Azica Records, Inc.
Recording Artist Profile...

Bill Cunliffe

Bill Cunliffe is rapidly becoming one of the best known of today's jazz pianists, one who combines lyricism and sensitivity with a fierce sense of swing. His early training was at Duke University, where he discovered jazz under the tutelage of the great Mary Lou Williams, who urged him to "put down those books and start studyin' the music!" He then received his master's from the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with the jazz pianist Bill Dobbins, and won several Down Beat awards for his big band and orchestral pieces.

After three years of teaching at Central State University, in Wilberforce, Ohio, he went on the road with the Buddy Rich Big Band, doing two tours of Europe with Frank Sinatra. After working with Buddy, he played and toured with many of today's greatest jazz musicians, including Woody Shaw, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Art Farmer, James Moody, Joshua Redman and Art Blakey. He currently records with the Clayton Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, the Jazz at the Movies Band, the Thelonious Monk Jazz Ambassadors, flutist Holly Hofmann, and recently returned from a tour with vocalist Natalie Cole.

Bill was the 1989 winner of the $10,000 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Piano Award, and has received stipends from the National Endowment for the Arts. He has recorded three solo albums for Discovery Records, all of which charted in nationwide jazz polls: "A Paul Simon Songbook," A Rare Connection," and "Bill in Brazil." His compositions are available from Kendor Music, and the University of Northern Colorado Jazz Press, and he is a Baldwin Pianos artist.

Azica Releases

Satisfaction AJD-72203
Bill Cunliffe, piano

Just Duet AJD-72205
Holly Hofmann, flute
Bill Cunliffe, piano

Tales of Hofmann AJD-72203
Holly Hofmann, flute
Bobby Shew, trumpet/flugelhorn
Bill Cunliffe, piano
Bob Magnusson, bass
Victor Lewis, drums

These and all other Azica jazz releases are featured in the Jazz Library.