Joe Gilman

Dr. Joe Gilman is the music director of the Brubeck Institute's Fellowship Program, a full-time professor of music at American River College in Sacramento, and music director of Capital Jazz Project. He has received bachelor's degrees in classical piano and jazz studies at Indiana University, a master's degree in jazz and the contemporary media from the Eastman School of Music, and a doctoral degree in education from the University of Sarasota.

Joe has been the primary pianist with jazz vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson since September 2006, and has also performed professionally with Eddie Harris, Woody Shaw, Marlena Shaw, Richie Cole, Joe Locke, George Duke, Chris Botti, Eric Alexander, David “Fathead” Newman, and Slide Hampton, and has recorded with Joe Henderson, Jeff Watts, and Robert Hurst.

Dr. Gilman has twice been an International Jazz Ambassador through the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and USIA, traveling to West Africa in 1999 and East and Southern Africa in 2000. He won the 1998 Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission Emerging Artist Award and the 2000 Sacramento News and Review SAMMIES Critical Achievement award for contribution to the arts community. Joe was the 2001 American River College Student Association Instructor of the Year and was named the first Brubeck Scholar at the 2005 Brubeck Festival. In 2004, Joe won the Great American Jazz Piano Competition in Jacksonville, Florida. Dr. Gilman's work with students at the Brubeck Institute has produced several CDs - Brubeck Revisited Vols. 1 and 2 (Sunnyside) and Wonder Revisited Vols. 1 and 2 (Capri), all recorded with Brubeck Institute fellows Joe Sanders and Justin Brown, and the double CD of the 2006-2007 Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet. His work with the 2006-2007 Fellowship students also resulted in four 2007 DownBeat magazine student awards.

”Joe Gilman is certainly one of the greatest pianists I've ever heard. I am truly amazed with the trio's imaginative interpretations of my music. I laughed and hollered out loud at every track, hearing their rhythmic, harmonic, and swinging versions of my tunes.”

~Dave Brubeck

“He's unbelievably talented! As soon as I write something down, he completely understands. He understands the chords that are contained within the scale … of the possibilities depending on the way the melody is. On how to approach it and at the same time give me space. And how to drop a color out there and fill it in the canvas and let it drip down the canvas and then say you want to play some.”

~Bobby Hutcherson

“Joe is a superb pianist, a musician with deep roots and encyclopedic knowledge of jazz

~Dave Brubeck

~Bobby Hutcherson

“Joe is a superb pianist, a musician with deep roots and encyclopedic knowledge of jazz. He pushes the piano to its limits while swinging you into good health!”

~ Geoffrey Keezer ”Joe Gilman is the man! Playing with Joe and watching him work over the past ten years (plus) has been a consistent joy. He brings both a focused sense of passion and a playful spirit to both the music and his words of direction that he carefully places before the students fortunate enough to study with him”.

~ Ingrid Jensen

“Joe Gilman is a great jazz pianist, and one of the best teachers I have ever encountered.”

~ Mark Levine, author of “The Jazz Piano Book” and “The Jazz Theory Book”

“Joe Gilman is the consummate musician - an excellent soloist and fine accompanist. He always swings but is consistently sensitive to the music and musicians with whom he is playing.”

~ Marvin Stamm

“Joe Gilman has done more to place Sacramento on the map than any contemporary artist. His awareness of tradition and hip, forward-looking composing distinguish him as an original voice. Joe's reworking of classic Dave Brubeck and Stevie Wonder compositions reveal new nuances and surprises with each new listening.

“Gilman's thematic concepts of programming with the Capital Jazz Project have helped define the cultural landscape of our community and his many recordings serve notice that he's a world class pianist.”

~ Gary Vercelli, Jazz Music Director Capital Public Radio, Sacramento

“Joe Gilman is a young and experienced jazz pianist whose brilliance is unquestioned, and whose taste level is refined within the modern mainstream progressive aesthetic.”

~ Michael G. Nastos, ALLMUSIC.COM

“Joe Gilman has great technique, soul, and sensitivity.”

~ Dr. Judith Schlesinger, ALLABOUTJAZZ.COM

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