Geoff Keezer
Geoffrey Keezer (born November 20, 1970) is an American jazz pianist. Keezer was playing in jazz clubs as a teenager, playing piano for Art Blakey at age 18 and touring with Joshua Redman, Benny Golson and Ray Brown in his 20s. He has toured with David Sanborn, Chris Botti, Joe Locke and Christian McBride and worked with vocalist Denise Donatelli, receiving Grammy Award nominations, and releasing albums influenced by Hawaiian, Okinawan, and Afro-Peruvian folk traditions. His 2009 album ''Áurea'' was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Latin Jazz Album; in 2010 he was nominated for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s) for " Don't Explain" on Denise Donatelli's album ''When Lights Are Low''. In 2013 Keezer released his first solo piano album in 13 years, ''Heart of the Piano'' (Motéma Music). Early life Born in Eau Claire, the son of Mary Ann Graham, a professional French Horn player, and Ronald Willard Keezer, a composer/percussionist and member of the ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Eau Claire, Wisconsin
Eau Claire (; ) (French for "clear water") is a city mostly located in Eau Claire County, Wisconsin, of which it is the county seat, and with a small portion in Chippewa County, Wisconsin. It had a population of 69,421 in 2020, making it the state's eighth-largest city. Eau Claire is the principal city of the Eau Claire, Wisconsin Metropolitan Statistical Area, locally known as the Chippewa Valley, and is also part of the larger Eau Claire-Menomonie Combined Statistical Area. Eau Claire is at the confluence of the Eau Claire and Chippewa Rivers on traditional Ojibwe, Dakota, and Ho-Chunk land. The area's first permanent European American settlers arrived in 1845, and Eau Claire was incorporated as a city in 1872. The city's early growth came from its extensive logging and timber industries. After Eau Claire's lumber industry declined in the early 20th century, the city's economy diversified to encompass manufacturing and Eau Claire became an educational center with the opening ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Motéma Music
Motéma Music is a jazz and world music record label in the United States. It was founded in 2003 in San Francisco Bay Area. This record label’s catalog spans genres, cultures, and generations and has received Grammy recognition for over twenty-five albums in jazz, Latin-jazz, reggae, and R&B. Founded by label president and recording artist Jana Herzen, Motéma was the first to bring soul/jazz musician Gregory Porter to international attention with his Grammy-nominated first albums, ''Water and Be Good'' and his hit song "1960 What?" The label launched international careers for jazz piano star Joey Alexander, modern soul singer Deva Mahal, and Cuban musician Pedrito Martinez, among others. Also in the label’s catalog are recordings by established performers such as Randy Weston, Geri Allen, David Murray, Monty Alexander, and Charnett Moffett, alongside releases by younger players including Donny McCaslin, Mark Guiliana, Jihye Lee, and NEA Jazzmaster Terri Lyne Carrington ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Learson Marsalis (born October 18, 1961) is an American trumpeter, composer, teacher, and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has promoted classical and jazz music, often to young audiences. Marsalis has won nine Grammy Awards, and his ''Blood on the Fields'' was the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He is the only musician to win a Grammy Award in both jazz and classical during the same year. Early years Marsalis was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 18, 1961, and grew up in the suburb of Kenner. He is the second of six sons born to Dolores Ferdinand Marsalis and Ellis Marsalis Jr., a pianist and music teacher.Stated on ''Finding Your Roots'', PBS, March 25, 2012 He was named for jazz pianist Wynton Kelly. Branford Marsalis is his older brother and Jason Marsalis and Delfeayo Marsalis are younger. All three are jazz musicians. While sitting at a table with trumpeters Al Hirt, Miles Davis, and Clark Terry, his father jokin ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gerry Mulligan
Gerald Joseph Mulligan (April 6, 1927 – January 20, 1996), also known as Jeru, was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger. Though primarily known as one of the leading jazz baritone saxophonists—playing the instrument with a light and airy tone in the era of cool jazz—Mulligan was also a significant arranger, working with Claude Thornhill, Miles Davis, Stan Kenton, and others. His pianoless quartet of the early 1950s with trumpeter Chet Baker is still regarded as one of the best cool jazz groups. Mulligan was also a skilled pianist and played several other reed instruments. Several of his compositions, such as "Walkin' Shoes" and "Five Brothers", have become standards. Biography Early life and career Gerry Mulligan was born in Queens Village, Queens, New York, United States, the son of George and Louise Mulligan. His father was a Wilmington, Delaware native of Irish descent; his mother a Philadelphia native of half-Irish and half-German desce ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rhapsody In Blue
''Rhapsody in Blue'' is a 1924 musical composition written by George Gershwin for solo piano and jazz band, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects. Commissioned by bandleader Paul Whiteman, the work premiered in a concert titled "An Experiment in Modern Music" on February 12, 1924, in Aeolian Hall, New York City. Whiteman's band performed the rhapsody with Gershwin playing the piano. Whiteman's arranger Ferde Grofé orchestrated the rhapsody several times including the 1924 original scoring, the 1926 pit orchestra scoring, and the 1942 symphonic scoring. The rhapsody is one of Gershwin's most recognizable creations and a key composition that defined the Jazz Age. Gershwin's piece inaugurated a new era in America's musical history, established Gershwin's reputation as an eminent composer, and eventually became one of the most popular of all concert works. The ''American Heritage'' magazine posits that the famous opening clarinet glissando has ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television are named), it remains the most-read daily newspaper in the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region. It had the sixth-highest circulation for American newspapers in 2017. In the 1850s, under Joseph Medill, the ''Chicago Tribune'' became closely associated with the Illinois politician Abraham Lincoln, and the Republican Party's progressive wing. In the 20th century under Medill's grandson, Robert R. McCormick, it achieved a reputation as a crusading paper with a decidedly more American-conservative anti-New Deal outlook, and its writing reached other markets through family and corporate relationships at the ''New York Daily News'' and the ''Washington Times-Herald.'' The 1960s saw its corporate parent owner, Tribune Company, rea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Donald Brown (musician)
