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Adam Birnbaum

Adam Birnbaum is emerging as one of the top young voices in jazz piano. After receiving an Artist's Diploma from Juilliard as a member of the inaugural class in Jazz Studies in 2003, Mr. Birnbaum went on to win the American Jazz Piano Competition in May 2004 to become the American Pianists Association's Cole Porter fellow in Jazz. In October, 2006, Mr. Birnbaum received the first ever "special honor" prize at the Martial Solal Competition in Paris. An active performer, Mr. Birnbaum has performed in venues such as the Indianapolis Jazz Festival, Kennedy Center Jazz Club, NPR Jazz Christmas 2004, the Tanglewood Jazz Festival, Festival Dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy, Viva Musica Festival in Bratislava, as well as at jazz clubs such as Birdland, Blues Alley, The Blue Note, Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, the Kitano Hotel and the Zinc Bar. Mr. Birnbaum has performed and recorded with legends such as Carl Allen, Wycliffe Gordon, Rodney Green, Victor Lewis, Wynton Marsalis, Lewis Nash, Ira Sullivan, Peter Washington and Ben Wolfe.

Mr. Birnbaum's early music education took place at the New England Conservatory of Music's Preparatory School, where he studied music theory, chamber music, and classical and jazz performance. Mr. Birnbaum graduated from the Honors Program at Boston College in 2001 with a B.A. in Computer Science before attending Juilliard. Now based in New York City, Mr. Birnbaum has established a busy performing career as a sideman and as a leader. In 2002 he was a guest artist with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra at Alice Tully Hall. Mr. Birnbaum's trio has opened for both Brad Mehldau and Herbie Hancock. His quintet was in residence in July 2006 at the Festival Dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy. In March, 2007 Mr. Birnbaum toured internationally as a part of the Rhythm Road program sponsored by Jazz at Lincoln Center and the US State Department.

Mr. Birnbaum has developed an innovative approach to solo piano that has allowed him to pioneer jazz performance in classical series and concert halls. He was the first jazz pianist to present a recital at the prestigious Gilmore Rising Stars Recital Series in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in December 2004. In October 2005, he presented the first solo jazz piano recital at another series, the Phillips Collection Sunday Concerts, in Washington, D.C. In May 2006, Mr. Birnbaum toured the Czech Republic playing solo concerts. In November 2006, Mr. Birnbaum presented the first solo jazz piano recital at the Dumbarton Concert Series in Washington, DC, and in April 2007 he made his New York solo debut as part of the Fazioli Salon series at the Klavierhaus.

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6
Album Review

Robert Edwards: Up Swing

Read "Up Swing" reviewed by Edward Blanco


Veteran trombonist, educator and bandleader Robert Edwards is a fixture of New York City jazz scene, performing in many of the jazz venues in the city and, as of this writing, becoming the newest member of the famed Vanguard Jazz Orchestra. Edwards fronts a marvelous quintet that has been performing regularly at Smalls Jazz Club for many years now. Up Swing celebrates the post-bop sounds the group is known for and covers many of the ensemble's “greatest hits from over ...

Album Review

Darcy James Argue's Secret Society: Dynamic Maximum Tension

Read "Dynamic Maximum Tension" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Precursore nel 2009 (con l'innovativo Infernal Machines) del nuovo rinascimento orchestrale nel jazz, Darcy James Argue approda all'etichetta Nonesuch e pubblica il nuovo album in studio: un doppio CD realizzato con i consueti partner della Secret Society più l'aggiunta della cantante Cecile McLorin Salvant e della violinista Sara Caswell. A differenza degli ultimi due dischi, Dynamic Maximum Tension non è un'opera multimediale ma conserva la spinta visionaria animata dalla costante riflessione socio-politica. Spinta che si traduce in ...

6
Album Review

Darcy James Argue's Secret Society: Dynamic Maximum Tension

Read "Dynamic Maximum Tension" reviewed by Katchie Cartwright


Darcy James Argue's superb double-album Nonesuch debut offers compositions written throughout his career. He turns to twentieth-century thinkers for “ideas that can help us in the present, that we can reexamine and reconfigure for our own purposes." These include futurist designer Buckminster Fuller, cryptanalyst-computer scientist Alan Turing, composer-arranger Bob Brookmeyer, actress-screenwriter Mae West, trumpeter-mentor Laurie Frink, and musician-beyond-category Duke Ellington, among others. Like West, Argue seems to control his own path. He may not yet be the tycoon she was, ...

