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Caili O'Doherty

New York-based pianist, composer, arranger and educator, Caili O’Doherty (pronounced “KAY-lee” “oh-DOE-er-tee”), is known for integrating structures of language in both her compositions and her approach to improvisation. Her recent music focuses on the celebration, preservation, and expansion upon the achievements of jazz's unsung women heroes. O’Doherty has received national awards for piano performance and composition from the ASCAP Foundation and Downbeat Magazine.

Praised by All About Jazz for its “exquisitely forged, dramatic and darkly hued pieces”, O’Doherty’s debut release Padme (2015) uses lyrics to give the melodies a natural rhythm of language.  Padme was selected as a Downbeat Magazine Editor’s pick and received a 4-star review in All About Jazz. The latest release from O’Doherty is Quarantine Dream (Posi-Tone Records 2022). The album release was followed by a U.S. CD release tour with support from a Jazz Road grant from South Arts.

The Caili O’Doherty Quintet was selected by the U.S. Department of State as one of ten ensembles to participate in the 2022-23 American Music Abroad U.S. State Department tour to the Republic of Georgia and Canada. Also in 2022, O’Doherty was one of ten artists to receive a Chamber Music America New Jazz Works Grant, which funds the creation of a new original work. In 2021, O’Doherty received a Chamber Music America Presenters Consortium for Jazz Grant to present her project, “Caili O’Doherty: Celebrating Lil Hardin Armstrong”, featuring her arrangements of compositions by pianist, composer, and vocalist Lil Hardin Armstrong.

She has performed at the Kimmel Center, SF Jazz, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Panama Jazz Festival, Guinness Cork Jazz Festival, concert halls throughout China and UNESCO First International Jazz Day in Paris, as well as two US State Dept. supported tours to Colombia and Togo and Benin in West Africa.

O’Doherty is currently on the faculty at Purchase College School of the Arts Conservatory of Music. Additionally, she is on the faculty at Jazz House Kids and Savannah Music Festival Jazz Academy. She leads educational performances in New York City schools about jazz, democracy and civil rights as a bandleader for Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Jazz for Young People program. O’Doherty has been a faculty member at the Stanford Jazz Workshop since 2012, as well as faculty at the University of Wisconsin Madison Summer Music Clinic and Litchfield Jazz Camp. She is a graduate of Berklee College of Music (BM '13) and Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College (MM '19)

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Liner Notes

New Faces: New Sounds

Read "New Faces: New Sounds" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


While established forces typically radiate clout and currency, it's the new faces, beaming with hope and the promise for what's to come, that tend to shine brightest. Posi-Tone Records, not surprisingly, supports that line of thinking. Promoting emerging artists has long been a mission for the label, which prides itself on seeking out and nurturing burgeoning talent, and this aptly named project, launched with one group of individuals on 2018's Straight Forward and carried to tremendous heights with different personnel ...

4
Album Review

Caili O'Doherty: Quarantine Dream

Read "Quarantine Dream" reviewed by Kyle Simpler


The pandemic affected people in many different ways. For some, it raised new levels of awareness about health and prevention, but for others it also became a means of artistic discovery. This latter point is certainly the case for pianist Caili O'Doherty. In spite of being careful and taking precautions, she ultimately contracted COVID. While dealing with the illness, she found herself in a dreamlike state as she tried to get over it. During her ordeal, she used music as ...

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Album Review

Simona Smirnova: Bird Language

Read "Bird Language" reviewed by Giulia Bianchi


Simona Smirnova is a Lithuanian-born and New York-based vocalist, composer, and classically trained kanklės (a Lithuanian chordophone folk instrument belonging to the Baltic zither family) virtuoso. After obtaining her BA in jazz vocal performance from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater, she moved to the USA to study contemporary writing and production at Berklee College of Music. There is an aura of mystique to Smirnova's Bird Language, a stunning blend of Baltic folklore, jazz, pop, and rock, ...

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Album Review

New Faces: New Sounds

Read "New Sounds" reviewed by David A. Orthmann


What to listen for in a recording curated by a veteran producer that features a group of young, up-and-coming musicians with skillsets rooted in the bop, hard bop and modal continuum? When the styles are familiar, it's best to start with the material. If the tunes routinely sound like they're made of parts lifted from the classic and near classic jazz repertoire, it sets a negative tone for the rest of the record, sometimes even offsetting the strength of the ...

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Album Review

New Faces: New Sounds

Read "New Sounds" reviewed by Kyle Simpler


It's refreshing to see younger artists gaining recognition in jazz circles. The energy and performances of such players often adds a sense of vitality to the music, and Posi-Tone Records has been at the forefront of bringing many of these emerging artists to the mainstream. In 2017, for example, Marc Free, the owner and producer of Posi-Tone, assembled a group of young musicians to showcase on the album New Faces: Straight Forward. This turned out to be a successful venture, ...

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Album Review

Caili O'Doherty: Padme

Read "Padme" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


On her intriguing debut Padme pianist Caili O'Doherty showcases her superb skills as a composer, an improviser and a bandleader. The individual musicians' spontaneous expressions are integrated within the harmonic construct of her nine originals that comprise the album. As such the solos sound as natural extensions of the prewritten music making O'Doherty's freshman effort dynamically modern and vibrantly organic.O'Doherty elegantly choreographs her band mates on the cinematic “The Promise of Old Panama City." An exciting melee of ...

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Recording

"Padme," Debut CD By Pianist/Composer Caili O'Doherty, To Be Released July 7 In Conjunction With West Coast Tour

"Padme," Debut CD By Pianist/Composer Caili O'Doherty, To Be Released July 7 In Conjunction With West Coast Tour

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

Pianist/composer Caili O’Doherty steps into the top tier of promising young jazz artists with the release on July 7 of her sparkling debut album, Padme, on her ODO Records imprint. O’Doherty’s prowess on acoustic and electric keys, her proclivity for writing airy, flowing melodies, and her clear vision as a leader are much in evidence on the new CD. The album title means “lotus flower,” which “begins growing at the bottom of a muddy pool, emerges and blooms on the ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Bird Language

Simona Smirnova Music
2022

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Quarantine Dream

Posi-Tone Records
2022

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New Sounds

Posi-Tone Records
2021

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Padme

ODO Records
2015

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Padme

From: Padme
By Caili O'Doherty

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