Neal Kirkwood – piano/composer
Ron Horton – trumpet/flugelhorn
Tim Harrison – flute
Blue Inventions is the latest release by jazz pianist and composer Neal Kirkwood. All of the music on this recording is composed by Mr. Kirkwood.
On this album Neal Kirkwood is joined by Tim Harrison on flute and Ron Horton on flugelhorn, both master improvisors and sensitive interpreters of Kirkwood’s music. Arranged for trio, duo and solo piano, the music on this album explores the sonorities of these particular three instruments. Throughout, Kirkwood and his colleagues explore a path from tradition to innovation.
Neal Kirkwood, composer, pianist, writes music for jazz and contemporary classical ensembles. He has composed for jazz big band, classical ensembles, vocal ensembles, solo piano and full orchestra. He has received commissions from the New York State Music Fund; the New York State Council for the Arts; the Children’s Aid Society; the Jazz Composer’s Alliance and Belgian ensemble Octurn.
NEAL KIRKWOOD
Kirkwood has performed and recorded with jazz artists Pony Poindexter, Bobby Previte, Lindsey Horner, Phillip Johnston, and Mike Clark and others. He has toured internationally with vocalists Bobby McFerrin, Abby Lincoln, Michel Hermon, and Chris Connor. He works extensively composing for, and performing with, New York’s creative and experimental theater ensembles
Born and raised in California, Neal Kirkwood began piano lessons at age of 8. He attended North Texas State University and California State University Hayward briefly before settling in San Francisco in 1976 to begin his career as a jazz pianist and composer. Moving to New York City in 1981, he earned a master’s degree in composition from Mannes College of Music. As a band leader, Neal Kirkwood has recorded six CDs
An experienced and dedicated educator, he is currently on the faculties of the Third Street Music School in New York City and Kutztown University in Pennsylvania, and teaches piano, composition and arranging privately. He has presented masterclasses at the Manhattan School of Music and Musikhochschule, Luzern, and was awarded the National Dance Institute Teacher of the Year award in 2007 for his work with public school students in New York City.
TIM HARRISON
A native of Nottingham, England, Tim studied classical flute at the Royal College of Music in London, where he worked as a professional musician for eight years. At the age of 26 he changed instruments, started learning jazz piano, and a year later won a scholarship to the University of North Texas. After receiving his master’s degree Harrison co-led the Unified Jazz Ensemble, a quintet that for four years lived, performed, and taught in small towns in Iowa and Arkansas for the National Endowment for the Arts.
Harrison moved to New York in 1996, where he performs, composes and teaches. In 2004 his orchestral composition Prelude and Dirge was commissioned and premiered by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. Harrison is a member of two jazz trios that released CDs in 2018: he plays flutes on Neal Kirkwood’s “Blue Inventions”, and piano on the Mark WadeTrio’s CD, “Moving Day”.
RON HORTON
Since 1982, trumpeter Ron Horton has been an integral part of New York’s flourishing jazz scene and he stands out both as an exemplary instrumentalist and as a highly progressive composer and arranger. Whether called upon as a sideman or as a leader of one of his own ensembles, he shows that he is committed to further expanding the existing perimeters of jazz.
Horton has had many long musical associations with leaders such as saxophonist Jane Ira Bloom (1983-2000) and pianist Andrew Hill. He was a member of Hill’s sextet from 1998 until 2003, and appears on the group’s critically acclaimed cd, Dusk (Palmetto 2000). He was also musical director and co-arranger for Hill’s big band, and is featured on the cd, A Beautiful Day (Palmetto 2002).
Ron Horton was born in 1960 in Bethesda, Maryland, and has been frequently called on as a sideman to perform and/or record with such artists as Lee Konitz, Will Holshouser, Rez Abbasi, Phillip Johnston, Andy Laster, Mick Rossi, Matt Wilson, Bill Gerhardt, Bill Mays, Peggy Stern, Allan Chase, Andy Biskin, Ted Nash, Jon Gordon, John McKenna, Walter Thompson, Diana Perez, Billy Newman, Mario Pavone, Tina Marsh, Maryanne DeProphetis, Landon Knoblock, Sam Bardfeld, Maria Guida, Abigail Riccards, Angie Sanchez, Kris Davis, Darcy James Argue and many others.
