Anton Schwartz (born July 16, 1967) is an American

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

saxophonist The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...

and composer based in

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

and

Oakland, California Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast of the United States, West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third ...

Biography

Anton Schwartz was born and raised in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, the son of Tony Schwartz, the audio documentarian and media theorist, and Reenah Lurie Schwartz. He attended

The Dalton School The Dalton School, originally the Children's University School, is a private, coeducational college preparatory school in New York City and a member of both the Ivy Preparatory School League and the New York Interschool. The school is located i ...

, during which time he studied jazz privately with

Warne Marsh Warne Marion Marsh (October 26, 1927 – December 18, 1987) was an American tenor saxophonist. Born in Los Angeles, his playing first came to prominence in the 1950s as a protégé of pianist Lennie Tristano and earned attention in the 1970s as ...

and

Eddie Daniels Eddie Daniels (born October 19, 1941) is an American musician and composer. Although he is best known as a jazz clarinetist, he has also played saxophone and flute as well as classical music on clarinet. Early life, family and education Daniel ...

, and studied advanced mathematics at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

and

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. He earned his

Bachelor's A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ye ...

Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...

, in Mathematics and Philosophy at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1989, whereupon he entered the Doctoral program in

Computer Science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

on a National Science Foundation Fellowship. There he pursued research in

artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

, specializing in

reinforcement learning Reinforcement learning (RL) is an area of machine learning concerned with how intelligent agents ought to take actions in an environment in order to maximize the notion of cumulative reward. Reinforcement learning is one of three basic machine ...

. He left the program to become a full-time musician, but not before earning a

Master of Science A Master of Science ( la, Magisterii Scientiae; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree in the field of science awarded by universities in many countries or a person holding such a degree. In contrast to ...

degree along the way.

Musician

He has released five CDs as a leader, on his own Antonjazz label. They have garnered extensive national radio play and strong reviews. His 2006 CD, Radiant Blue, featured Peter Bernstein (guitar) and

Taylor Eigsti Taylor Eigsti (born September 24, 1984) is an American jazz pianist and composer. Eigsti's trio features bassist Harish Raghavan and drummer Eric Harland. He is also a member of Eric Harland Voyager, Kendrick Scott Oracle, and Gretchen Parlato's ...

(piano) and hit number Four on the U.S. jazz radio charts. His most recent release,

Flash Mob A flash mob (or flashmob) is a group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform for a brief time, then quickly disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment, satire, and artistic expression. Flash mobs may be organized via t ...

, featured

Dominick Farinacci Dominick Farinacci (born March 3, 1983) is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and big band leader. He is currently signed to the Mack Avenue label. Farinacci was one of eighteen artists worldwide invited to be a part of the inaugural class of t ...

(trumpet) and

(piano) and enjoyed a long run on the radio Top 10. Schwartz performs periodically at

Yoshi's Yoshi's (also known as Yoshi's Jazz Club and Yoshi's Oakland) is a nightclub located in Jack London Square in Oakland, California, United States. The venue originally opened in 1972 as a restaurant in Berkeley, later moving to Claremont Avenu ...

. One such performance was broadcast nationally in the U.S. as an hourlong episode of

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

's JazzSet. Recent performances by Schwartz include an hourlong concert of unaccompanied saxophone for the 2013 San Francisco Jazz Festival and as a soloist with the

Boston Pops Orchestra The Boston Pops Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts, specializing in light classical and popular music. The orchestra's current music director is Keith Lockhart. Founded in 1885 as an offshoot of the Boston Symp ...

Boston Symphony Hall Symphony Hall is a concert hall located at 301 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts, opened in 1900. Designed by the architectural firm McKim, Mead and White, it was built for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, which continues to make the h ...

(2014).

Educator & Educational Technologist

In 2019, Schwartz release
Random Roots
a music practice aid app that utilizes skill acquisition techniques such as varied practice, the

spacing effect The spacing effect demonstrates that learning is more effective when study sessions are spaced out. This effect shows that more information is encoded into long-term memory by spaced study sessions, also known as ''spaced repetition'' or ''spac ...

, the

testing effect The testing effect (also known as retrieval practice, active recall, practice testing, or test-enhanced learning) suggests long-term memory is increased when some of the learning period is devoted to retrieving information from memory. It is differ ...

context dependency Context may refer to: * Context (language use), the relevant constraints of the communicative situation that influence language use, language variation, and discourse summary Computing * Context (computing), the virtual environment required to su ...

, illusions of mastery and the

generation effect The generation effect is a phenomenon where information is better remembered if it is generated from one's own mind rather than simply read. Researchers have struggled to account for why the generated information is better recalled than read inform ...

. In 2013, he described the practice methodology that inspired the Random Roots app i
a blog post of the same name
In 2021, he release
ScaleMate
a music theory app aimed at helping musicians deepen their understanding of scales and musical harmony. Schwartz is a faculty member of the

California Jazz Conservatory The California Jazz Conservatory is a private conservatory in Berkeley, California. It is the only independent music conservatory in the United States devoted solely to jazz and related styles of music. Located in the Downtown Berkeley Arts Distr ...

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

, has taught frequently at The

Stanford Jazz Workshop Stanford Jazz Workshop (SJW) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to jazz education and the annual concert series known as the Stanford Jazz Festival. SJW was founded in 1972 by saxophonist and educator Jim Nadel. Though many of its activities a ...

, and has been Artist-In-Residence at

and The

Brubeck Institute The Brubeck Institute was a special program at the University of the Pacific's Conservatory of Music. It was founded in 2000 by noted Jazz pianist and Pacific alum Dave Brubeck David Warren Brubeck (; December 6, 1920 – December 5, 2012) w ...

Discography

* ''When Music Calls'' (1998, Antonjazz) * ''The Slow Lane'' (2000, Antonjazz) * ''Holiday Time'' (2004, Antonjazz) * '' Radiant Blue'' (2006, Antonjazz) * ''

'' (2014, Antonjazz)

References

External links

Anton Schwartz's official web siteAnton Schwartz on Google ScholarMusic educational apps by Anton Schwartz on the App StoreAnton Schwartz on AllAbout Jazz
* Anton Schwartz on Allmusic {{DEFAULTSORT:Schwartz, Anton Mainstream jazz saxophonists American jazz tenor saxophonists American male saxophonists American music educators Jazz musicians from California 1967 births Living people Jewish American musicians Harvard University alumni Stanford University alumni Soul-jazz saxophonists Jewish jazz musicians 21st-century American saxophonists 21st-century American male musicians American male jazz musicians 21st-century American Jews