Joey Calderazzo
Encyclopedia
Joey Calderazzo is a jazz pianist.
Inspired by a friend who lived next door, Calderazzo began his piano studies at age seven. He progressed rapidly in a house where other family members were also playing drums and singing, and at 14 became the youngest member of brother Gene Calderazzo
's rock band. When the other, significantly older band members enrolled at Boston’s Berklee College of Music
and switched their allegiance to jazz, Calderazzo set aside his passions for the Beatles and Led Zeppelin
and began listening to Oscar Peterson
, Chick Corea
, Herbie Hancock
and McCoy Tyner
.
Calderazzo met Michael Brecker
at a clinic, and soon the saxophonist was introducing Calderazzo to the jazz world as part of the touring Michael Brecker Quintet beginning in 1987. and on two tracks of the his 1988 album Don’t Try This at Home. Brecker produced Calderazzo’s first disc, In the Door (Blue Note, recorded 1990) and played on it along with two other tenor saxophonists whom Calderazzo had met in Boston, Jerry Bergonzi
and brother Gene’s Berklee roommate Branford Marsalis
.
Two more Blue Note albums, To Know One (recorded 1991) with Bergonzi and Marsalis again featured and the rhythm section completed by Dave Holland
and drummer Jack DeJohnette
, and The Traveler (recorded 1992) featuring two different trios, while Secrets (Sledgehammer Blues
(formerly AudioQuest Music), recorded 1995), took a different musical direction as Bob Belden
surrounded Calderazzo’s trio with a seven-piece ensemble. The ongoing relationship with Brecker found Calderazzo contributing as composer as well as pianist on the saxophonist’s Tales from the Hudson, and as pianist, composer and co-producer on Two Blocks from the Edge. There were further encounters with Bergonzi as well, most frequently in a well-documented quintet led by bassist Bruce Gertz, and the beginning of a more active relationship with Marsalis when Calderazzo assumed one of the keyboard chairs in Marsalis’ Buckshot LeFonque
, touring with the group and contributing to its second disc, Music Evolution.
When pianist Kenny Kirkland
died in 1998, Calderazzo assumed his chair in the Branford Marsalis Quartet. The intense working relationship with Marsalis, which remains active to this day, called upon a new scope and maturity from the pianist that complement his own emergence. Among the recorded evidence of this period’s growth are Joey Calderazzo (Columbia, recorded 1999), his definitive trio recital to date, with John Patitucci
and Jeff 'Tain' Watts
, and his contributions to Marsalis’ CDs Contemporary Jazz, Footsteps of Our Fathers, Romare Bearden Revealed, Eternal and DVD Coltrane’s `A Love Supreme’ Live in Amsterdam. The latest Branford Marsalis Quartet release, Braggtown, features Calderazzo’s composition “Hope” as well as his piano.
Calderazzo’s signing as one of the first artists on Branford’s Marsalis Music
label in 2002 coincided with the latest growth spurt in the pianist’s career. His growing interests in the sounds to be extracted from a piano and the entire spectrum of jazz history initially surfaced on Haiku (Marsalis Music, recorded 2002), his first all-solo disc; were in full flower during his first solo piano tour of Europe early in 2006; and define his current Marsalis Music album, Amanacer, featuring duo and trio performances with singer Claudia Acuña
and guitarist Romero Lubambo
as well as solo tracks.
Now a resident of Wake Forest, North Carolina
, Calderazzo continues to perform as a solo pianist, at the head of a trio, and as a member of the Branford Marsalis Quartet.
In June 2011, Branford Marsalis
and Joey Calderazzo released their first duo album Songs of Mirth and Melancholy, on Branford's Marsalis Music
label. Their world premiere performance was on June 29, 2011 in Koerner Hall at the 2011 TD Toronto Jazz Festival.
