Results for "piano"

Earl R. Johnson Jr.

Earl R. Johnson Jr. is a graduate of Boston’s Berklee College of Music with a degree in Film Scoring. He has captivated audiences on five continents; Johnson’s command of several writing and playing styles has afforded him the opportunity to have worked and/or toured with many of the music industry’s top legends, including Patti Austin, Brian McKnight, Chaka Khan, Jeffrey Osborne, Beyonce, Wynton Marsalis, Stevie Wonder, Gladys Knight, Kenny Lattimore, and R. Kelly, to name a few. Earl has composed dramatic underscores for several films (“Living With Faith,” “Two Can Play That Game”) and television projects (Showtime’s “Linc’s,” “Breaking The Code”)

Dave Spinner

Born: July 16, 1956

Active on the Upstate New York music scene for several years, pianist/composer DAVE SPINNER has performed in varied settings ranging from piano trios to Big Bands, and in diverse genres from R&B to Latin Jazz. His new CD 'OCEANS AND ISLANDS' touch's on many stylistic moods.

John Esposito

Born: March 4, 1953

John Esposito is an American pianist/composer/drummer/producer who works on a wide array of creative music projects. His technical skills and the range of his artistic palette extend across the stylistic boundaries of the Stride Piano, Swing, Bebop, Modal and Free Music movements. He has performed and recorded with artists including Nick Brignola, Dave Douglas, Dave Holland, Carter Jefferson, Franklin Kiermyer, Joe Lovano, J.R. Monterose, David “Fathead” Newman, Eric Person, Arthur Rhames, Sam Rivers, Roswell Rudd, Pharaoh Sanders and John Stubblefield.

John is the owner/executive producer of Sunjump Records. He has created music for theater, dance, film, TV commercials, and multimedia performance art. He is a music faculty member and Artist-In-Residence at Bard College and resides in New York State’s Hudson Valley.

Bonnie Lowdermilk

Singing and playing since early childhood, Bonnie Lowdermilk has her Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder and has been performing professionally for close to thirty years. She studied jazz piano with Denver's renowned teacher, the late Ted Alexander as well as with Berkelee School of Music's Katy Roberts. Throughout the 1990's Bonnie lived and performed in Paris, France. She played at the celebrated Duc de Lombard and Sunset and other major clubs and festivals there. In 1998 she played the festival, "Jazz in Marciac", where celebrities Wynton Marsalis and Shirley Horn also performed and gave a five day vocal clinic at the festival

Larry McDonough

Born: September 7, 1955

Larry McDonough has been performing in the area for 35 years. He received his Bachelor of Science Degree in music education from the University of Minnesota in 1978, performing on piano and trumpet, and in school ensembles with Clark Terry and Thad Jones, and for President Nixon and the President of Mexico. He played extensively in the Twin Cities in the 1970's and early 1980's, performing solo and in his own duos and trios. He regularly performed at the old Night Train club in the Como Avenue warehouse area, and at the Jax Restaurant. He also taught, and composed and arranged for high school band. McDonough moved away in the earlier 1980's, and after returning a few years later, he performed primarily at private functions, including a performance for First Lady Hillary Clinton

Haim Cotton

Born: September 15, 1962

Haim Cotton (Composer/Pianist) came to the U.S. from Israel at age twenty- two, having already played on fifteen records with Israel's most renowned recording artists.

After moving to the U.S., he advanced into arranging and composing, and his works have since been licensed in commercials and films worldwide. The musical director for singer Ofra Haza, Haim has played on her final solo album Kyria, and appeared with her in festivals around the world, including the Montreux Jazz Festival.

For the past twenty years, Haim has been teaching jazz at The New School, yet simultaneously remaining committed to recording and live performance as well

Makiko Hirabayashi

Born: September 17, 1966

Makiko Hirabayashi is a Japanese pianist and composer, based in Copenhagen since 1990. She has received wide critical acclaim as a personal voice on the international jazz scene since the release of her debut album as a leader in 2006. Throughout the last two dacades, she has toured extensively through Europe and Asia with her trio featuring Marilyn Mazur and Klavs Hovman, her quartet Weavers and with diverse projects led by Europe’s top notch musicians.

Makiko’s latest and tenth studio album “Gifts” (enja 2025) is recorded with her qaurtet Weavers, following their first album which won Jazz Album Of The Year at Danish Music Awards 2021. Triggered by a composition commission by the Händel Festival in Halle, the making of this album served as a deeply personal journey for the Tokyo born pianist. Memories of Händel’s music she heard in her youth have inspired her to write nine tracks that sound both new and reflective – symbolizing the universal quality of Händel’s music and its transformative power. The music on this album, featuring some of the leading figures on the Scandinavian music scene – Fredrik Lundin (sax), Thommy Andersson (b) and Bjørn Heebøll (d) – flows effortlessly through intricate written passages and improvisation, while keeping the collective, creative force at its core.

Mara Rosenbloom

Born: December 11, 1984

Pianist, composer, & bandleader Mara Rosenbloom has been called “a whole-hearted poet of the piano,” – she is a builder & a synthesist; a fiercely lyrical composer & improviser (All About Jazz). Originally from Wisconsin, Rosenbloom has spent the past decade in New York City, creating a distinctive body of work and establishing herself as a vibrant and respected part of the city’s diverse network of jazz & improvised music communities. Following the release of Prairie Burn (Fresh Sound/New Talent), Rosenbloom’s debut trio release with bassist Sean Conly & drummer Chad Taylor, The New York Times cast a spotlight on Rosenbloom, heralding Prairie Burn as a “…a trio recording of bristling provocation and full-bore group improvising…her strongest statement as a bandleader and her most dauntless effort as a pianist.” The album received a rare 4.5 stars from Downbeat Magazine, earning it a spot on the Magazine’s Best Albums of 2017 list

Walter Ford

Born: August 11, 1974

I was born in Selma Alabama 8/11/1974. My mother is named Marilyn Marie Cleveland and my father is named Walter V. Ford Jr. The making of my first album, Superbad, is dedicated to and in loving memory of my late uncle Arthur Joe Cleveland, who was an extraordinary jazz pianist, one of the best I've heard. I grew up as a little boy listening to and watching him on a privately owned piano in Selma, AL. None of his music was ever published but his skillful play and unique sound was awesome and captivating by many to listen to. I hope that you can enjoy a personal style, though with not nearly as much proclivity as he possessed, that is influenced by his tutorship, and playful but special closeness I and others in my family shared with him while he was with us

Kelvin Sholar

"When I perform," says pianist/composer Kelvin Sholar, "I want to eradicate the separation between the bandstand and the floor. I don't want to play to tables and chairs; I want the audience to be involved, like when a church choir sings."

Sholar's performance experience began early; he was already on stage when he was in utero. "My mother plays the piano and my father plays guitar and bass," he explains. "They did church gigs with my grandmother all around Detroit." Between attending their rehearsals and soaking up the atmosphere in his fusion-drumming uncle's basement (where Sholar's earliest memory is falling asleep beneath a poster of Herbie Hancock's Headhunters album) the pianist's childhood was a pastiche of music, both sanctified and secular.

It is a distinction which blurs when one listens to Sholar's own compositions