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Ezra Weiss

Composer/pianist Ezra Weiss was born on January 16, 1979, the only child of Barry and Lillie Weiss. He grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, where he was active in community theater, both as an actor and a musical director. He was also involved in band programs, and studied piano with Larry Loeber. After graduating from Saguaro High School in Scottsdale, Ezra moved to Ohio to study at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

At Oberlin, Ezra studied composition with Wendell Logan and piano with Neal Creque. During his senior year, Ezra formed the jazz sextet Blues Connotation. In 2001, he received a Bachelor of Music in Jazz Composition and moved to Portland, Oregon.

In Portland, Ezra continued to lead Blues Connotation, which later became the Ezra Weiss Sextet. Ezra also began teaching at the Beaverton Arts and Communication Magnet Academy, Self Enhancement Inc., the WOU Mel Brown Jazz Camp, and the Northwest Children's Theater, where he musical directed numerous productions as well. During this time, Ezra studied piano with Gordon Lee.

In 2002, Ezra flew to New York City for a week to record his debut CD, The Five A.M. Strut. Released a year later on the Umoja label, the CD features Michael Philip Mossman, Antonio Hart, Kelly Roberge, Leon Lee Dorsey, and Billy Hart. The Five A.M. Strut received great attention from the press and spent time on both the JazzWeek and CMJ radio charts.

In 2005, Ezra released his second sextet CD, Persephone, on the Umoja label. Again, the album received excellent reviews and radio airplay.

Ezra has composed and/or arranged music for Leon Lee Dorsey, Billy Hart, Thara Memory, Stan Bock, and Renato Caranto, among others. He has also performed with many great musicians including Greg Bandy, Elif Caglar, Samantha Grabler, Thara Memory, Rob Scheps, Renato Caranto, The Original Cats, Dennis Springer, Ben Fowler, Roger Woods, Farnell Newton, Ki Allen and Dennis Rowland. Additionally, Ezra won the 2002 and 2005/2006 ASCAP Young Jazz Composer Award. Currently, he also co-leads the Courtney Bryan/Ezra Weiss Jazz Orchestra in New York.

The Ezra Weiss Sextet has performed in many great clubs, including Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola and Tonic in New York City, Ryles in Boston, The Triple Door in Seattle, Jimmy Mak's in Portland, and Catalina's in Los Angeles.

In 2004, Ezra moved to New York City to pursue a Masters in Jazz Piano at the Aaron Copland School of Music. There, he studied piano with Bruce Barth and Ted Rosenthal.

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Album Review

Ezra Weiss Big Band: We Limit Not The Truth of God

Read "We Limit Not The Truth of God" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Compositore e insegnante alla Portland State University, Ezra Weiss è professionalmente molto attivo in ambito locale. Per il suo debutto discografico ha riunito un'orchestra di 17 elementi per presentare il suo progetto in forma di suite e una coda col celebre “Footprints" di Wayne Shorter. Dei dieci brani originali quattro presentano lunghe narrazioni, esposte in forma di lettera aperta per i due figli piccoli e caratterizzate da forte passione religiosa, civile e politica. Weiss entra con forza nella ...

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Album Review

Ezra Weiss Big Band: We Limit Not The Truth of God

Read "We Limit Not The Truth of God" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


In 2015 Ezra Weiss began to compose a suite that he intended would be a cautiously optimistic message to his young children about the world they were living in and the challenges and promise they would face as they grew up. By the time this music was completed and recorded in December 2018, its mood and message had changed dramatically. This suite is now an impassioned cry by Weiss on how he and his children might cope with the dark, ...

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Album Review

Ezra Weiss Big Band: We Limit Not The Truth of God

Read "We Limit Not The Truth of God" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Composer / arranger Ezra Weiss's debut big-band recording, We Limit Not the Truth of God, is actually a suite written for his two young children to help them understand and embrace the often confusing and chaotic world in which we live. It is thus entirely appropriate that the album was recorded (with an audience) in a church, Portland (OR)'s historic Alberta Abbey. What is not quite clear is the referent “we" in the album's presumptuous title. Is that “we" as ...

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Album Review

Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble: From Maxville to Vanport

Read "From Maxville to Vanport" reviewed by Jack Bowers


From Maxville to Vanport is music with a purpose, saluting the courage and resilience of black Americans who helped build those cities in the '20s and '40s in the face of unrelenting prejudice and hostility and in so doing helped make the state of Oregon what it is today. The music is by Ezra Weiss, the lyrics by poet S. Renee Mitchell, the performance by the Portland Jazz Composers Ensemble featuring vocalist Marilyn Keller. As a part of the score ...

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Album Review

Ezra Weiss Sextet: Before You Know It [Live In Portland]

Read "Before You Know It [Live In Portland]" reviewed by Dave Wayne


On Before You Know It, pianist / composer Ezra Weiss provides convincing evidence for the continued health and well-being of good old, straight ahead, gimmick-free modern acoustic jazz. The archetype for Weiss' beefy band and punchy charts would include Art Blakey's expanded Jazz Messenger lineups, some of McCoy Tyner's larger groups from the early-to-late 1970s, or perhaps some of Slide Hampton's septets and octets. Yet, Weiss' sound is utterly contemporary, exploring a wide variety of modern jazz styles in a ...

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Album Review

Ezra Weiss Sextet: Before You Know It [Live In Portland]

Read "Before You Know It [Live In Portland]" reviewed by Edward Blanco


Portland State University professor Ezra Weiss is a prominent pianist and composer in his own right who has several recordings to his credit and is a three-time winner of the prestigious ASCAP Young Composer Award. A traditionalist who prefers the straight ahead and modern jazz styles, Weiss delivers another gem on Before You Know It [Live In Portland], his seventh album as leader with one important distinction: the session was recorded at the Ivories Jazz Lounge in Portland, Oregon, for ...

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Album Review

Ezra Weiss Sextet: Before You Know It [Live In Portland]

Read "Before You Know It [Live In Portland]" reviewed by Bruce Lindsay


Recorded over two nights in Portland's Ivories Jazz Lounge during late-2013, Before You Know It [Live In Portland] is pianist and composer Ezra Weiss' seventh album and his first live recording. Weiss' previous releases have featured big bands (Our Path To This Moment [Roark Records, 2012]) and trios (The Shirley Horn Suite [Roark Records, 2011]). However, it's the sextet format that has featured most strongly on Weiss' recordings and it's this line-up that returns for Before You Know ...

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Music Industry

Ezra Weiss - Young and Talented

Ezra Weiss - Young and Talented

Source: All About Jazz


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Performance / Tour

Jazz Pianist / Composer Ezra Weiss Celebrates New Album with Tour

Jazz Pianist / Composer Ezra Weiss Celebrates New Album with Tour

Source: Braithwaite & Katz Communications

"Weiss proves himself as a confident composer and arranger in the progressive jazz mainstream." - Nate Chinen, New York Times

“Don't be fooled. He's only playing a few notes, but boy are they the right ones." - Neil Tesser, Listen Here!

Join jazz pianist/composer Ezra Weiss as he celebrates the release of his new CD Get Happy on tour October 12 - 30.

Weiss' piano playing evinces a distinctive expressiveness that is doubly impressive coming from ...

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

We Limit Not The...

OA2 Records
2019

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From Maxville to...

PJCE Records
2018

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Before You Know It...

Roark Records
2015

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Before You Know It...

Roark Records
2014

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Our Path to This...

Stretch Records/Universal Classics and Jazz Japan
2013

buy

Our Path To This...

Roark Records
2012

buy

Obergefell

From: We Limit Not The Truth of God
By Ezra Weiss

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