Inspired by a friend who lived next door, Calderazzo began his piano studies at age seven. He progressed rapidly in a house where other family members were also playing drums and singing, and at 14 became the youngest member of brother Gene Calderazzo
Gene Calderazzo
Gene Calderazzo is an American jazz drummer, born in New York, but currently residing in the United Kingdom where he is a visiting tutor at the Birmingham Conservatoire, the Royal Academy of Music, Trinity and the Guildhall...
's rock band. When the other, significantly older band members enrolled at Boston’s Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known primarily as a school for jazz, rock and popular music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including hip...
and switched their allegiance to jazz, Calderazzo set aside his passions for the Beatles and Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
and began listening to Oscar Peterson
Oscar Peterson
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, "O.P." by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards, and received other numerous awards and honours over the course of his career...
, Chick Corea
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever...
, Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
and McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner is a jazz pianist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and a long solo career.-Early life:...
.
Calderazzo met Michael Brecker
Michael Brecker
Michael Leonard Brecker was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Acknowledged as "a quiet, gentle musician widely regarded as the most influential tenor saxophonist since John Coltrane," he has been awarded 15 Grammy Awards as both performer and composer and was inducted into Down Beat Jazz...
at a clinic, and soon the saxophonist was introducing Calderazzo to the jazz world as part of the touring Michael Brecker Quintet beginning in 1987. and on two tracks of the his 1988 album Don’t Try This at Home. Brecker produced Calderazzo’s first disc, In the Door (Blue Note, recorded 1990) and played on it along with two other tenor saxophonists whom Calderazzo had met in Boston, Jerry Bergonzi
Jerry Bergonzi
Jerry Bergonzi is a jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and educator. Bergonzi received a B.A. Degree in Music Education from the University of Massachusetts Lowell and is the founder of Not Fat Records....
and brother Gene’s Berklee roommate Branford Marsalis
Branford Marsalis
Branford Marsalis is an American saxophonist, composer and bandleader. While primarily known for his work in jazz as the leader of the Branford Marsalis Quartet, he also performs frequently as a soloist with classical ensembles and has led the group Buckshot LeFonque.-Biography:Marsalis was born...
.
Two more Blue Note albums, To Know One (recorded 1991) with Bergonzi and Marsalis again featured and the rhythm section completed by Dave Holland
Dave Holland
Dave Holland is an English jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader who has been performing and recording for five decades. He has lived in the United States for 40 years....
and drummer Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer. He is one of the most influential jazz drummers of the 20th century, due to extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians like Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett and Sonny...
, and The Traveler (recorded 1992) featuring two different trios, while Secrets (Sledgehammer Blues
Sledgehammer Blues
Sledgehammer Blues is an independent record label owned by Valley Entertainment that was formerly named AudioQuest Music.From the label’s website, “The blues label was founded in the late 1980s with the mission to create the highest standard audiophile recordings based on the technology available...
(formerly AudioQuest Music), recorded 1995), took a different musical direction as Bob Belden
Bob Belden
James Robert Belden is an American saxophonist, arranger, composer, bandleader and producer. He is noted for his Grammy Award winning jazz orchestral recording titled The Black Dahlia. He is also a past head of A & R for Blue Note Records.Belden was born in Evanston, Illinois, and raised in...
surrounded Calderazzo’s trio with a seven-piece ensemble. The ongoing relationship with Brecker found Calderazzo contributing as composer as well as pianist on the saxophonist’s Tales from the Hudson, and as pianist, composer and co-producer on Two Blocks from the Edge. There were further encounters with Bergonzi as well, most frequently in a well-documented quintet led by bassist Bruce Gertz, and the beginning of a more active relationship with Marsalis when Calderazzo assumed one of the keyboard chairs in Marsalis’ Buckshot LeFonque
Buckshot LeFonque
Buckshot LeFonque was a musical group project of Branford Marsalis. The name Buckshot LeFonque was a pseudonym used by jazz saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley for contractual reasons on the album Here Comes Louis Smith...
