Results for "Jazz piano"

Peter Rushing

Born: September 27, 2001

Peter Rushing is a jazz pianist currently attending the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where he is studying with Orrin Evans. At the age of 11, Peter got his start studying jazz music at the Philadelphia Clef Club of Jazz and Performing Arts, where he developed a love for the music of Herbie Hancock and Bill Evans. During high school, he played with the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts Jazz ensemble program under the direction of Josh Lawrence, Anthony Tidd, María Grand, and Sumi Tonooka, and studied with Tom Lawton of Temple University and the University of the Arts

Sarah LeMieux

Sarah LeMieux is a composer, performer, and educator. As a performer, her primary genres are Jazz and Acoustic/Americana, but as a composer she works across genres, from Electroacoustic and Experimental, to Chamber, Bluegrass, Folk and String music. 

Sarah and her ensembles have played at the National Women in Blues Festival, International Festival of Arts and Ideas, Hartford's Infinity Hall, and the historic Oakdale Theater. The Sarah LeMieux Quintet won "Best Jazz" at the 2014, 2015 and 2016 Connecticut Music Awards, with "Moments Musicaux" winning Album of the Year for 2015. Sarah also composes for and performs with the award-winning six piece Americana band The Girls from Ruby Falls, and Madame Thalia's Vaudeville review, as well as creating Electroacoustic music and audiovisual installations. Her original score for “Monday and the Winter Moon” won Best Composer at CIFT Festival of Toronto, was an Official Selection at the Southeast International Film and Music Festival 2020, and was Semi-Finalist, Best Composer, Montreal Independent Film Festival (November 2020).

Riyoko Takagi

Born: September 20, 1984

This page is maintained by Logio Tek on All About Jazz, who is also Logiotek on Wikipedia, and is the primary researcher, writer, and maintainer of Riyoko Takagi page in English on Wikipedia, which contains all the relevant reference sources for the duplicate text below.

Riyoko Takagi (高木 里代子, Takagi Riyoko) is a Japanese Jazz pianist and composer who isn't bound by a single genre or style and has crossed classical, pop, house, and anime genre boundaries and styles in her compositions, arrangements, and performances. She's renowned for her musicality, deep harmonic understanding, live performances full of energy with fluent improvisations that often involve audience, and delicate touch on the keys. Together with her talent and charming character she continues to proliferate Jazz and attract many fans from all over the world.

Biography

Mark Kramer

Born: November 3, 1945

Mark Kramer is a Philadelphia jazz musician born on November 3rd, 1945. Although not widely recognized, he is highly regarded among fellow musicians for his talent and skill on the piano. Critics have compared his style to that of other famous jazz pianists like Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, and Herbie Hancock, but his unique harmonic vocabulary and pianistic style (as reviewed) set him apart. As of 2025, Mark Kramer's projects tend to intertwine elements of structured and free jazz, combining sparseness and complexity to create emotionally-driven strories /"tunes".    He has just released the first of 3 full length albums  ("BEYOND"),  all by year end.       

From Chart to Reality: The Editorial Role of the Pianist in a Big Band

by Kurt Ellenberger
March 28, 2023

Note: This article was first published in the Jazz Education Journal in 2005, and was revised for All About Jazz. Preamble This article was written to address an issue that needed clarification, and indeed still needs clarification almost 20 years later, regarding the vagaries inherent in many of the published big band piano charts ...

Phil Wilkinson

Born: November 21, 1978

Philip Wilkinson was born in 1978 in Nottingham, United Kingdom. He started playing keyboards at age four and, as of 1985, studied organ—his main instrument—or seven years.

He became interested in Jazz in the early nineties, alternating piano and organ, and by the time he was twenty he was teaching piano and improvisation at the Clarendon (Nottingham) University.

Phil later met Darius Brubeck, son of the legendary Dave Brubeck. He studied with Darius for one year, and had the opportunity of playing several two-piano concerts with him.

Between 2012 and 2023, Wilkinson has had the opportunity to work with Jazz legends like Larry Coryell, Alvin Queen, Mark Whitfield, Ulf Wakenius, Phillip Catherine, Peter Bernstein and Jesse Van Ruler.

Kevin Toney

Born: January 1, 1953

Let it be stated – no shouted from the highest mountaintop – that the root source of piano virtuoso Kevin Toney’s dynamic musical artistry has ALWAYS been hardcore straight-ahead Jazz. As an A+ disciple of the Art Tatum’s, Oscar Peterson’s, McCoy Tyner's, Errol Garner’s, and Herbie Hancock’s of the idiom (as well as Detroit-born schoolmate of Geri Allen), Kevin Toney began his journey into the dexterous essence of Jazz absorbing the richness and excellence of its most exploratory players. Though as a child of the `60s, Kevin additionally enjoys and throttles the thrilling sounds of raw, unbridled Blues, Soul, and Rock ‘n Roll – and as a deeply spiritual man serves GOD in Gospel – Jazz is the music Toney has returned to time and time again to flex the freedoms and disciplines it offers in quantifiably equal measure.

Melvin Johnson

Born: October 5, 1985

Houston-born keyboardist/composer Melvin Johnson is an artist as adept at creating his own dynamic expressions as he is a most valuable team player in realizing the visions of others. Church-grounded and college-educated, he has trained himself thoroughly to be an all-around musician who doesn’t just play his instrument but understands the fundamentals of all that he plays and composes, as well as his role as the leader of his band. At 36 years old, Melvin recently released his debut album, Little Red Wagon, a conceptual piece inspired by wisdoms passed down to him from his adopted father, Robert Lloyd Parker, as well as his own musings on life, family and spirituality. Musically, the project covers the full spectrum of African American musical styles, presented in configurations of solo, duo, trio, quartet and quintet. Melvin states, “These first fully arranged instrumental songs do not belong in any genre box, be it Jazz, Classical, Choral, Gospel, etc. All of that and more is in this! I love the space of creating at will.”

Benjamin Schaefer

Benjamin Schaefer (*1981) is a jazz pianist/ composer based in Hamburg, Germany. He studied jazz piano and composition at Cologne conservatory and is a former member of the German Youth Jazz Orchestra (BuJazzO). Concert tours have led him to 26 countries on four continents. He has played hundreds of club and festival shows, many of them with his own bands Benjamin Schaefer Trio (2004-14), Expressway Sketches (2008-21), Quiet Fire (2014-19), Hive Mind (2017-19), Stone Flowers (2020- ) and solo (2022- ). He leads his own concert series open.fundus (2019- ) in Hamburg.

Eric Zadan

Born: April 27, 1959

Nearly 50 years of professional experience (pianist/music director) coupled with 45 years of teaching experience. Has worked with many major names. Jazz pianist for the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra for 45 years.