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Joanne Brackeen Joanne (*1938 in Ventura, CA) is a jazz pianist and university professor. She learned piano at the age of eleven by playing along to Frankie Carle's solos and letting her "inner music" resonate on the instrument. She had few formal music lessons and left the Los Angeles Conservatoire after only three days in 1958. Soon after, she began performing with Dexter Gordon, Teddy Edwards, Harold Land, Bobby Hutcherson, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Charles Lloyd. She also contributed to several soul jazz albums by vibraphonist Freddie McCoy. After marrying saxophonist Charles Brackeen (they are now divorced), she had to withdraw from the scene to raise her children. In 1966, having moved to New York City, she reappeared in the public eye. In 1969, she collaborated with Woody Shaw and David Liebman. Between 1969 and 1972, Brackeen was the first female member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. She then played with Joe Henderson (1972–75) and Stan Getz (1975–77), before establishing herself as a prominent pianist and forming her own trios and quartets, which included Ravi Coltrane, Eddie Gomez, Jack DeJohnette, Cecil McBee, and Billy Hart. She also performed solo, for example, at Carnegie Hall.   Brackeen has explored the entire history of jazz, including abstraction and fusion. Her musical range spans from standards and modal jazz to free improvisation. She has composed over 300 pieces. Her compositions, some with dissonant rhythms and idiosyncratic melodies, are rooted in tradition but often have a hard bop feel. Her flexibility and productivity have secured her a place among jazz critics as a top-tier pianist – Leonard Feather, for example, noted that she was as important to the 1980s as Bill Evans or Herbie Hancock were to the 1960s and Keith Jarrett and McCoy Tyner to the 1970s. Her album Pink Elephant Magic was nominated for a Grammy in 1999. Although she is a self-taught jazz pianist, Joanne Brackeen has been a professor at Berklee College of Music since 1994.   from Wikipedia

contact:
homepage:	joannebrackeenjazz.com
	Click on the logo to see Joanne's tour dates.

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