Born in the great state of Illinois (no, nowhere near Chicago), adrift in a sea of country music, Top 40 radio, and easy listening, I was inexorably drawn, at the tender age of 4, to my mother's piano. I'd sit there for hours and make stuff up (usually instead of practicing the music for my lessons, which began at age 5), and also try to play along with mom's LPs, some of which were gems, with the music of Mancini, Erroll Garner, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Prokofiev.
I later discovered (via big brother Mark's 8-track) that first Emerson, Lake & Palmer album, and freaked out - hey, music that wasn't twangy, about puppy love, or smothered in strings! And with lots of cool keyboard parts! A few years later, I heard Stanley Clarke's "School Days" being used as a speaker demo at a local hi-fi store, freaked out again, and bought it on the spot (with what, I wonder - lunch money?) "Heavy Weather" by Weather Report was also an early, and seminal, acquisition; an album which still floors me. Our local library also had a few interesting LPs that I checked out; Herbie Hancock's "Thrust" really impressed me. And another musical bombshell went off when I heard Frank Zappa's stuff for the first time, around my middle-school years.
Woven into all the "weird" music that I was ferreting out was the influence of more mainstream sounds in my environment such as Steely Dan (hey, Top 40 that sounds jazzy!), The Who, Aerosmith, James Taylor, Seals & Crofts, and Elton John (thanks again Mark, and sister Gay, for having some great albums ;)
By this time (junior high) I was hanging out with older musicians, jamming in friend's basements, and had pretty much decided that playing music (preferably on a huge stage to screaming fans) would be a cool way to make a living.
I was hired by what was, essentially, the Midwest equivalent of a wedding band when I was 14; my bandmates were all 20- and 30-somethings. I was TOTALLY PYSCHED to be playing Santana, Doobie Brothers, BTO, Chicago, etc (on the guitarist's Hammond B3 organ - an instrument I knew nothing about, but loved - since I didn't have my own keyboard yet) with them, and to ACTUALLY GET PAID for it! My course to become a professional musician was henceforth set.
One of the guys in the band (thanks, Brandon!) was always turning me on to other "alternative" music: Passport, Jean-Luc Ponty, Brand X, Gentle Giant, pre-pop Genesis, Yes, and more Weather Report, etc. I couldn't get enough!
Then, a couple years later, I finally made the connection between all the IMPROVISING I was still doing, and the "weird" music I was always listening to, and JAZZ. Light bulb! I left the band I had been gigging with (actually, I got fired, but it was OK :) and started playing with a straight-ahead, acoustic jazz group. And again, everyone in it was older and more experienced than me - a good way to learn fast.
My new heroes became Oscar Peterson, Thelonious Monk, Miles, Coltrane, etc. I then became somewhat of a Jazz Nazi in my latter high-school years, and on thru college, when I moved to the NYC area and got a degree in Jazz Studies. (I first spent a year at the University of Illinois, learning Debussy, Chopin, Copeland, etc, all of which I loved; but classical music seemed tangential to me at the time, and I was hearing the siren song of jazz and Gotham.)
My East Coast college buds exposed me to still more new music; jazz I wasn't familiar with - Keith Jarrett, Roland Kirk, ECM artists such as Jan Garbarek, Bill Frisell, Pat Metheny, etc - as well as non-jazz influences including Indian ragas, reggae, salsa, and Brasilian music.
Then I got out of college, and started gigging for real. And I've done some amazing gigs since then - as well as many more I'd rather not talk about! - but in any case have managed to survive this whole time just playing music, based here in the NYC area; a place with probably more musicians per square mile than anywhere on earth.
My first kind-of high-profile gig was with Blood, Sweat & Tears (Incidentally, the only other band that's ever fired me! However, being fired was somewhat a badge of honor in that group at that time; and for the record, I was immediately hired back ;) I've since recently worked with Phoebe Snow, Billy Hart, Claudio Roditi, Charles MacPherson, among others, and am happy to be the keyboardist and musical director for one of my favorite people, the great Chuck Loeb.
In addition to my musical free-lancing around this insane little corner of the world, recent jazz gigs have included frequent appearances with another great guitarist, Gil Parris, and with one of the few nine-piece jazz ensembles extant, the Mike Kaplan Nonet.
(You can find both of them on MySpace.)
And finally, after many years of just being "Joe Sideman", I've recently started my OWN band, called "No Fun Is Bad", which one might file under "fusion". In any case, the material is mainly mine, and mostly funky stuff with lots of room for improv and interaction, and with some of my big influences in evidence: Weather Report,
Herbie Hancock, The Meters, and John Scofield among them. Ask for us by name!
Further reports as events warrant...Peace, MK
Thank you for the friendship and for your kind words!!!Beautiful music on your site!!!I am a friend of Thierry !!I am happy to be your friend!!!Best wishes!!!Peace !!Daniel DD
When I listened to Kaleidoscope today, all became pure and right; A Truly Wonderful start to a Balmy Florida Day--THANK YOU for your gifted music and self. I Love that Piece!
