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Bruce Katz

Bruce Katz occupies a unique space where blues, jazz, rock, soul, and the many aspects of Americana all collide into a style of original instrumental music all his own. He is as comfortable playing "soul-jazz" on the Hammond organ as he is playing 1930's style stride piano or the meanest slow blues.

Besides leading the Bruce Katz Band, Bruce is currently playing regularly with Gregg Allman, John Hammond, The Organiks and performing with other artists as well. Bruce was also honored as a 2008 Nominee for the Blues Music Award for "Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year", selected by the Blues Foundation.

Over the past twenty five years, Bruce has been an in-demand sideman as well as leading his own band. He has played and recorded with many of the leading names in blues and roots music, appearing on approximately 60 albums with artists such as Ronnie Earl, John Hammond, Duke Robillard, Jerry Portnoy, Little Milton, Jimmy Witherspoon, Eric Mingus, Big Mama Thornton, Mighty Sam McClain, Debbie Davies, David “Fathead” Newman and many others. Bruce has performed at festivals world-wide, including the North Sea Jazz Festival, Edinburgh Blues and Jazz Festival, Glastonbury Festival, Boston Globe Jazz Festival, Nice Jazz Festival, Notodden Blues Festival and many, many others. Bruce has a lengthy background in classical piano. After hearing a Bessie Smith record when he was 10 years old, he started teaching himself blues and early jazz on the piano. He then heard boogie-woogie and swing music and continued his musical journey into more aspects of jazz and American roots music. Bruce attended Berklee College of Music in the mid-1970s, studying Composition and performance. For the next fifteen years, he performed with many of the leading musicians in New England, and played “on the road” for long stretches of time. After a particularly long stint of touring in the late '80s with Barrence Whitfield and the Savages, he decided to come off the road and enrolled at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston where he earned a Master's degree in Jazz Performance and studied with Geri Allen, Paul Bley, Cecil McBee and George Russell. It was during this time that he conceived of and started writing music that became the Bruce Katz Band. Five months after graduation, he met Ronnie Earl, who soon invited him to join his band, The Broadcasters. During his nearly five-year stint with Earl, Katz toured the world and performed on six albums, writing and co-writing many of the tunes, such as "The Colour of Love," "Ice Cream Man," and "Hippology." The album “Grateful Heart” (Bullseye) won the Downbeat Critics Poll for Best Blues Album of 1996.

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Album Review

Bruce Katz: Solo Ride

Read "Solo Ride" reviewed by Doug Collette


On Solo Ride, Bruce Katz posits himself as a stylist par excellence, curator of a perennial genre that deserves preservation in the musical landscape of America. And while it's something of a surprise to see him release a solo album, given the self-effacing demeanor he's displayed in his otherwise broad and varied collaborative experience (with Gregg Allman, Les Brers and his own groups), it is a logical touchpoint in the wide arc of his career. Katz acquits himself ...

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Recording

Anzic Records to Release "Project A" from Saxophonist Joel Frahm + Hammond B3 Player/Pianist Bruce Katz

Anzic Records to Release "Project A" from Saxophonist Joel Frahm + Hammond B3 Player/Pianist Bruce Katz

Source: Jason Byrne, Red Cat Publicity

“Katz is a killer on the B3” --Bill Milkowski, JazzTimes “Joel Frahm, one of the young band leaders often heard in New York’s small jazz clubs, sounds supremely comfortable playing the tenor saxophone.” --Ben Ratliff, The New York Times Available August 25, 2009 on Anzic Records Joel Frahm + Bruce Katz – Project A – Live at The Jazz Standard in NYC – Sept 1, 2 + 3 In the lexicon of soul.. A is for Aretha. On August 25 ...

Concerts

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Solo Ride

American Showplace Music
2019

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Live at The Firefly

Unknown label
2008

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Three Feet Off The...

Emerald Green Sound
2000

buy

Transformation

Emerald Green Sound
1994

buy

Crescent Crawl

Emerald Green Sound
1993

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