Ray Santisi
Encyclopedia
Ray Santisi is an American jazz pianist and educator. He performed with people such as Charlie Parker
, Stan Getz
, Dexter Gordon
, Mel Torme
, Irene Kral
, Natalie Cole
and many others. The Raleigh, N.C. News and Observer reportedly called him " the most exciting piano player I've heard since those first sessions with Bill Evans
and Marian McPartland
and Oscar Peterson
."
In 1990 Santisi released Spellbinder and as a regular performer at the Ryles Jazz Club
, he released a live album in 2005.He has also performed at Carnegie Hall
. He has performed for many years with The Real Thing and in the 1960s performed with the Benny Golson Quartet. He has composed a waltz piece called Pendulums, inspired by the famous jitterbug Waltz of Fats Waller
.Santisi has recorded on the Blue Note Records
, Capitol Records
, Prestige Records
, Sonnet Records, Roulette Records
, and United Artists Records
labels.
Santisi has been a Professor of Jazz Piano at the Berklee College of Music
since 1957, after attending the college as a student from 1954.He has taught many notable jazz musicians such as Diana Krall
, Makoto Ozone
, Joe Zawinul
, Keith Jarrett
and Jane Ira Bloom
. He has also taught at Stan Kenton
's summer jazz clinics on college campuses. He is the primary author of Berklee Jazz Piano, published by Hal Leonard in 2009. Santisi was also a founder of the early Jazz Workshops in Boston and is the co-owner of the Stables Jazz Club.In 2008 he was inducted into the IAJE Jazz Education Hall of Fame.
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
, 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...
, Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...
, Mel Torme
Mel Tormé
Melvin Howard Tormé , nicknamed The Velvet Fog, was an American musician, known for his jazz singing. He was also a jazz composer and arranger, a drummer, an actor in radio, film, and television, and the author of five books...
, Irene Kral
Irene Kral
Irene Kral , was a jazz singer who was born in Chicago, Illinois and died due to breast cancer in Encino, California.- Biography :...
, Natalie Cole
Natalie Cole
Natalie Maria Cole , is an American singer, songwriter and performer. The daughter of jazz legend Nat King Cole, Cole rode to musical success in the mid-1970s as an R&B artist with the hits "This Will Be ", "Inseparable" and "Our Love"...
and many others. The Raleigh, N.C. News and Observer reportedly called him " the most exciting piano player I've heard since those first sessions with Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
and Marian McPartland
Marian McPartland
Margaret Marian McPartland, OBE is an English-born jazz pianist, composer, writer, and the host of Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz on National Public Radio, NPR.-Early life:...
and Oscar Peterson
Oscar Peterson
Oscar Emmanuel Peterson was a Canadian jazz pianist and composer. He was called the "Maharaja of the keyboard" by Duke Ellington, "O.P." by his friends. He released over 200 recordings, won seven Grammy Awards, and received other numerous awards and honours over the course of his career...
."
In 1990 Santisi released Spellbinder and as a regular performer at the Ryles Jazz Club
Ryles Jazz Club
Ryles Jazz Club is a jazz club located at 212 Hampshire Street, Cambridge, Boston. Located in a former Italian restaurant, now painted black, it is the oldest jazz club in Cambridge and the second oldest in the Greater Boston area....
, he released a live album in 2005.He has also performed at Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....
. He has performed for many years with The Real Thing and in the 1960s performed with the Benny Golson Quartet. He has composed a waltz piece called Pendulums, inspired by the famous jitterbug Waltz of Fats Waller
Fats Waller
Fats Waller , born Thomas Wright Waller, was a jazz pianist, organist, composer, singer, and comedic entertainer...
.Santisi has recorded on the Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records
Blue Note Records is a jazz record label, established in 1939 by Alfred Lion and Max Margulis. Francis Wolff became involved shortly afterwards. It derives its name from the characteristic "blue notes" of jazz and the blues. At the end of the 1950s, and in the early 1960s, Blue Note headquarters...
, Capitol Records
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
, Prestige Records
Prestige Records
Prestige Records was a jazz record label founded in 1949 by Bob Weinstock. The company was located at 203 South Washington Avenue in Bergenfield, New Jersey, and recorded hundreds of albums by many of the leading jazz musicians of the day, sometimes issuing them under the names of several...
, Sonnet Records, Roulette Records
Roulette Records
Roulette Records is an American record label, which was founded in late 1956, by George Goldner, Joe Kolsky, Morris Levy and Phil Khals, with creative control given to producers and songwriters Hugo Peretti and Luigi Creatore. Levy was appointed as director...
, and United Artists Records
United Artists Records
United Artists Records was a record label founded by Max E. Youngstein of United Artists in 1957 initially to distribute records of its movie soundtracks, though it soon branched out into recording music of a number of different genres.-History:...
labels.
Santisi has been a Professor of Jazz Piano at the Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known primarily as a school for jazz, rock and popular music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including hip...
since 1957, after attending the college as a student from 1954.He has taught many notable jazz musicians such as Diana Krall
Diana Krall
Diana Jean Krall, OC, OBC is a Canadian jazz pianist and singer, known for her contralto vocals. She has sold more than 6 million albums in the US and over 15 million worldwide; altogether, she has sold more albums than any other female jazz artist during the 1990s and 2000s...
, Makoto Ozone
Makoto Ozone
is a Japanese jazz pianist.He began playing organ at two and by seven was an improviser. He appeared on Japanese television with his father from 1968 to 1970. At twelve he switched to piano after being impressed by albums by Oscar Peterson. In 1980 he entered the Berklee College of Music and later...
, Joe Zawinul
Joe Zawinul
Josef Erich Zawinul was an Austrian-American jazz keyboardist and composer.First coming to prominence with saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, Zawinul went on to play with trumpeter Miles Davis, and to become one of the creators of jazz fusion, an innovative musical genre that combined jazz with...
, 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...
and Jane Ira Bloom
Jane Ira Bloom
Jane Ira Bloom is an American jazz soprano saxophonist and composer.-Biography:Bloom was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She began as a pianist and drummer, later switching to the alto saxophone, and eventually settling on the soprano saxophone as her primary instrument...
. He has also taught at Stan Kenton
Stan Kenton
Stanley Newcomb "Stan" Kenton was a pianist, composer, and arranger who led a highly innovative, influential, and often controversial American jazz orchestra. In later years he was widely active as an educator....
's summer jazz clinics on college campuses. He is the primary author of Berklee Jazz Piano, published by Hal Leonard in 2009. Santisi was also a founder of the early Jazz Workshops in Boston and is the co-owner of the Stables Jazz Club.In 2008 he was inducted into the IAJE Jazz Education Hall of Fame.