Peter Madsen (pianist)
Encyclopedia
Early life
Madsen was born in RacineRacine, Wisconsin
Racine is a city in and the county seat of Racine County, Wisconsin, United States. According to 2008 U.S. Census Bureau estimates, the city had a population of 82,196...
, Wisconsin
Wisconsin
Wisconsin is a U.S. state located in the north-central United States and is part of the Midwest. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michigan to the northeast, and Lake Superior to the north. Wisconsin's capital is...
where he started playing classical piano when he was eight years old. He also classically studied upright bass at age ten. When Madsen was sixteen he started to play the piano in the jazz idiom. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
The University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire is a public liberal arts university located in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, United States. It is part of the University of Wisconsin System and has an annual enrollment of more than 10,000 students...
where he majored in Music Education
Music education
Music education is a field of study associated with the teaching and learning of music. It touches on all domains of learning, including the psychomotor domain , the cognitive domain , and, in particular and significant ways,the affective domain, including music appreciation and sensitivity...
, and he graduated Summa Cum Laude. Madsen's first big break in the jazz world occurred when Stan Getz
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
invited him to tour Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. After his tour with Getz, Madsen began regularly performing with jazz greats. He also embarked on a career as a headliner with his group, the "Peter Madsen Trio."
Career
Madsen's career has been prolific. He has produced or performed in over a hundred CD's featuring a wide range of well-known jazz talents. Beyond performances, Madsen has also worked as a composer. He has composed over 350 pieces, and has recorded over a hundred original compositions. Madsen, over the course of his career, has engaged in many notable collaborations with leading artists. To name just a few, he has performed with the following: Stan GetzStan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...
, Stanley Turrentine
Stanley Turrentine
Stanley William Turrentine, also known as "Mr. T" or "The Sugar Man", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.-Biography:Turrentine was born in Pittsburgh's Hill District into a musical family...
, Benny Golson
Benny Golson
Benny Golson is an American bebop/hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger.-Biography:While in high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Golson played with several other promising young musicians, including John Coltrane, Red Garland, Jimmy Heath, Percy Heath, Philly Joe Jones, and...
, George Coleman
George Coleman
George Edward Coleman is an American hard bop saxophonist, bandleader, and composer, known chiefly for his work with Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock in the 1960s.-Biography:...
, Oscar Brown Jr., Arthur Blythe
Arthur Blythe
Arthur Blythe is an American jazz alto saxophonist and composer. His stylistic voice has a distinct vibrato and he plays within the post-bop subgenre of jazz.- Biography :...
, Don Cherry
Don Cherry
Don Cherry may refer to:* Don Cherry hockey player, coach, and commentator* Don Cherry , trumpeter* Don Cherry...
, James Spaulding, Kenny Garrett
Kenny Garrett
Kenny Garrett is a Grammy Award-winning American post bop jazz saxophonist and flautist who gained fame in his youth as a member of the Duke Ellington Orchestra and of Miles Davis's band. He has since pursued a critically acclaimed solo career...
, Joe Lovano
Joe Lovano
Joseph Salvatore "Joe" Lovano is a post bop jazz saxophonist, alto clarinetist, flautist, and drummer. Since the late 1980s, Lovano has been one of the world's premiere tenor saxophone players, earning a Grammy award and several nods on Down Beat magazine's critics' and readers' polls...
, Sonny Fortune
Sonny Fortune
Sonny Fortune is an American jazz alto saxophonist and flautist. He also plays soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, baritone saxophone and clarinet.-Biography:...
, Ravi Coltrane
Ravi Coltrane
Ravi Coltrane is an American post-bop jazz saxophonist. Co-owner of the record label RKM Music, he has produced artists such as pianist Luis Perdomo , guitarist David Gilmore and trumpeter Ralph Alessi....
and Randy Brecker
Randy Brecker
Randal "Randy" Brecker is an American trumpeter and flugelhornist. He is a highly sought after performer in the genres of jazz, rock, and R&B, and has performed or recorded with Stanley Turrentine, Billy Cobham, Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, Sandip Burman, Charles Mingus, Blood, Sweat & Tears,...
. He also works as an educator, teaching in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
, and the United States.
Reviews
- Peter Madsen is an inventive composer, skilled pianist and a positive pleasure. Jazz Times
- Madsen creates dazzling waves of energy that engulf the listener. The Philadelphia InquirerThe Philadelphia InquirerThe Philadelphia Inquirer is a morning daily newspaper that serves the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, metropolitan area of the United States. The newspaper was founded by John R. Walker and John Norvell in June 1829 as The Pennsylvania Inquirer and is the third-oldest surviving daily newspaper in the...
- Mr. Madsen makes these pieces and others cohere as a solid program, a tradition of outside-jazz thinking unified by unusual structure, meters and harmonic motion. It's the most conscientious job I've ever seen of a jazz musician building an alternative canon in just one record. New York Times
- Madsen makes an interesting first of what is becoming an impossible task: finding fresh lines in the most overworked book in modern jazz...the performer's pianism is often elegant and he is given a beautiful piano sound. The Penguin Guide to JazzThe Penguin Guide to JazzThe Penguin Guide to Jazz is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which are currently available in Europe or the United States...
(8th Edition)
Selected Discography
- The Litchfield Suite by the Peter Madsen Trio
- Ancestors with Mario PavoneMario PavoneMario Pavone is an American jazz bassist.He grew up in Waterbury, Connecticut and began performing in 1965. He was a member of Paul Bley's trio during 1968-72, and Bill Dixon's trio during the 1980s. He also performed with such musicians as Barry Altschul, Wadada Leo Smith, and Gerry Hemingway...
and the Double Tenor Quintet
- Deez to Blues with the Mario Pavone Sextet
- Moods Swings with the Carla WhiteCarla WhiteCarla Ruth White was an American jazz vocalist.White was born in Oakland, California but raised in New York, where she studied jazz dance. While in high school she took up acting and singing, then studied at the Webber-Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London from 1969 to 1971...
Group
- Snuggling Snakes" with Lewis NashLewis NashLewis Nash is an American jazz drummer. According to Modern Drummer magazine, Nash has one of the longest discographies in jazz. and has played on over 400 records by musicians, earning him the honor of being named Jazz's Most Valuable Player by the magazine in it's May, 2009 issue...
and Chris PotterChris Potter (jazz saxophonist)Chris Potter is an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and multi-instrumentalist.-Biography:Born in Chicago, Illinois, Potter spent most of his childhood in Columbia, South Carolina where his mother taught psychology at the University of South Carolina...
- Three of a Kind meets Mr. T" with Stanley TurrentineStanley TurrentineStanley William Turrentine, also known as "Mr. T" or "The Sugar Man", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.-Biography:Turrentine was born in Pittsburgh's Hill District into a musical family...
- Drip Some Grease with Benny GolsonBenny GolsonBenny Golson is an American bebop/hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and arranger.-Biography:While in high school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Golson played with several other promising young musicians, including John Coltrane, Red Garland, Jimmy Heath, Percy Heath, Philly Joe Jones, and...
- Stick To It with Ravi ColtraneRavi ColtraneRavi Coltrane is an American post-bop jazz saxophonist. Co-owner of the record label RKM Music, he has produced artists such as pianist Luis Perdomo , guitarist David Gilmore and trumpeter Ralph Alessi....