Bill Cunliffe
| Bill Cunliffe | |
|---|---|
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Bill Cunliffe |
| Born |
June 26, 1956 Andover, Massachusetts, U.S. |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Musician, composer, arranger |
| Instruments | Piano |
| Years active | 1978–present |
| Website | Bill Cunliffe.com |
Bill Cunliffe (born June 26, 1956) is an American jazz pianist and composer based in Los Angeles. He has been described by The New York Times as being in the "modern jazz mainstream" and as an "accomplished pianist and composer." Ernie Rideout of Keyboard Magazine described Cunliffe's playing as "inventive, melodic, and soulful".
He has written books on jazz for Alfred Publications, and teaches at California State University, Fullerton.
Cunliffe was born in Andover, Massachusetts. He explained in an interview with All About Jazz writer Fred Jung that he discovered music at an early age, with particular emphasis on classical music as well as jazz-oriented music from the 1960s and 1970s:
My mother was a good pianist ... I started just copying little things that I would hear my mom play and I would sit next to her and listen.
Cunliffe described himself as having been drawn to "anything with hip harmony in it" with great melodies, and he loved listening to artists such as The Fifth Dimension, Burt Bacharach and Herb Alpert. He attended Phillips Academy, and graduated in 1974 in the school's first co–educational class. In college, he performed rock–and–roll gigs at the Prince Spaghetti House in Saugus, Massachusetts. Cunliffe attended Wesleyan University for several years. During this time, a friend named Michael Zaitchik introduced him to a jazz record of Oscar Peterson, and after listening to this record, Cunliffe became a "jazz player overnight", he recalled later. While in school, he considered careers in medicine and psychology, but in his junior year, he decided finally that "music was it."
After graduating from Duke University, where he studied with Mary Lou Williams, he received his master's degree from the Eastman School of Music
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