|
 Peggy
Stern is as well-known as a composer as she is known for her fine
piano playing. She arrived at jazz via classical music, R&B, and
salsa. Her music has a particularly broad ethnic base -- in addition
to European and American classical music, Peggy's music draws from
Brazilian, African, Jewish, Irish, Cuban, and traditional jazz
influences. Eclectic indeed!
Peggy has composed, played, recorded, and toured in a wide variety of
situations: from solos to octets to jazz choruses. Her compositions
range from highly original pieces to reharmonized jazz standards.
"Everything she writes wants to dance, " says Ken Dais of Jazziz.
Peggy's background would account for her varied musical tastes. She
began playing Classical piano at an early age, continuing her studies
at the Eastman School of Music, and finishing a Masters Degree, still
in Classical music, at the New England Conservatory. And then she
began to improvise. While living in San Francisco, she played in
salsa bands, notably Azteca and Supercombo with Benny Vallarde. She
did a stint in an R&B band (called Cat's Cradle) with singer
Linda Tillery, and was "instructed" by Paul Jackson (bass)
and Mike Clark (drums) of Herbie Hancock's Headhunter band.
 Subsequently,
Peggy moved to New York, absorbing the piano stylings of the greats,
such as Jimmy Rowles and Tommy Flanagan. Peggy has worked and toured
with many wonderful musicians: Lee Konitz, Diane Schuur, David
“Fathead” Newman, Jay Clayton, Gary Peacock, Gene
Bertoncini, Bud Shank, Red Holloway, Thomas Chapin, Machito, Puck
Fair, Bobby Shew, Stanley Turentine, Gerry Mulligan, Eddie Henderson,
Emily Remler, to name a few.
Peggy has toured throughout Europe, the US, Canada, Australia, and Japan.
In addition, Peggy has worked as an educator for the past 20 years,
at colleges in the US. She has given workshops throughout Europe
(Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Italy), and the US.
A few years ago, Peggy became interested in jazz chorus. Having been
raised singing in choirs, she began writing for vocal groups, both
standards and originals. One of her compositions. "Lunasea"
is featured on Brazilian Rhapsody with Lee Konitz. Two more choir
originals appeared on her next CD: Actual Size : “Sunbath”
was originally recorded by Woody Shaw on Love Dance on Muse Records,
and “New Rain” was included (music and lyrics) in the Sher
Real Book series, All Jazz edition.
PEGGY'S NEW YORK MUSICAL HISTORY
At Stan Getz's memorial service several years ago, Peggy was
introduced to Lee Konitz, who had heard Peggy with Marian McPartland
on "Piano Jazz" the previous week. He liked her
compositions, and their subsequent collaboration led to their first
CD, Lunasea in 1992 on the Soul Note label. It featured Vic Juris on
guitar, Guilherme Franco on percussion, bassist Harvie S, and drummer
Jeff Williams.
 The
following year, Philology Records released The Jobim Collection, a
duo including four reharmonizations of Jobim's tunes. Peggy's next
album was a trio CD on Philology as well, entitled Pleiades featuring
Ben Allison on bass, and Jeff Williams on drums.
In 1995, Peggy collaborated with the late saxophonist Thomas Chapin,
yielding the CD, The Fuchsia on the Koch label. This CD features Drew
Gress on bass and Bobby Previte on drums.
In 1997, Room Enough with Harvie S and Jeff Williams on drums was released.
Peggy's next project, a CD entitled Actual Size featuring 3 horns,
rhythm section, and on two songs a 33-voice choir was released in
2000. The music is all original and features Ron Horton on trumpet,
John McKenna on saxophone and Art Baron on trombone. The rhythm
section includes Bernard Purdie playing drums on 3 cuts, Tony Moreno
playing drums on the others. Harvie S and Arthur Kell share the bass
chair, and Memo Acevedo is featured on percussion. This is an
ambitious, long-term project and it represents a departure for Peggy
in scope and concept with the use of horns with choir, horns in
fugue, and funky, danceable rhythms all serve to make it accessible
to a wide cross-section of listeners.
A new trio CD, Estrella Trio, featuring Lew Scott on bass and Peter
O’Brien on drums, has been recently released. This CD is being
very well-received, as a traditional acoustic piano trio with a focus
on authentic Latin and Brazilian rhythms. |
