Results for "piano"

Amos Milburn

Born: April 1, 1927

Milburn was one of the great R&B pioneers and a tremendous influence on many who followed. He was a fine singer and even better pianist - he could bang out a mean boogie or tinkle the ivories in a light and jazzy style as the situation demanded. Largely forgotten outside the committed world of R&B aficionados, from 1948 until 1954, Milburn's sides ruled the R&B charts, and he helped set the stage for the joyous, soulful music of the later R&B and rock and roll eras. Boogie piano master Amos Milburn was born in Houston, and he died there a short 52 years later. In between, he created some of the best boogie of the postwar era, usually recording in Los Angeles for Aladdin Records

Barry Miles

Born: March 28, 1947

{{Barry Miles = 9381}} was considered a child prodigy: he began playing drums when he was three, piano at five and joined the Musicians Union when he was nine. Miles played drums professionally from the age of ten, including sitting in with the {{Woody Herman = 7596}} Orchestra. At age 12, he recorded his first album as a leader on drums, leading a sextet that included pianist {{Duke Jordan = 8209}}. As a teenager, he studied classical piano and soon switched instruments. Originally a bop-oriented player, Miles leaned towards fusion by the late 1960s, often playing electric piano and synthesizer

Misha Mengelberg

Born: June 5, 1935

Misha Mengelberg was born in Kiev in 1935 - the son of a Dutch composer/conductor/pianist and a German harpist - but is a lifelong resident of Amsterdam, where he teaches counterpoint at the Sweelinck Conservatory. He wrote his first piece for piano at age four and has been composing pretty much ever since, in the jazz and classical fields. Crucial early influences include jazz pianists Thelonious Monk and Herbie Nichols, the composer John Cage, whom he heard lecture at Darmstadt in 1958, and the absurd-art movement Fluxus, with which he was involved in the 1960s. Mengelberg graduated from the Royal Conservatory in the Hague in 1964

Memphis Slim

Born: September 3, 1915

Memphis Slim would take the Blues to places it never imagined. He was a prolific author of many enduring classics of the Blues lexicon, including “Mother Earth,” “Everyday I Have the Blues,” and countless others. But as a performer, his everlasting significance was in opening unexpected doors, and letting the music take wing in places where it had never extended.

Blues artists had often attained modest levels of popularity, but the bulk of the audience base was essentially derived from the black lower classes. Blues clubs, where common folk let loose at the end of the day, offered music that was ribald and highly suggestive. He was a fabulous keyboard player, an accomplished composer and a soulful vocalist. Like most adept blues pianists, his range goes beyond basic Chicago blues to boogie, jump blues and R&B flavors.

Brad Mehldau

Born: August 23, 1970

Pianist Brad Mehldau has recorded and performed extensively since the early 1990s. Mehldau’s most consistent output over the years has taken place in the trio format. Starting in 1996, his group released a series of five records on Warner Bros. entitled The Art of the Trio. Mehldau also has a solo piano recording entitled Elegiac Cycle, and a record called Places that includes both solo piano and trio songs. Elegiac Cycle and Places might be called “concept” albums. They are made up exclusively of original material and have central themes that hover over the compositions. Other Mehldau recordings include Largo, a collaborative effort with the innovative musician and producer Jon Brion, and Anything Goes—a trio outing with bassist Larry Grenadier and drummer Jorge Rossy.

Myra Melford

Born: January 5, 1957

"From her first album in 1991, it was clear that this pianist and composer would stay around," the New York Times said of Myra Melford. Melford has not only stuck around, but she has flourished. She has appeared on more than 20 recordings, including nine as a leader , performed in more than 30 countries, won major awards for composition and piano performance, and worked with some of the world's most innovative musicians. Melford's staying power is the product of ceaseless musical travels; she's always going somewhere. As Francis Davis noted , "Myra Melford is the genuine article, the most gifted pianist/composer to emerge from jazz since Anthony Davis." At the keyboard, Melford recasts the blues and boogie- woogie of her Chicago hometown, folds in elements of the music of Eastern Europe and India, and blends them with the rangy, percussive avant-garde stylings she cultivated in studies with Don Pullen and Henry Threadgill

Jay McShann

Born: January 12, 1909

“The Last of the Blue Devils” Jay “Hootie” McShann landed in Kansas City in the 1930s, and along with fellow pianist and bandleader Count Basie, established what came to be known as the Kansas City sound: blues rooted jazz driven by swinging horns laid over a powerful but relaxed rhythmic pulse. James Columbus McShann was born in Muskogee, Okla., on Jan. 12, 1916. He learned to play piano as a young boy by tagging along with an older sister to piano lessons and imitating music he heard on the radio. One of the piano men he heard and would be influenced by was Earl “Fatha” Hines whose live broadcasts from Chicago’s Grand Terrace Hotel he would listen to

