- Joanne Brackeen
Joanne Brackeen (born
July 26 ,1938 ) is an American jazz pianist and music educator.She was born Joanne Grogan in
Ventura, California . She attended the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, but devoted herself to jazz by imitatingFrankie Carle albums. She was influenced byCharlie Parker andbebop .Her career began in the late 1950s while working with names like
Dexter Gordon ,Teddy Edwards ,Harold Land , Don Cherry,Charlie Haden and Charles Lloyd, but in 1969 it began to "take off" as she became the first woman inArt Blakey 's "Jazz Messengers".She played with
Joe Henderson (1972-75) andStan Getz (1975-1977) before leading her own trio and quartet. Brackeen established herself as a cutting edge pianist and composer through her appearances around the world, and her solo performances also cemented her reputation as one of the most innovative and dynamic of pianists. Her trios featured such noted players asClint Houston ,Eddie Gomez ,John Patitucci ,Jack DeJohnette ,Cecil McBee , andBilly Hart .She served on the grant panel for the
National Endowment for the Arts , toured the Middle East with the US State Department as sponsor, and had solo performances atCarnegie Hall .She has 25 albums as a lead musician and is a professor at the
Berklee College of Music .Brackeen was formerly married to tenor saxophonist
Charles Brackeen . The two have since divorced.External links
* [http://www.music-city.org/Joanne-Brackeen/discography/ Joanne Brackeen discography]
* [http://www.view.com/brackeen-bio-short.html Bio from her webpage]
* [http://www.berklee.edu/bt/132/faculty_profile.html Berklee profile]
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