Rachel Z
Encyclopedia
Rachel Carmel Nicolazzo better known as Rachel Z, is a jazz
pianist. She attended the Berklee College of Music
Summer School and Manhattan School of Music
pre-college, where she launched the quintet, Nardis, whilst studying with Joanne Brackeen
and Richie Beirach
in NYC. Later Rachel Z graduated from the New England Conservatory with a 'Distinction in Performance' award. Meanwhile she was playing professionally in and around Boston
in a small group.
In 1988, Rachel returned to New York and co-wrote Tokyo Blue with schoolmate turned pro-saxophonist Najee
and then played mostly keyboards
with classic fusion
band Steps Ahead
where leader Mike Mainieri
suggested she altered her name as to be easier to pronounce.
Rachel Z remained with Steps Ahead until 1996; however, she collaborated with a number of different artists during this time, establishing her name within the jazz scene. In 1995 she worked with Wayne Shorter
, on his album High Life, which won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album
. She was responsible for the CD's synthesized orchestral settings, acoustic piano solos and several concurrent world tours.
While signed to Columbia by Dr.George Butler, she released an influential CD "Trust the Universe" which was unique in featuring a jazz A side with Charnette Moffett and Al Foster and an electric jazz B side with Lenny White and Victor Bailey. Her next solo CD ,"Room of One's Own-a tribute to Women Artists" featured arrangements by Maria Schneider and Alvaro Cordero. "Room" won 4 stars in Downbeat and extensive critical acclaim for the original compositions and wind ensemble arrangements.
In 1999 Rachel Z was a part of a jazz fusion project by Stanley Clarke
and Lenny White
. The effort, simply called Vertú
, featured such artists as Karen Briggs
on violin, Richie Kotzen
on guitar. The album received a very positive review from All About Jazz. (Clarke and White played together with Chick Corea
in Return to forever
). She dedicated A Room of One’s Own to the many women artists who have played a significant role in her life. Her characteristic musical intelligence and development of her genre has made her one of the most exciting female jazz musicians of the twenty-first century.
In 2002, having formed a new trio, she created a tribute to Joni Mitchell called Moon at the Window. This trio group continues to record New Standards and formulate complex arrangements of pop and jazz tunes and has 5 CDs released to date.
Intermittently, Rachel Z experimented with her own rock group Peacebox as a vocalist. During this time she was also working with the Italian legend Pino Daniele
with whom she first began working in 1996. She later toured with Peter Gabriel
during his Growing Up tours from 2002 to 2006, which gave Rachel the opportunity to widen her fan base and work with renowned bassist
Tony Levin
. Her recent project, titled Dept. of Good and Evil, features drummer Bobby Rae and bassist
Maeve Royce. This trio's mission is unity and its ideas for transforming modern pop songs into jazz masterpieces using the jazz tradition as a benchmark for innovative and imaginative arrangements have thrust this group into the forefront of modern jazz.
In 2010 Rachel formed a new band with Omar Hakim
, called "The Trio Of OZ" which released its first CD and began touring; Z and Hakim also launched OZmosis Records in 2010.
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
pianist. She attended the 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...
Summer School and Manhattan School of Music
Manhattan School of Music
The Manhattan School of Music is a major music conservatory located on the Upper West Side of New York City. The school offers degrees on the bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition...
pre-college, where she launched the quintet, Nardis, whilst studying with Joanne Brackeen
Joanne Brackeen
Joanne Brackeen is an American jazz pianist and music educator.-Biography:She was born Joanne Grogan in Ventura, California. She attended the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, but devoted herself to jazz by imitating Frankie Carle albums...
and Richie Beirach
Richie Beirach
Richard "Richie" Beirach is a jazz pianist and composer born in New York City.He initially studied both classical and jazz before entering the Berklee College of Music....
in NYC. Later Rachel Z graduated from the New England Conservatory with a 'Distinction in Performance' award. Meanwhile she was playing professionally in and around Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
in a small group.
In 1988, Rachel returned to New York and co-wrote Tokyo Blue with schoolmate turned pro-saxophonist Najee
Najee
Jerome Najee Rasheed , known professionally as Najee, is an urban jazz saxophonist and flautist.He attended New England Conservatory of Music in Boston where he studied with George Russell and Jaki Byard....
and then played mostly keyboards
Keyboard instrument
A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
with classic fusion
Jazz fusion
Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...
band Steps Ahead
Steps Ahead
Steps Ahead is a jazz fusion group and the brainchild of vibraphonist Mike Mainieri. According to the liner notes of the group's 1983 debut album , entitled Steps Ahead, "Steps began as a part-time venture in 1979 at Seventh Avenue South, a New York City nightclub." The group began releasing...
where leader Mike Mainieri
Mike Mainieri
Michael T. Mainieri, Jr. is a vibraphonist best known for his work with the jazz fusion group Steps Ahead....
suggested she altered her name as to be easier to pronounce.
Rachel Z remained with Steps Ahead until 1996; however, she collaborated with a number of different artists during this time, establishing her name within the jazz scene. In 1995 she worked with Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards...
, on his album High Life, which won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album
Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album
The Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Jazz Album was an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to recording artists for works containing quality contemporary jazz performances...
. She was responsible for the CD's synthesized orchestral settings, acoustic piano solos and several concurrent world tours.