Marian McPartland

Born: March 20, 1918

Marian McPartland has made jazz piano duets into something of an art form. Sure, it's been done before, but not very often. There are the Pete Johnson/Albert Ammons duet sessions that made both boogie pianists stars, but save for the occasional live performance where a couple of luminaries may have sat in together to present a finale to a concert, there aren't that many examples in the jazz canon. In the 20 or so years that she's hosted her program Piano Jazz on National Public Radio, Marian McPartland has done her level best to boost the profile of this neglected jazz instrumental format. "Somehow" McPartland tells me during a phone interview from San Francisco, where she's playing with her trio at Yoshi's, "I've always been associated with either two or four pianos. The first gig I ever had years ago was a four piano act in England, where we performed in vaudeville all over the country." McPartland was born in England on March 20, 1918, and was playing piano by ear from the time she was three years old. At the age of seventeen she was accepted by The Guildhall School of Music. There she studied composition and music theory in addition to her piano playing, obtaining a firm grounding in classical piano technique that shows in her playing to this day. But McPartland wanted to play jazz. She auditioned for a popular English pianist, Billy Mayerl, and was offered a job. Her parents were not happy with her decision to go on the road, but Marian could not be swayed, and finally they relented. "I do know a lot of young musicians" she says, "we talk occasionally and one of their big things seem to be that their parents want them to be in some other business, you know, and mine did too, but I didn't let that stop me. That's the main thing is be persistent. If you want to do it you've got to really get into it, you can't just halfway do it and have a day job and play a few gigs here and there, you've just got to really get into it." Marian really got into her musical career, even though she wasn't always playing jazz. Once Mayerl's four piano act broke up, she continued to work in vaudeville and accompanied singers until World War II, when she joined ENSA, the English equivalent of the USO. By 1944 she had joined up with the USO, traveling to France and Belgium, where she met cornetist Jimmy McPartland, her future husband. She has written that during her tours with McPartland's group playing for GI s on the front lines she learned a lot of the things she needed to know to be a professional jazz pianist, including how to accompany soloists and a great deal of the standard repertoire. She and Jimmy were married in Aachen, Germany, on February 4, 1946. Soon thereafter, they came back to the States and lived in Chicago, which McPartland refers to as her second home. Jimmy is, of course, known as one of the originators of the "Chicago jazz" style. The University of Chicago's Jazz Archive contains a large collection of photographs, correspondence, and recordings made available by the McPartlands that tell the story of an important time and place in the development of jazz. Marian appeared at the University's Mandel Hall on October 20, 2001 in a tribute concert for Jimmy, who passed away in 1991. The event will featured Marian and a group of musicians playing music associated with Jimmy, including some who played with him. "We've done this before a few years ago, playing all of Jimmy's recorded music and generally having a good time recalling jokes and funny things that we said to each other." The couple moved to New York in 1949, and there she continued to be exposed to all of the great jazz artists of the day. She played her first trio engagement at a club called The Embers, and in 1952 began what became an eight-year stint at the famed Hickory House. By then the trio included drummer Joe Morello, and bassist Bill Crow, who are widely known for their work with Dave Brubeck and Gerry Mulligan, respectively. The trio was named "Small Group of the Year" in 1955 by Metronome magazine. Marian became an established jazz and club pianist; since the Hickory House was located on 52nd Street musicians were always among those in attendance. These often included the likes of Duke Ellington, Oscar Peterson, Billy Strayhorn, and Benny Goodman, as well as one of McPartland's influences, Mary Lou Williams. "Well, I always admired Mary Lou; she's really one of my role models. I always wanted to be able to swing as hard as she did. That was something she could do no matter what the rhythm section was like, and I loved her creativity, she always wanted to be on the edge. Every time I heard her she would be doing something different harmonically. All her compositions are really interesting things." McPartland and Williams stand side by side in Art Kane's famous 1958 Great Day in Harlem photograph. The trio recorded some classic sides for Capitol, which remain mysteriously unavailable at this time, though a Savoy reissue of some live dates entitled On 52nd Street is available on CD. The group reunited for some weekend gigs at Birdland in the Fall of 1998, and those performances can be heard on the Concord disc Reprise.

Harold McKinney

arold McKinney was a noted jazz musician who is widely credited with keeping jazz in the forefront of Detroit's music scene. He was a pianist, oboist, vibraphone player and composer who, over his long career, played with many of jazz's greatest artists. As an educator McKinney taught generations of aspiring jazz musicians, helping turn Detroit into a hub for jazz education where the greats passed on their lessons to their students. Harold McKinney was born on July 4, 1928 in Detroit. His mother introduced him to music at an early age and by his teenage years he was playing with local jazz bands

Dave McKenna

Born: May 30, 1930

Dave McKenna is simply one of the legends of the jazz piano. He, of course, would probably disagree. "I don't know if I qualify as a bona-fide jazz guy," he says. "I play saloon piano. I like to stay close to the melody." His humility and laid-back personal style seem a contrast to the vibrant vitality of his masterful piano style. His range is truly extraordinary. One minute he is caressing a lovely ballad, the next he is thundering and rumbling through a high-powered rendition of I Found a New Baby. Dave was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, into a musical family. His father William McKenna, a postman, played the drums part-time, and two sisters are singers