Marc Copland

Marc Copland
Marc Copland, November 2007.
Background information
Born	(1948-05-27) May 27, 1948 (age 68) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Occupation(s)	Musician, composer
Instruments	Piano
Years active	1960s–present
Labels	Jazz City

Marc Copland (born May 27, 1948, as Marc Cohen) is an American jazz pianist and composer.

Copland became part of the jazz scene in Philadelphia in the early 1960s as a saxophonist, and later moved to New York City, where he experimented with electric alto saxophone. In the early 1970s, while pursuing his own harmonic concept, he grew dissatisfied with what he felt were inherent limitations in the saxophone and moved to the Baltimore-Washington D.C. area, where he remained for a decade to retrain as a jazz pianist.

He returned to New York in the mid-1980s, his own keyboard style firmly in place. Since that time Copland has enjoyed considerable success, both as a solo performer and a group leader.

Copland was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He began taking piano lessons at age seven, but stopped abruptly at the age of ten when his public school offered the option of saxophone training. Beginning his career on alto sax, Copland became part of a vibrant music scene in his hometown in the early 1960s, learning and playing with Michael Brecker, a close friend and fellow high school student. In 1965 he briefly studied harmony with Romeo Cascarino in Philadelphia and also began training in composition with Meyer Kupferman and studied saxophone with Joseph Allard, both in New York.

In 1966, Copland moved to New York City, where he attended Columbia University. He became part of a late 1960s and early 1970s New York jazz scene that expanded from the traditional clubs into lofts around the city. During this period, Copland was, along with John Abercrombie and Glen Moore, a member of the Chico Hamilton Quartet. He experimented by adding electronic processors to his alto, culminating in the recording of Friends, an electric jazz album produced by a small New York City start-up label, Oblivion Records. This album, with Abercrombie, Clint Houston, and Jeff Williams, achieved a kind of cult status, earning a five-star review in Down Beat magazine.