Results for "piano"

Larry Willis

Born: December 20, 1942

Pianist Larry Willis has had an important and distinguished 40-year career in jazz. Since making his recording debut on Jackie McLean’s landmark 1965 album “Right Now!,” the New York-born Willis has played everything from free jazz to fusion to rock while performing as a valued sideman with such jazz titans as Dizzy Gillespie, Lee Morgan, Cannonball Adderley, Art Blakey and Woody Shaw. Larry was born in 1942 in Manhattan’s Harlem. Surprisingly, he entered music not as a pianist but as a voice major, first at New York’s High School of Music and Art for gifted students, then at the Manhattan School of Music

Claude Williamson

Born: November 18, 1926

Claude Williamson - piano Born Claude Berkeley Williamson, 18 November 1926, Brattleboro, Vermont, USA. After studying piano formally at the New England Conservatory in Boston, Massachusetts, Williamson turned to playing jazz in the late 40s. He first worked with Charlie Barnet, where he was featured on "Claude Reigns", then with Red Norvo and also briefly led his own small group. In the early 50s he toured with Bud Shank before settling in Los Angeles, where he led a trio for many years. He played too with Tal Farlow, appeared in the second edition of the Lighthouse All-Stars with Shank, Rolf Ericson, Bob Cooper and Max Roach, and recorded with Art Pepper

Mary Lou Williams

Born: May 8, 1910

Imagine a pianist playing concerts with Benny Goodman and Cecil Taylor in successive years (1977-78). That pianist was Mary Lou Williams. In a career which spanned over fifty years Mary was always on the cutting edge.

She was born Mary Scruggs in 1910 Atlanta. Her mother was a single parent who worked as a domestic and played spirituals and ragtime on piano and organ. At age three Mary shocked her by reaching up from her mother's lap to pick out a tune on the keyboard. Rather than hiring a teacher (for fear the child would lose the ability to improvise) Mary's mother invited professional musicians to their home

Rod Williams

Born: April 15, 1954

Born: Detroit, Michigan

Residence: New York, New York.

Pianist, Keyboardist, Composer, Arranger and Sound Designer. Performed and recorded with Cassandra Wilson, David Murray, James Newton, James Carter, Olu Dara, Lester Bowie, Dewey Redman, Greg Osby, Steve Coleman, Geri Allen, Marcus Belgrave, Bob Hurst, Danny Spencer, Sam Rivers, Henry Threadgill, Nasheet Waits, Ed Blackwell, Phil Ranelin, Osamu Koichi, Yasuhiro Yoshigaki, Jean-Paul Bourelly, Eddie Harris, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake, Marty Ehrlich, Billy Hart, Billy Higgins,Bob Steward, Lonnie Plaxico, Paul Jackson, Duane Eubanks, Vincent Henry, Mor Thiam, Kazutoki Umezu, Kazuko Shiraishi, Dianne McIntyre's Dance in Motion, Deidre Murray, Opera and Theater Director Diane Paulus, etc.
Bachelor of Science in Electronic Music/M.F.A.Performance and Interactive Media Arts - Brooklyn College - CUNY

James Williams

Born: March 8, 1951

James Williams was an American jazz pianist. Williams began playing piano at age 13, and served as the organist at the Eastern Star Baptist Church in Memphis for six years early in his career. He attended Memphis State University, where he began playing jazz. In 1973 he became a faculty member at the Berklee College of Music, also playing with Alan Dawson's group alongside visiting musicians such as Milt Jackson, Art Farmer, and Sonny Stitt. His first album as a leader arrived in 1977, and in 1978 he joined Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, remaining there for four years. He moved to New York City in the early 1980s, playing with Dizzy Gillespie, Freddie Hubbard, and Kenny Burrell, and formed his own group, the Intensive Care Unit, with Christian McBride, Bill Pierce, and Tony Reedus

Jessica Williams

Born: March 17, 1948

Jessica Williams is a well-known and highly respected pianist and composer who has deep roots in the Jazz Tradition. The two-time Grammy Nominee was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and classically trained at the Peabody Conservatory of Music. In her teens, Jessica moved to Philadelphia and began playing with the great Philly Joe Jones, drummer for the Miles Davis Quintet. Later, she moved to California, where she played in the bands of Eddie Harris, Dexter Gordon, Tony Williams, Stan Getz, Big Nick Nicholaus, Airto and Flora, Charlie Rouse, John Abercrombie, Charlie Haden, Leroy Vinnegar, and others. She has received two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; a Rockerfeller Grant for composing; the Alice B

Gerald Wiggins

Born: May 12, 1922

Gerald Wiggins, born in Harlem, is a jazz pianist and organist. He studied classical, but switched to jazz in his teens. He began as a professional playing accompaniment to Stepin Fetchit. He has worked with Louis Armstrong and Benny Carter. In the 1940s he moved to Los Angeles where he played music for television and film. He has also worked with singers like Lena Horne, Kay Starr, Nat King Cole, Lou Rawls, Jimmy Witherspoon and Eartha Kitt. It was Wig that taught Marilyn Monroe how to sing for her movie roles. He is perhaps best known for his trio, the other two members being Andy Simpkins and Paul Humphrey

Dick Whittington

Dick Whittington grew up in Los Angeles. At sixteen he studied with Sam Saxe, possibly the only jazz piano teacher of that era, who taught keyboard harmony and improvisation by analyzing the music of Charlie Parker, Bud Powell, and other great jazz pianists. After high school Dick began sitting in with the great musicians on L.A.'s vibrant South-Central jazz scene. While attending Cal State Northridge, where he received a degree in Elementary Education, he was working gigs with Bobby Hutcherson, Sonny Criss, Barney Kessel, Charles Lloyd, Charlie Hayden, Scott Lafaro, Gary Peacock, and Billy Higgins, later accompanying vocalists Anita O'Day, Ernestine Anderson, Dinah Washington, and Mel Torme. When a 1961 tour with saxophonist Dexter Gordon concluded at San Francisco's Jazz Workshop, Dick relocated to Berkeley, spending the next 30 years teaching Jazz Education in the Berkeley Public Schools, where he co-founded the nationally recognized Jazz Band Program

Tim Whitmer

Tim Whitmer is the prodigal son of Kansas City Jazz. He cut his “key” teeth on the likes of Jay McShann, Mary Lou Williams and Count Basie. Under the tutelage of George Salisbury he honed his own unique style and has treated audiences from all over the world to a taste of Kansas City swing jazz. When Whitmer played New York jazz clubs, the Village Voice called him “ the best swing band to come out of Kansas City since Jay McShann.” Whitmer has performed internationally at both the Lugano Jazz Festival in Italy and the Montreaux Jazz Festival in Switzerland and graced the stage of numerous national festivals. Tim Whitmer at Carnegie Hall His classical training is the basis of his broad performance skills and music writing abilities. Tim performs regularly at top jazz venues in Kansas City

Randy Weston

Born: April 6, 1926

After contributing six decades of musical direction and genius, Randy Weston remains one of the world's foremost pianists and composers today, a true innovator and visionary. Encompassing the vast rhythmic heritage of Africa, his global creations musically continue to inform and inspire. "Weston has the biggest sound of any jazz pianist since Ellington and Monk, as well as the richest most inventive beat," states jazz critic Stanley Crouch, "but his art is more than projection and time; it's the result of a studious and inspired intelligence...an intelligence that is creating a fresh synthesis of African elements with jazz technique". Randy Weston, born in Brooklyn, New York in 1926, didn't have to travel far to hear the early jazz giants that were to influence him