Bill Dobbins (musician)

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William "Bill" Dobbins (born April 25, 1947 in Akron , Ohio ) is an American pianist, composer, jazz teacher and big band leader.

Live and act

As a (initially) classical pianist, he worked with Pierre Boulez , Lukas Foss , and Louis Lane . In 1972 he was one of the winners of the International Gaudeamus Competition for Performers of Contemporary Music . Since 1973 Dobbins has taught at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester (New York) and has headed the jazz department there since 1989.

From 1994 to 2002 he was director of the WDR Big Band Cologne ; he has worked with Clark Terry , Al Cohn , Red Mitchell , Phil Woods , Bill Goodwin, Dave Liebman , Kevin Mahogany , Rolf Römer and Paquito D'Rivera and formed a trio with Peter Erskine and John Goldsby . Since 1998 he has also been head of the jazz department at the Cologne University of Music .

In July 2002 Dobbins went back to the States, where he teaches again at the "Eastman School of Music". He is the head of the jazz department for composition and arrangement and conducts both the Eastman Jazz Ensemble and the Eastman Studio Orchestra. In the summer of 2007 he also directed the Federal Youth Jazz Orchestra . In addition, he occasionally conducts other big bands such as the Metropole Orkest .

Dobbins textbooks and videos as well as his publications on piano improvisation, composition and arrangement as well as transcriptions of classical jazz solos are among the standard works of jazz pedagogy.

Discographic notes

  • Prism: The WDR Big Band Plays the Music of Bill Dobbins and Peter Erskine (Advance Music, 1998)
  • Rolf Römer & Bill Dobbins A Tribute to BACH (GLM, 1999)
  • Preludes & Predilections Vol. 1-4 (Advance Music, 2002)
  • Cologne (Trio with John Goldsby and Peter Erskine; Fuzzy Music, 2003)
  • JS Bach: Christmas Oratorio ( The King's Singers , WDR Bigband and Bill Dobbins; signum classics, 2009)

Fonts

  • The contemporary jazz pianist, parts 1 to 4, Charles Colin, 1978 to 1989
  • Jazz Arranging and Composing, Advance Music 1986
  • with Herbie Hancock: Herbie Hancock: classic jazz compositions and piano solos, Advance Music 1992
  • A creative approach to jazz piano harmony, Advance Music 1994
  • Composing and Arranging for the Contemporary Big Band, Advance Music, Alfred Music; Pap / Com edition 2015

Lexical entries

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bill Lee, William F. Lee: People in Jazz: Jazz Keyboard Improvisors of the 19th & 20th Centuries: Preragtime, Blues, Folk and Minstrel, Early Ragtime, Dixieland, Ragtime-stride, Blues-boogie, Swing, Prebop, Bop. .. . Columbia Lady Music, 1984, ISBN 978-0-89898-358-6 . .
personal data
SURNAME Dobbins, Bill
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Dobbins, William
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American pianist, composer, jazz teacher and big band leader
DATE OF BIRTH April 25, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Akron , Ohio