Julius Chaloff was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 pianist

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

. Born of Russian

Russians

The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....

 parentage in Boston, Massachusetts, Chaloff was the father of jazz baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff

Serge Chaloff

Serge Chaloff was an American jazz baritone saxophonist.The son of noted Boston piano teachers, Margaret and Julius Chaloff, he was among the few major jazz performers on his instrument. Until Chaloff the only prominent baritone player in jazz was Harry Carney of the Duke Ellington Orchestra...

. Serge gained his earliest prominence as a member of Woody Herman

Woody Herman

Woodrow Charles Herman , known as Woody Herman, was an American jazz clarinetist, alto and soprano saxophonist, singer, and big band leader. Leading various groups called "The Herd," Herman was one of the most popular of the 1930s and '40s bandleaders...

's second herd also known as the Four Brothers

Four Brothers

"Four Brothers" is a jazz standard composed by Jimmy Giuffre and performed by the Woody Herman Orchestra.The song features four saxes in an arrangement that gives each "brother" a solo and culminates in a hard-swinging sax section chorus.The song so typifies the sound of Woody Herman's second...

. Chaloff was also father of Richard Stedman Chaloff Sr. who founded Stedman Ltd. of Brookline, one of the first custom audio / video installation businesses in the country. Chaloff was married to piano instructor Madame Margaret Chaloff, née Stedman, whose students included Keith Jarrett

Keith Jarrett

Keith Jarrett is an American pianist and composer who performs both jazz and classical music.Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey, moving on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music; as...

, Kenny Werner

Kenny Werner

Kenny Werner is an American jazz pianist.-Biography:Kenny Werner is a world-class pianist and composer. His prolific output of compositions, recordings and publications continue to impact audiences around the world....

, Chick Corea

Chick Corea

Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever...

, Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock

Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...

, and Steve Kuhn

Steve Kuhn

Steve Kuhn is an American jazz pianist, composer and trio leader.-Biography:He began studying piano at the age of five and studied under Boston piano teacher Margaret Chaloff, mother of jazz baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff, who taught him the "Russian style" of piano playing. At an early age he...

.

As a child, Chaloff showed exceptional musical talent, and at the age of eleven entered the New England Conservatory of Music, studying piano with Alfred Devoto. He studied at this institution for six years and was the youngest student to receive a diploma, graduating with high honors at the age of 17. During the senior year he won the first Mason and Hamlin

Mason and Hamlin

Mason & Hamlin is a piano manufacturer based in Haverhill, Massachusetts.-The nineteenth century:Mason & Hamlin was founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 1854 by Henry Mason, son of Lowell Mason, the American hymn composer and musical educator, and Emmons Hamlin, a mechanic and inventor who had...

 prize piano contest, the judges being George W. Chadwick, Charles Martin Loeffler

Charles Martin Loeffler

Charles Martin Loeffler was a German-born American violinist and composer.- Birthplace :Throughout his career Loeffler claimed to have been born in Mulhouse, Alsace and almost all music encyclopedias give this fabricated information. In his lifetime articles were published dissecting his...

, and Dr. Max Fiedler

Max Fiedler

Max Fiedler was a German conductor and composer, born August Max Fiedler in Zittau, Saxony, Germany...

.

Chaloff spent many years in Europe, four of which were spent in Berlin where he worked with the Polish pianist Ignaz Friedman

Ignaz Friedman

Ignaz Friedman Ignaz Friedman Ignaz Friedman (also spelled by languages Ignace or Ignacy; exactly Solomon (Salomon) Isaac Freudman(n), (February 13, 1882January 26, 1948) was a Polish pianist and composer. Critics (e.g. Harold C. Schonberg) and colleagues (e.g...

. He also composed and conducted with Hugo Kahn. His debut in Berlin with the Blüthner Orchestra

Blüthner Orchestra

The Blüthner Orchestra was a symphony orchestra based in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1908 and sponsored by the Blüthner piano company, it functioned until the 1920s.The orchestra specialised in engaging young players...

, January 18, 1913, was a marked success.

In 1913, Charles F. Stoddard, a mechanical genius, invented and perfected the reproducing piano of the American Piano Company (Ampico). This instrument preserved for posterity the artistry of the golden era of great piano virtuosi. Almost all of the eminent concert pianists of the US, including such personalities as Rachmaninoff and Lhevinne, recorded for the Ampico. Julius Chaloff was among these artists. A few of the compositions that have been preserved onto a very rare and limited number of LP's which were recorded by Julius Chaloff are:

• Prelude, Fugue and Variation by Caesar Franck
• Barcarolle in F sharp major, Op. 60 by Chopin
• Ballade in F minor, Op. 52, No. 4 by Chopin
• Nocturne in D flat major by Debussy
• Viennese Dance, No. 1, in G flat major by Friedman-Gartner
• Memories, Op. 14, No. 1 by Chaloff
• Elle Danse by Friedman
• Islamey (Oriental Fantasie) by Balakirev