Pianist Steve Kuhn's website features reviews, sound bites, recordings, biography.
Brooklyn-born Steve Kuhn was fascinated with jazz very early in his life. He began classical piano lessons at age five and soon began to "improvise and syncopate the classical repertoire."
In his early teens, Kuhn studied with legendary teacher Margaret Chaloff who schooled him in the "Russian Technique", an invaluable tool for tone production and projection. Chaloff's son, Serge, baritone saxophonist for Woody Herman, hired the 13 year-old pianist to play in his group. Throughout his teens Kuhn continued to play in Boston jazz clubs with visiting celebrities; Coleman Hawkins, Chet Baker and Vic Dickenson.
After graduation from Harvard College, Kuhn attended the Lenox School of Music where he met and played in a group with fellow-students Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry. The faculty included Bill Evans, George Russell, and Gunther Schuller. While at Lenox, Kuhn met trumpeter Kenny Dorham and began a two-year stint, interrupted when Kuhn was asked to join John Coltrane's newly-formed quartet.
Kuhn next joined Stan Getz's band, which included bassist Scott LaFaro ...
Pianist Ronny Whyte's website features sound bites, reviews, activities, bio, etc ...
Ronny Whyte has long been rated a premiere interpreter of the American Popular song, as well as an outstanding jazz pianist. He is an ASCAP Award-winning songwriter; his lyric "Forget the Woman" was recorded by Tony Bennett.
For the past two years Ronny appeared in New York City in the hit musical Our Sinatra for much of its run, as well as in the sixty city national big band tour of the show. He was also featured at New York's JVC Jazz Festival both 2001 and 2002. The Ronny Whyte Trio has performed in concert at Carnegie/Weill Hall, New York's Town Hall, Washington's Corcoran Gallery, and the Mellon Jazz Festival in Philadelphia. Ronny has had major engagements in New York at the Café Carlyle, Rainbow and Stars, the Oak Room at the Algonquin, and The Knickerbocker. Abroad, he has starred in Paris, Tokyo, Tel Aviv, Sao Paulo, Caracas, and Johannesburg.
Ronny often makes guest appearances with symphony orchestras playing his arrangement of "Porgy & Bess for Jazz Trio & Orchestra" and other Gershwin works. In the theatre, he has played such diverse roles as Bobby in Company, Oberon in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Joey in Pal Joey, and Vernon in They're Playing Our Song. He has written and performed in Night's Work, two one-act plays with music, which marked his debut as a playwright ...
Pianist Renee Rosnes' website features reviews, sound bites, itinerary,
biography, cds.
The extraordinary pianist and composer Renee Rosnes clearly enjoys the challenge and freedom of playing jazz in numerous formats. Her eight previous Blue Note recordings featured her, brilliantly, in smaller ensembles. Now, on her ninth Blue Note release, Renee Rosnes and the Danish Radio Big Band, Rosnes mines the experience gained during her impressive tenures with both the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band and The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis. Renee Rosnes and the Danish Radio Big Band puts her in the spotlight with the revered Copenhagen ensemble, and reveals her capacity to shine within a jazz orchestra context.
Replete with the phenomenal solos and fluid, yet soulful, virtuosity that distinguish her live performances and previous recordings, Renee Rosnes and the Danish Radio Big Band is her first large ensemble recording featuring her music. It showcases her impressive clarity and range while transmitting a remarkably intimate jazz feel despite the 20-piece orchestra format.
Established in 1964, the Danish Radio Big Band (DRBB) has become synonymous with live jazz magic. From 1998 until January 2003, pianist Jim McNeely served as the DRBB’s chief conductor. He has worked with Phil Woods, Stan Getz, Mel Lewis, and co-led the Vanguard Jazz Orchestra in NYC, and first became acquainted with Rosnes in the ‘80s when she studied with him. In March 2001, the two pianists renewed their creative friendship in Copenhagen when she performed with the DRBB under his baton: the resulting chemistry sparked the decision to record together in December 2001 ...
Cliff Korman is a pianist, composer and arranger. His early musical experience spanned from accompanying Yiddish theater icon Molly Picon, to the worlds of R&B and jazz, which he decided to make his own, after working with Millie Jackson, Bob Moses, Jon Lucien, and Milt Hinton.
In the early 1980’s Korman began the lifelong journey that would bring him to explore the improvised musics of the Americas and their distinctive connection to the artistic languages of the twentieth century. It is at that time that he established half of his spiritual and physical home in Brasil, becoming one of the most respected North American musicians in the country.
There he became deeply involved in a series of cross-cultural projects with the legendary clarinetist Paulo Moura: Mood Ingênuo: The Dream of Pixinguinha and Duke Ellington, Rhapsody in Bossa, on the music of Gershwin and Jobim, Gafiera Dance Brasil, a sparkling and refreshing commentary on the history of Brazilian ballroom and its links to the North American Swing Era, and the Gnattali/Monk Project, exploring two of the most influential American pianists of the century ...
Pianist Onaje Allan Gumb's website features reviews, sound bites, itinerary, biography, cds.
Onaje Allan Gumbs is one of the industry’s most respected and talented musical collaborators. He has worked for more than 30 years with an illustrious list of jazz, R&B and pop artists. In 1974, he created a special arrangement of "Stella By Starlight" for the New York Jazz Repertory Company as part of a concert honoring Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall. He followed that with live and recorded performances with such artists as Lenny White, Buster Williams, Cecil McBee and Betty Carter. In 1975,Onaje joined forces with trumpeter, Nat Adderley as part of his quintet contributing to the group’s releases on Atlantic and Steeplechase Records. Producer Nils Winter of Steeplechase upon hearing Onaje’s improvisations, invited the young pianist to record a solo piano project entitled Onaje.
In 1976, Onaje provided the arrangement for the song that was to become the signature piece for the late great vocalist Phyllis Hyman, "Betcha By Golly Wow." In 1978, the Woody Shaw Group, for which Onaje was pianist, won the Down Beat Reader’s Poll for Best Jazz Group and for Best Jazz Album (Rosewood).The album was later nominated for a Grammy. In 1985, Onaje lent his keyboard and arrangement skills to "Lady In My Life" on guitarist Stanley Jordan’s widely acclaimed debut album, Magic Touch on Blue Note Records.This was the 1st jazz album in history to maintain the #1 spot atop Billboard Magazine’s jazz charts for more than 50 weeks ...
James Weidman's website features reviews, sound bites, recordings, newletter,
biography.
New York-based pianist James Weidman is indisputably one of the world's top sidemen. Over the years he has played and recorded with musicians as diverse as Max Roach, Woody Herman, Archie Shepp, James Moody, Greg Osby, and Marty Ehrlich.
He has also been the accompanist of choice for some of the world's most celebrated singers, including legendary jazz vocalist Abbey Lincoln and Cassandra Wilson. Clearly, Weidman -- described by New York Times jazz critic Ben Ratliff as playing "smoothly and decorously" behind Lincoln at a recent reunion concert -- is one those rare accompanists to whom singers feel it is safe to give free rein ...