, touring with the group and contributing to its second disc, Music Evolution.
When pianist Kenny Kirkland
Kenny Kirkland
Kenneth David “Kenny” Kirkland was an American pianist/keyboardist. He is most often associated with Sting, Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis, and Kenny Garrett....
died in 1998, Calderazzo assumed his chair in the Branford Marsalis Quartet. The intense working relationship with Marsalis, which remains active to this day, called upon a new scope and maturity from the pianist that complement his own emergence. Among the recorded evidence of this period’s growth are Joey Calderazzo (Columbia, recorded 1999), his definitive trio recital to date, with John Patitucci
John Patitucci
John Patitucci is an American Grammy-winning jazz double bass and jazz fusion electric bass player.-Biography:Patitucci is of Italian descent and was born in Brooklyn, New York, where he began playing the electric bass at age ten, composing and performing at age 12, as well as the acoustic bass at...
and Jeff 'Tain' Watts
Jeff 'Tain' Watts
Jeff "Tain" Watts is a jazz drummer born in 1960 who has performed with Wynton Marsalis, Branford Marsalis, Betty Carter, Michael Brecker, and others.-Biography:...
, and his contributions to Marsalis’ CDs Contemporary Jazz, Footsteps of Our Fathers, Romare Bearden Revealed, Eternal and DVD Coltrane’s `A Love Supreme’ Live in Amsterdam. The latest Branford Marsalis Quartet release, Braggtown, features Calderazzo’s composition “Hope” as well as his piano.
Calderazzo’s signing as one of the first artists on Branford’s Marsalis Music
Marsalis Music
Marsalis Music is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based record label founded in 2002 by saxophonist Branford Marsalis, one of the most celebrated jazz musicians of the past 30 years. The label was formed to allow Marsalis and other musicians to document their music free of the commercial constraints...
label in 2002 coincided with the latest growth spurt in the pianist’s career. His growing interests in the sounds to be extracted from a piano and the entire spectrum of jazz history initially surfaced on Haiku (Marsalis Music, recorded 2002), his first all-solo disc; were in full flower during his first solo piano tour of Europe early in 2006; and define his current Marsalis Music album, Amanacer, featuring duo and trio performances with singer Claudia Acuña
Claudia Acuña
Claudia Acuña is a Chilean vocalist. Born in Santiago and raised in Concepcion, she was inspired as a child to perform a variety of music, including folk, pop and opera, by Victor Jara and Violetta Parra. Her attention turned to American popular music and jazz at the age of 15, when she first...
and guitarist Romero Lubambo
Romero Lubambo
Romero Lubambo is a Brazilian jazz guitar player.Romero Lubambo started learning classic piano at a very early age...
as well as solo tracks.
Now a resident of Wake Forest, North Carolina
Wake Forest, North Carolina
Wake Forest is a town and suburb of Raleigh, North Carolina in Wake County in the U.S. state of North Carolina and is located just north of the state capital, Raleigh. The population was 12,588 at the 2000 census. In 2009, the estimated population was 27,915...
, Calderazzo continues to perform as a solo pianist, at the head of a trio, and as a member of the Branford Marsalis Quartet.
In June 2011, Branford Marsalis
Branford Marsalis
Branford Marsalis is an American saxophonist, composer and bandleader. While primarily known for his work in jazz as the leader of the Branford Marsalis Quartet, he also performs frequently as a soloist with classical ensembles and has led the group Buckshot LeFonque.-Biography:Marsalis was born...
and Joey Calderazzo released their first duo album Songs of Mirth and Melancholy, on Branford's Marsalis Music
Marsalis Music
Marsalis Music is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based record label founded in 2002 by saxophonist Branford Marsalis, one of the most celebrated jazz musicians of the past 30 years. The label was formed to allow Marsalis and other musicians to document their music free of the commercial constraints...
label. Their world premiere performance was on June 29, 2011 in Koerner Hall at the 2011 TD Toronto Jazz Festival.