Jay Leonhart

Jay Leonhart (born December 6, 1940, Baltimore, Maryland) is a bassist and songwriter working and singer in jazz and popular music. He has performed with diverse artists including Judy Garland, Carly Simon, Bucky Pizzarelli, Sting, and Frank Sinatra. Leonhart is noted for his clever songwriting, often laced with dry humor, and his compositions have been recorded by such notable artists as Blossom Dearie, Lee Konitz and Gary Burton. Leonhart's poetry is published both in, and outside of, the venue of song.

Jay Leonhart grew up in a musical family. His parents and six siblings were all musically inclined. Everyone played the piano. By the age of seven, Jay and his older brother Bil were playing banjos and guitars and mandolins and basses. They played country music, jazz—anything with a beat. In their early teens, Jay and Bil were television stars in Baltimore and were touring the country performing on their banjos.

When Jay was fourteen he started playing the bass in The Pier Five Dixieland Jazz Band in Baltimore. After studying at The Peabody Institute (1946–1950), Jay attended The Berklee College of Music (1959–1961) and The Advanced School of Contemporary Music in Toronto, before leaving school to start touring with the traveling big bands of the late 1950s and early 1960s.

At twenty one, Leonhart moved to New York City to start his career. He played lots of funky road gigs with big bands, small bands and singers and visited many little jazz joints around the world. In 1968, he met and married a singer named Donna Zier and settled down in New York. Jay and Donna Leonhart have two children, Michael and Carolyn, who have performed with Steely Dan, among others.

Upon moving to New York, Jay eventually began playing for many of the great jazz musicians, big bands, and singers who were to be found there - artists like Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Lou Marini, Tony Bennett, Marian McPartland, and Jim Hall. Leonhart has continued to work with many of the great jazz musicians of the twentieth century.

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