Austin Peralta

Austin Peralta (born October 25, 1990) is a musician and composer, son of the legendary Z-Boy skateboarder and award winning film director Stacy Peralta. He has gained notoriety in the jazz world for having two CD's released by CBS/Sony in Japan by the age of 16.

Peralta is a piano player, devoted to music from his very young years when he started taking piano lessons at age 6, and continued his music studies with Eleanor Lindboe and Sara Banta at Pepperdine University. He has also studied with the noted jazz pianist Alan Pasqua and saxophonist Buddy Collette. When talking about influences, he refers to John Coltrane, Chopin, McCoy Tyner, Pharoah Sanders, and Kenny Garrett. He won the Shelly Manne New Talent Award given by the Los Angeles Jazz Society in 2003. He has performed in his home state of California, Germany and Japan, where he had his first tour in 2006.

At age 15, Peralta was also a featured performer at the 2006 Tokyo Jazz Festival, appearing with his own trio, as well as a live performance with major jazz stars Chick Corea, Hank Jones, Sadao Watanabe, John Patitucci, Omar Hakim, and the young Japanese pianist Hiromi Uehara. A DVD was released of the festival including Peralta's performance. At age 16 Peralta appeared at the internationally-known Java Jazz Festival (2007).

Peralta's first CD, "Maiden Voyage", featured bassist Ron Carter, and his second release "Mantra" included bassist Buster Williams.

He contributed to the original soundtrack of his father's documentary film "Riding Giants" with a piano solo.

Discography

Maiden Voyage (March 2006)

Personnel: Austin Peralta - piano
Ron Carter - bass
Billy Kilson - drums

Track listing:

# Passion Dance
# Shadow Of Your Smile
# Maiden Voyage
# Green, Dolphin Street
# Spain
# N.Q.E. (Naguib Qormah Effendi)
# Someday My Prince Will Come
# Balaqeeti
# Naima

Mantra (December 2006)

Personnel:

Marcus Strickland - tenor/soprano saxes
Steve Nelson - vibes
Austin Peralta - piano
Buster Williams - bass
Ronald Bruner, Jr. - drums

Track Listing:

# Mantra
# Black Narcissus
# Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
# Astral Tides
# Butterfly
# Ablaze
# All the Things You Are
# Afro Blue
# D.Redman

External links

* [http://www.tokyo-jazz.com/en/artists/index.html TokyoJazz 2006 profile]
* [http://www.javajazzfestival.com/2007/artists_archieve.php?action=detail&nid=549 Java Jazz Festival 2007 profile]
* [http://www.myspace.com/austinperalta Official MySpace page]