, and Bruce Barth. He has taught at multiple colleges and universities in Portland, Oregon, where he lives with his wife and two kids.
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Ezra Weiss Big Band: We Limit Not The Truth of God
by Angelo Leonardi
Compositore e insegnante alla Portland State University, Ezra Weiss è professionalmente molto attivo in ambito locale. Per il suo debutto discografico ha riunito un'orchestra di 17 elementi per presentare il suo progetto in forma di suite e una coda col celebre “Footprints" di Wayne Shorter. Dei dieci brani originali quattro presentano lunghe narrazioni, esposte in forma di lettera aperta per i due figli piccoli e caratterizzate da forte passione religiosa, civile e politica. Weiss entra con forza nella ...
Continue ReadingEzra Weiss Big Band: We Limit Not The Truth of God
by Jerome Wilson
In 2015 Ezra Weiss began to compose a suite that he intended would be a cautiously optimistic message to his young children about the world they were living in and the challenges and promise they would face as they grew up. By the time this music was completed and recorded in December 2018, its mood and message had changed dramatically. This suite is now an impassioned cry by Weiss on how he and his children might cope with the dark, ...
Continue ReadingEzra Weiss Big Band: We Limit Not The Truth of God
by Jack Bowers
Composer / arranger Ezra Weiss's debut big-band recording, We Limit Not the Truth of God, is actually a suite written for his two young children to help them understand and embrace the often confusing and chaotic world in which we live. It is thus entirely appropriate that the album was recorded (with an audience) in a church, Portland (OR)'s historic Alberta Abbey. What is not quite clear is the referent “we" in the album's presumptuous title. Is that “we" as ...
Continue ReadingPortland Jazz Composers Ensemble: From Maxville to Vanport
by Jack Bowers
From Maxville to Vanport is music with a purpose, saluting the courage and resilience of black Americans who helped build those cities in the '20s and '40s in the face of unrelenting prejudice and hostility and in so doing helped make the state of Oregon what it is today. The music is by Ezra Weiss, the lyrics by poet S. Renee Mitchell, the performance by the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble featuring vocalist Marilyn Keller. As a part of the score ...
Continue ReadingEzra Weiss Sextet: Before You Know It [Live In Portland]
![Read "Before You Know It [Live In Portland]" reviewed by Dave Wayne](https://s3.amazonaws.com/allaboutjazz/coverart/large/ezraweisssextet_beforeyouknowit_bl.jpg)
by Dave Wayne
On Before You Know It, pianist / composer Ezra Weiss provides convincing evidence for the continued health and well-being of good old, straight ahead, gimmick-free modern acoustic jazz. The archetype for Weiss' beefy band and punchy charts would include Art Blakey's expanded Jazz Messenger lineups, some of McCoy Tyner's larger groups from the early-to-late 1970s, or perhaps some of Slide Hampton's septets and octets. Yet, Weiss' sound is utterly contemporary, exploring a wide variety of modern jazz styles in a ...
Continue ReadingEzra Weiss Sextet: Before You Know It [Live In Portland]
by Edward Blanco
Portland State University professor Ezra Weiss is a prominent pianist and composer in his own right who has several recordings to his credit and is a three-time winner of the prestigious ASCAP Young Composer Award. A traditionalist who prefers the straight ahead and modern jazz styles, Weiss delivers another gem on Before You Know It [Live In Portland], his seventh album as leader with one important distinction: the session was recorded at the Ivories Jazz Lounge in Portland, Oregon, for ...
Continue ReadingEzra Weiss Sextet: Before You Know It [Live In Portland]
by Bruce Lindsay
Recorded over two nights in Portland's Ivories Jazz Lounge during late-2013, Before You Know It [Live In Portland] is pianist and composer Ezra Weiss' seventh album and his first live recording. Weiss' previous releases have featured big bands (Our Path To This Moment [Roark Records, 2012]) and trios (The Shirley Horn Suite [Roark Records, 2011]). However, it's the sextet format that has featured most strongly on Weiss' recordings and it's this line-up that returns for Before You Know ...
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Jazz Pianist / Composer Ezra Weiss Celebrates New Album with Tour
Source:
Braithwaite & Katz Communications
"Weiss proves himself as a confident composer and arranger in the progressive jazz mainstream." - Nate Chinen, New York Times
“Don't be fooled. He's only playing a few notes, but boy are they the right ones." - Neil Tesser, Listen Here!
Join jazz pianist/composer Ezra Weiss as he celebrates the release of his new CD Get Happy on tour October 12 - 30.
Weiss' piano playing evinces a distinctive expressiveness that is doubly impressive coming from ...
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“Pianist Weiss proves himself to be a confident composer and arranger in the progressive mainstream.”
-Nate Chinen, The New York Times
“A bold, inspired figure in the contemporary jazz arranging scene.”
-Josef Woodard, DownBeat
“We can only hope that Weiss can keep the standard this high for many years to come.”
-Duck Baker, JazzTimes
“Music that plows through a sea of dark emotions on the way to defiantly proclaiming that truth will prevail.”
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Obergefell
From: We Limit Not The Truth of GodBy Ezra Weiss
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