While signed to Columbia by Dr.George Butler, she released an influential CD "Trust the Universe" which was unique in featuring a jazz A side with Charnette Moffett and Al Foster and an electric jazz B side with Lenny White and Victor Bailey. Her next solo CD ,"Room of One's Own-a tribute to Women Artists" featured arrangements by Maria Schneider and Alvaro Cordero. "Room" won 4 stars in Downbeat and extensive critical acclaim for the original compositions and wind ensemble arrangements.
In 1999 Rachel Z was a part of a jazz fusion project by Stanley Clarke
Stanley Clarke
Stanley Clarke is an American jazz musician and composer known for his innovative and influential work on double bass and electric bass guitar as well as for his numerous film and television scores...
and Lenny White
Lenny White
Leonard White III, better known as Lenny White is an American jazz fusion drummer, who is best known for playing in Chick Corea's Return to Forever.-Biography:...
. The effort, simply called Vertú
Vertú
Vertú is a jazz fusion band consisting of bassist Stanley Clarke and drummer Lenny White , keyboardist Rachel Z, violinist Karen Briggs and guitarist Richie Kotzen. The band released one eponymous album in 1999....
, featured such artists as Karen Briggs
Karen Briggs
Karen Briggs, is an American violinist. She was born in New York City and grew up in Portsmouth, Virginia. Taking violin lessons from an early age, Briggs attended Norfolk State University after graduating from Woodrow Wilson High School in 1981. There, she majored in music education and mass media...
on violin, Richie Kotzen
Richie Kotzen
Richie Kotzen is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter.At a young age, Richie Kotzen was taken by music and first began playing piano at the age of five. At the age of seven he was inspired by the band KISS to learn the electric guitar...
on guitar. The album received a very positive review from All About Jazz. (Clarke and White played together with 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...
in Return to forever
Return to Forever
Return to Forever is a jazz fusion group founded and led by keyboardist Chick Corea. Through its existence, the band has cycled through a number of different members, with the only consistent band mate of Corea's being bassist Stanley Clarke...
). She dedicated A Room of One’s Own to the many women artists who have played a significant role in her life. Her characteristic musical intelligence and development of her genre has made her one of the most exciting female jazz musicians of the twenty-first century.
In 2002, having formed a new trio, she created a tribute to Joni Mitchell called Moon at the Window. This trio group continues to record New Standards and formulate complex arrangements of pop and jazz tunes and has 5 CDs released to date.
Intermittently, Rachel Z experimented with her own rock group Peacebox as a vocalist. During this time she was also working with the Italian legend Pino Daniele
Pino Daniele
Pino Daniele is an Italian vocalist, composer, and musician, whose influences cover a wide number of genres, fusing pop, blues, jazz, Italian and Middle eastern music into his own unique brand of world music.-Studio albums:...
with whom she first began working in 1996. She later toured with Peter Gabriel
Peter Gabriel
Peter Brian Gabriel is an English singer, musician, and songwriter who rose to fame as the lead vocalist and flautist of the progressive rock group Genesis. After leaving Genesis, Gabriel went on to a successful solo career...
during his Growing Up tours from 2002 to 2006, which gave Rachel the opportunity to widen her fan base and work with renowned bassist
Bassist
A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...
Tony Levin
Tony Levin
Tony Levin is an American progressive rock musician, specializing in bass guitar, Chapman stick and upright bass ....
. Her recent project, titled Dept. of Good and Evil, features drummer Bobby Rae and bassist
Bassist
A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...
Maeve Royce. This trio's mission is unity and its ideas for transforming modern pop songs into jazz masterpieces using the jazz tradition as a benchmark for innovative and imaginative arrangements have thrust this group into the forefront of modern jazz.
In 2010 Rachel formed a new band with Omar Hakim
Omar Hakim
Omar Hakim is an American jazz, jazz fusion and pop music drummer.Hakim credits jazz vibraphonist Mike Mainieri with giving him his first break in 1980; Hakim appeared in a video with Mainieri called The Jazz Life and began working with singer Carly Simon through Mainieri...
, called "The Trio Of OZ" which released its first CD and began touring; Z and Hakim also launched OZmosis Records in 2010.
Discography
- Yin Yang Steps Ahead (NYC, 1990)
- Trust The Universe (Columbia, 1993)
- Room Of One's Own (NYC, 1996)
- Love Is The Power (GRP Records, 1998)
- Vertu (project with Stanley ClarkeStanley ClarkeStanley Clarke is an American jazz musician and composer known for his innovative and influential work on double bass and electric bass guitar as well as for his numerous film and television scores...
and Lenny WhiteLenny WhiteLeonard White III, better known as Lenny White is an American jazz fusion drummer, who is best known for playing in Chick Corea's Return to Forever.-Biography:...
) (Sony Music, 1999) - On The Milkyway Express: A Tribute to Wayne Shorter (Tone Center, 2000)
- Moon At The Window: Jazz Impressions Of Joni Mitchell (Tone Centre, 2002)
- First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (Venus, 2003)
- Everlasting (Tone Centre, 2004)
- Grace (Chesky, 2005)
- Highlife (Wayne Shorter) 1996
- Growing Up Live DVD (Realworld) Peter Gabriel 2003
- Hit (Realworld) Peter Gabriel 2003
- Still Growing Up Live & Unwrapped Peter Gabriel 2005
- Mortal (Artistshare) 2006
- Dept of Good and Evil (Savoy Jazz/WEA) 2007
- I Will Possess Your Heart Pony Canyon 2009
- The Trio Of OZ OZmosis Records 2010