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Album Review

Andy Farber and His Orchestra: Early Blue Evening

Read "Early Blue Evening" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Saxophonist Andy Farber's New York-based orchestra came together and cut its teeth as the onstage band for three hundred performances of After Midnight, a Broadway revue that paid tribute to Jazz Age nightclub luminaries from Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford and Count Basie to Harold Arlen, Dorothy Fields and Jimmy McHugh. As one might presume from the orchestra's provenance, echoes of Ellington and Basie can readily be discerned on its first recording since After Midnight closed in 2014--but Farber, who wrote ...

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Album Review

Jihye Lee: Daring Mind

Read "Daring Mind" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Korean-born composer Jihye Lee is a musician who knows her own mind, whether it be relentless, unshakable, revived, dissatisfied or Daring, as on her second recording for Motema Records. In 2018, Lee earned the prestigious BMI Charlie Parker Composition Prize for “Unshakable Mind," one of nine diverse themes presented here. Another, “I Dare You," is loosely based on Wayne Shorter's response when asked, “What is jazz?" It is a question Lee must also address, as her music is not only ...

Album Review

Jihye Lee: Daring Mind

Read "Daring Mind" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Solo un talento eccezionale come Jihye Lee poteva ottenere risultati così brillanti e personali nel campo dell'orchestrazione jazz partendo quasi da zero. Nata a Seoul ed emigrata negli Stati Uniti da adolescente, quando s'iscrisse al Berklee College conosceva pochissimo il linguaggio musicale afro-americano e per niente la sua dimensione orchestrale. Dopo un decennio, studi di perfezionamento alla Manhattan School of Music col grande Jim McNeely (a cui va riconosciuto parte del merito) e un primo eccellente debutto (April, 2017), la ...

5
Album Review

Jihye Lee Orchestra: Daring Mind

Read "Daring Mind" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


Listening to bandleader/composer Jihye Lee and her mic-drop orchestra is like watching your life flash before your eyes. You see it all: All the richness of spirit one can attain. All the sadness one can espouse. All the waltzing mischief to which one can aspire. Testing malleability at every turn, Lee's on to an eclectic something that doesn't pass through the torpor too often: A lucid, active imagination. Thus Daring Mind, Lee's Motema Music debut, co-produced by Darcy ...

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Recording

Uptown Jazz Tentet - What's Next - Release Date: October 1st Featuring Brandon Lee, Adam Birnbaum & More!

Uptown Jazz Tentet - What's Next - Release Date: October 1st Featuring Brandon Lee, Adam Birnbaum & More!

Source: Scott Thompson Public Relations

Uptown Jazz Tentet What's Next Release Date: October 1st Featuring Brandon Lee, Willie Applewhite and James Burton III Ten-Piece Powerhouse! The Uptown Jazz Tentet is a ten-piece ensemble collectively led by trumpeter, Brandon Lee and trombonists Willie Applewhite and James Burton. The other seven members are the most reputable sidemen on the jazz scene today. The band attributes it's distinct sound to not only the musical prowess of its members, but also to the priceless value ...

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Performance / Tour

Firehouse 12 to Present the Adam Birnbaum Trio June 8th

Firehouse 12 to Present the Adam Birnbaum Trio June 8th

Source: Improvised Communications

New Haven's Firehouse 12 will conclude its 2007 Spring Jazz Series on Friday, June 8th with a two-set performance by the Adam Birnbaum Trio. The group, led by award-winning pianist Adam Birnbaum, features bassist Ben Wolfe (Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, Harry Connick, Jr.) and drummer Rodney Green (Diana Krall, Greg Osby). Birnbaum's trio has opened for Brad Mehldau and Herbie Hancock, and released two CDs, Ballade Pour Adeline and A Comme Amour , on the Pony Canyon Records label.

A ...

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Dynamic Maximum...

Nonesuch Records
2023

buy

Up Swing

Self Produced
2023

buy

Holidays

Sunnyside Records
2023

buy

Daring Mind

Motéma Music
2021

buy

Early Blue Evening

ArtistShare
2021

buy

What's Next

Irabbagast Records
2020

buy

Revived Mind

From: Daring Mind
By Adam Birnbaum

What's Next

From: What's Next
By Adam Birnbaum

Binary

From: Three of a Mind
By Adam Birnbaum

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