Bill Bell (pianist)

William "Bill" Bell Jr. (born July 12, 1936 in East Moline , Illinois , † March 18, 2017 in Oakland , California ) was an American jazz musician ( piano , arrangement , composition, also keyboard ) and music teacher who worked in San Francisco area was known as The Jazz Professor .

Live and act

Bell received training as a musician and arranger at home and from his cousin, the music teacher Mallie Williams. After graduating from UTHS, Bell earned a bachelor's degree in music education from Augustana College in 1958, before completing a master's in the same subject at the University of Iowa . He then taught in Iowa for several years; in the 1960s he moved to the west coast. The first recordings were made in 1966 with Roy Eldridge (The Nifty Cat Strikes West) . In the following decades he worked full-time in the music department of the College of Alameda; he also taught jazz improvisation at the University of California, Berkeley and directed the jazz band at Stanford University . His best-known students include Sheila E. , Benny Green , Michael Wolfe, and Jon Faddis . He has also written commissioned compositions such as East Meets West for the Oakland Youth Symphony and Right On for the San Francisco Symphony. Under his own name he released the albums Basically / To Live and Love (1979, with Coke Escovedo and Marvin Holmes ), The Jazz Professor (1995), Just Swing Baby (2005) and The Feeling of Jazz (2009). He also played with Benny Carter , Clark Terry , Lou Rawls , Louie Bellson , The Supremes , Art Farmer and Carmen McRae .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Dennis Moran: 'The Jazz Professor': Bill Bell, East Moline native, dies at age 80. In: QConline.com. Moline Dispatch & Rock Island Argus, March 22, 2017, accessed March 22, 2017 .