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| Bruce Barth (2011) | |
|---|---|
| Pianist, composer and arranger Bruce Barth was born in Pasadena, California, into a musical family, and began banging on the piano at a very early age. His early piano lessons were interrupted at age eight when his family moved to New York, but after an inevitable change of teachers, he resumed.
The jazz door opened for Bruce at age 15 with his brother's birthday gift, a copy of Mose Allison's "Back Country Suite". After hearing that, he began to teach himself to play jazz by listening to records and imitating his many favorites, not just pianists but also horn players. He studied later with Norman Simmons, among others, and eventually enrolled in the New England Conservatory, where he studied with Jaki Byard, Fred Hersch, and George Russell, making his first recording with the latter's band. Bruce has performed on over 100 recordings, with such as Tony Bennett, Terell Stafford, David Sanchez, and, of course, his own great friend Steve Wilson. He's a first-class arranger and accompanist for vocalists, a rôle he's played on recordings by Luciana Souza, Karrin Allyson, and LaVerne Butler Bruce spent two years on panel for US State Department Jazz Ambassadors program, helping choose jazz bands to represent the US abroad. He's a Grammy-nominated producer, with a dozen recordings under his own name. Bruce is also a dedicated teacher with more than a decade on the faculty of Temple University in Philadelphia, and has taught at Berklee College in Boston, Long Island University, and the New School. One of the hardest-working guys in jazz, Bruce is hard to catch, but it's well worth the effort. |
| Pick | Artist | Album | Song | Label |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| # 1 | Clifford Brown | The Definitive Clifford Brown | Joy Spring | Verve/Blue Note |
| # 2 | Bud Powell | The Amazing Bud Powell, Vol. 1 | Dance of the Infidels | Blue Note |
| # 3 | Charlie Parker | Yardbird Suite | Parker's Mood | Rhino |
| # 4 | Miles Davis | Porgy and Bess | My Man's Gone Now | Columbia |
| # 5 | Duke Ellington | Piano Reflections | Reflections in D | Capitol |
| # 6 | Keith Jarrett | Silence | Byablue | Impulse |
| # 7 | Charles Mingus | Mingus Ah-Um | Fables of Faubus | Columbia |
| # 8 | The Laurent Coq Blowing Trio | The Thing to Share | The World Belongs to Those Who Dare | Cristal |
| # 9 | John Coltrane | Crescent | Crescent | Impulse |
| Book | The complete works of William Shakespeare | |||
| Luxury Item | "The nine-foot Hamburg Steinway 'D' I played recently in Cyprus" | |||
| Tim Garland
26 Apr Ben Goldberg 01 Mar Lua Hadar 08 Mar | Molly Holm
19 Apr Remy Le Boeuf 15 Mar Stephanie Nakasian 18 Jan | Marlena Shaw
29 Mar Ben Sidran 12 Apr |