Donald Ray Brown (born March 28, 1954) is an American jazz pianist and producer. Brown was born in Hernando, Mississippi and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, where he learned to play trumpet and drums in his youth. From 1972 to 1975, he was a student at Memphis State University, by which time he had made piano his primary instrument. He was with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers from 1981 to 1982, then took teaching positions at Berklee College of Music from 1983 to 1985 and the University of Tennessee from 1988. Brown has recorded for Evidence, Muse, and Sunnyside. Yanow, Scott Donald Brown] at Allmusic Discography As leader/co-leader As sideman With Art Blakey * '' Killer Joe'' with George Kawaguchi (Union Jazz, 1981) * '' Keystone 3'' (Concord Jazz, 1982) * '' Feeling Good'' (Delos, 1986) With Donald Byrd *'' Getting Down to Business'' (Landmark, 1989) *''A City Called Heaven'' (Landmark, 1991) With Ricky Ford *'' Tenor Madness Too!'' (Muse, 1992) With Wallace Roney *'' Obse ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Harold Mabern
Harold Mabern Jr. (March 20, 1936 – September 17, 2019) was an American jazz pianist and composer, principally in the hard bop, post-bop, and soul jazz fields.Feather, Leonard; Gitler, Ira (2007) ''The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz''. p. 425. Oxford University Press. He is described in ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings'' as "one of the great post-bop pianists". Early life Mabern was born in Memphis, Tennessee on March 20, 1936. He initially started learning drums before switching to learning piano. He had access to a piano from his teens, after his father, who worked in a lumber yard, saved to buy him one. Mabern learned by watching and emulating pianists Charles Thomas and Phineas Newborn Jr. Mabern attended Douglass High School,. before transferring to Manassas High School;Johnson, David Brent (March 18, 2011"A Few Miles from Memphis: Harold Mabern, the Early Years" Indiana Public Media. he played with saxophonists Frank Strozier, George Coleman and trumpeter Booker ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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James Williams (musician)
James Williams (March 8, 1951 – July 20, 2004) was an American jazz pianist.AllMusic/ref> Early life James Williams was born March 8, 1951, in Memphis, Tennessee. He began his formal piano studies at age 13, and was subsequently an organist at Eastern Star Baptist Church in Memphis, a position he held for six years. He earned a B.S. in Music Education at Memphis State University, where he also formed solid friendships with fellow Memphis pianists Mulgrew Miller and Donald Brown. A devotee of the late Memphis pianist Phineas Newborn, Jr., Williams took time to delve into his hometown's jazz heritage, associating with pianist Harold Mabern, bassist Jamil Nasser, and saxophonists George Coleman and Frank Strozier, among others. Later life and career At 22, Williams moved to Boston to accept a teaching position at the Berklee College of Music. A year later, he joined drummer Alan Dawson's group, which provided support in the Boston area for touring artists including Art Far ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mulgrew Miller
Mulgrew Miller (August 13, 1955 – May 29, 2013) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and educator. As a child he played in churches and was influenced on piano by Ramsey Lewis and then Oscar Peterson. Aspects of their styles remained in his playing, but he added the greater harmonic freedom of McCoy Tyner and others in developing as a hard bop player and then in creating his own style, which influenced others from the 1980s on. After leaving university he was pianist with the Duke Ellington Orchestra for three years, then accompanied vocalist Betty Carter. Three-year stints with trumpeter Woody Shaw and with drummer Art Blakey's high-profile Jazz Messengers followed, by the end of which Miller had formed his own bands and begun recording under his own name. He was then part of drummer Tony Williams' quintet from its foundation, while continuing to play and record with numerous other leaders, mostly in small groups. Miller was Director of Jazz Studies at William Paterso ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Art Farmer
Arthur Stewart Farmer (August 21, 1928 – October 4, 1999) was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhorn player. He also played flumpet, a trumpet–flugelhorn combination especially designed for him. He and his identical twin brother, double bassist Addison Farmer, started playing professionally while in high school. Art gained greater attention after the release of a recording of his composition "Farmer's Market" in 1952. He subsequently moved from Los Angeles to New York, where he performed and recorded with musicians such as Horace Silver, Sonny Rollins, and Gigi Gryce and became known principally as a bebop player. As Farmer's reputation grew, he expanded from bebop into more experimental forms through working with composers such as George Russell and Teddy Charles. He went on to join Gerry Mulligan's quartet and, with Benny Golson, to co-found the Jazztet. Continuing to develop his own sound, Farmer switched from trumpet to the warmer flugelhorn in the early 1960s, and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Berklee College Of Music
Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including rock, hip hop, reggae, salsa, heavy metal and bluegrass. Berklee alumni have won 310 Grammy Awards, more than any other college, and 108 Latin Grammy Awards. Other notable accolades for its alumni include 34 Emmy Awards, 7 Tony Awards, 8 Academy Awards, and 3 Saturn Awards. Since 2012, Berklee College of Music has also operated a campus in Valencia, Spain. In December 2015, Berklee College of Music and the Boston Conservatory agreed to a merger. The combined institution is known as Berklee, with the conservatory becoming The Boston Conservatory at Berklee. History Schillinger House (1945–1954) In 1945, pianist, composer, arranger and MIT graduate Lawrence Berk founde ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |