Results for "piano"

Wynton Kelly

Born: December 2, 1931

His family moved from the island of Jamaica to Brooklyn, New York City when Kelly was four, and he started his professional career as a teenager, initially as a member of R&B groups. After working in the big band and small groups led by Dizzy Gillespie, he was a member of Miles Davis' Quintet from 1959 to 1963. Wynton Kelly was one of the most prolific sideman pianists of his era, performing on scores of jazz albums, and led albums under his own name for the Riverside and Vee-Jay labels. After leaving Davis's group, along with Paul Chambers and Jimmy Cobb, he formed a trio which worked regularly during the 1960s. A superb accompanist loved by Miles Davis and Cannonball Adderley, Wynton Kelly was also a distinctive soloist who decades later would be a strong influence on Benny Green

Roger Kellaway

Born: November 1, 1939

Roger Kellaway’s discography runs to more than two hundred and fifty albums. He’s worked with everyone from Ellington to Elvis, Dizzy Gillespie to Yo-Yo Ma, Joni Mitchell to Mancini and Quincy Jones to Michael Tilson Thomas. Kellaway is not only a major pianist, he is a composer of protean ability, writing in the music fields of jazz, classical and “pop”, also scoring for films and television. His acclaimed “Cello Quartet” albums are described by some as “crossover”, “chamber jazz” and by others as the beginning of “New Age” music. They were the first in an eclectic array of projects beginning in the 1960’s

Achim Kaufmann

Achim Kaufmann (piano, composer, electronics) was born in Aachen, Germany, and has been living in Amsterdam since 1996. He is involved in a number of different projects, some of them all improvised, some of them featuring his own compositions: His gueuledeloup quartet (with Michael Moore, John Hollenbeck, Henning Sieverts) "melds elements of the free zone with tenderly executed dreamscape type passages" (allaboutjazz) Their two CDs, Gueuledeloup (Red Toucan, 2002) and Double Exposure (Leo, 2000) have been called "models of some of the finest forward-thinking chamber jazz coming out of Europe today." The improvising trio of Achim Kaufmann, Frank Gratkowski and Wilbert de Joode has released two discs so far (on Konnex and on nuscope) and is currently preparing their third release of energetic, multi-layered improvised chamber music. Trio Kamosc (with Michael Moore and Dylan van der Schyff) is another group that mixes composition and improvisation in unique ways, including "blatantly traditional" materials that are treated as found objects. Achim currently works on repertoires for different piano trios which he will record during the course of the year. Besides, he has written music for string quartet and works as a solo performer

Pandelis Karayorgis

Born: September, 1962

Born in Athens, Greece in 1962. Prior to moving to the U.S. in 1985, performed in small jazz groups while pursuing a degree in Economics. Earned BM and MM degrees in music from Boston's New England Conservatory while studying with Paul Bley, Jimmy Giuffre, George Russell, Dave Holland and Joe Maneri (composition) among others. Studied and performed extensively the music of Thelonious Monk and Lennie Tristano and in 1991 compiled a collection of all of Monk's compositions. In the last twenty years mostly led or co-led groups whose recordings have often been voted into reviewers' top-10 lists in magazines such as Coda, Cadence, Jazz Times and Jazziz

Julian Joseph

Born: May 11, 1966

Virtuoso pianist, bandleader, composer, arranger and broadcaster, Julian Joseph is the undisputed heir to the global house of jazz. Acclaimed by critics and audiences the world over, Julian never fails to inspire with his mastery of the keyboard, the versatility of his musicianship, and the seemingly limitless scope of his creative imagination. Always relaxed and self-assured, Julian is completely at home on any stage and in front of any band. His passion for the music is palpable, and his desire to communicate that passion compelling. Over the past 35 years, Julian has made ground-breaking advances for jazz in the UK

Scott Joplin

Born: November 24, 1868

Scott Joplin personified ragtime; he was its chief champion, the figure most closely associated with its composition. It was Joplin's short, hard-driving melodies- -and the syncopated backbone he furnished them—that helped define the musical parameters of ragtime, a style that gave voice to the African American experience during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sadly, for all his accomplishments in putting a new musical form on the map, Joplin spent his final years madly obsessed with a fruitless crusade to enter, if not conquer, another arena: opera, the staid, classical venue accepted by a white community that had for so long ridiculed ragtime as cheap, vulgar, and facile black music. Many of the details of Joplin's life, like much of his music, have been lost to history

Duke Jordan

Born: April 1, 1922

Duke Jordan was a pianist whose work with the saxophonist Charlie Parker endures in the jazz pantheon. Jordan was regarded as one of the great early bebop pianists, the sound that he helped to create in the postwar era was something new, and it remains a cornerstone of jazz. Irving Sydney Jordan was born in New York in 1922, and began his formal piano studies at the age of eight.He continued to study piano until he was 16, playing in the school band at Brooklyn Automotive High. After graduation in 1939 he joined the septet of trombonist Steve Pulliam. This combo, appearing in an amateur contest at the New York World's Fair that summer, won a prize and earned the attention of John Hammond, who was impressed by the teen-aged efforts of young Duke

Mike Jones

Born: August 11, 1962

Specifically, Mike Jones performs music from what’s become known as the Great American Songbook for more people each year than any jazz pianist in the world. Really. This is because, as music director for the enduringly popular Penn & Teller Show in Las Vegas and other venues across the globe, he plays these classic standards in the “warm-up” hour – and during and between the onstage magic – for the millions of visitors who attend the show. In a career spanning four decades, Jones has wowed audiences with his virtuoso skills and stylistic flair – nowhere to greater acclaim than at the sold-out houses in New York that marked Penn and Teller’s 2015 six-week return to Broadway. In general? Mike Jones plays the piano as if had more than 88 notes and as if each of his fingers were Usain Bolt. How He Does It Mike Jones is a thoroughly modern throwback to what used to be called the “two-handed pianist,” which is not as obvious as it sounds

Oliver Jones

Born: September 11, 1934

Pianist Oliver Jones is one of Canada’s finest musicians. His career also intertwines with the proud history of jazz in his native Montreal, the thriving city that in its heyday also produced the late Oscar Peterson, Oliver’s lifelong friend and one of his influences. Oliver was born and raised in Saint Henri, a predominantly working class area of Montreal, several blocks from Peterson, and young Oliver would sit on the Peterson porch, listening to the older boy practice. Oscar’s sister, Daisy Peterson Sweeney, became his first piano teacher, with lessons continuing for the next twelve years

Jimmy Jones

Born: December 30, 1918

James Henry "Jimmy" Jones was an American jazz pianist and arranger. As a child, Jones learned guitar and piano. He worked in various orchestras in Chicago from 1936 and played in a trio with Stuff Smith in 1943–45. Following this, he played with Don Byas, Dizzy Gillespie (1945), J.C. Heard (1945–47), Buck Clayton (1946) and Etta Jones. He accompanied Sarah Vaughan from 1947–52, and then again from 1954–57 after a long illness. In 1954 he played on an album with Clifford Brown and accompanied him on his European tour. Around this time, he also played with Helen Merrill and Gil Evans