Similar Artists
Ramsey Lewis, Erroll Garner, Thelonius Monk, Bill Evans (ignoring the obvious absurdity of pretty much any living pianist being mentioned in the same breath with the latter three)
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Influences
Chopin, Louis Armstrong, Elvis, Erroll Garner, Ella Fitzgerald, Debussy, Duke Ellington, Ray Charles, James Brown, Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Johnny Hodges, Aretha Franklin, Monk, Jefferson Airplane, The Beatles, Bach, Bartok, Beethoven, everybody
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Bio
By Charlotte Webb
With an innate feel for harmonized rhythm, a sly sense of humor, and a love of pathos, pianist and composer Bill Gordon divines what’s musically and emotionally essential. This has served him well in his forty year music career.
Born in the serene beauty of the Maryland countryside, Bill Gordon started performing as a little boy, dancing in front of the jukebox at a rural restaurant. He discovered a piano in an old farm house and used it to tell musical stories of his days in the fields and woods. Later it would be a means of expressing sorrow and bewilderment at the untimely loss of his beloved father. At fourteen, he started playing drums and put together a big R&B band. The RaVons became one of Baltimore’s most popular acts, and were one of the first racially mixed groups of the era, playing previously whites-only debutante balls and the like. Bill also filled in for other drummers at colorful downtown clubs. At first too young to drive, his mother schlepped him to the gigs. He also made his first recordings and dabbled with some jazz piano lessons.
Vietnam was ablaze, the Air Force beckoned, but the Fates landed Bill in Germany. Aside military duties, he found himself playing drums throughout Europe, and, in fits and starts, studying piano and harmony at the Wiesbaden Conservatory. Sergeant Gordon practiced in the warm, moist, dark attic at the base chapel. A Downbeat magazine article mentioned Boston’s Berklee College of Music, and upon discharge, he went there, gleefully graduating with his degree in composition and piano in l975.
Amidst New England gigs ranging from rock operas in vinyl jockstraps to tuxedoed society orchestras, Bill met budding saxophone wizard David Sholl. They formed Big Foot, a sort of James Brown-meets-John Coltrane-at-Sun Ra’s band. He also started teaching.
Then it was on to New York City, where he set about converting a former Chinese toy factory into a place to live plus a little theatre and recording studio. Along with unwittingly doing heavy construction, Bill found himself in an exceptionally prolific era, as his classical and jazz training mingled with his love of funk and good pop. He also performed and recorded his and others’ music, and taught a wide range of intriguing pupils. His Off-Off Broadway funk fable, Peculiar Rhythm & Blues, put him in cahoots with many extraordinary fellow travelers. His loft became home to this pack of irreverent musicians, painters, poets, actors, comedians…the general arts riffraff, who’d gather occasionally to display and share their wares. The New York years also brought Bill to one of his favorite and best musical expressions: accompanying jazz, blues and pop singers.
Although rich in work alongside absurdly gifted artists, and deep in rewarding musical productivity, the wear and tear of the city wore Bill down. So it was on to Raleigh, North Carolina, where steady gigs, concerts, commissions and some conducting followed, as did A Little Romance, his first solo piano CD.
Today in Miami he accompanies jazz/soul singer Christina Sichta, can be cajoled into session work, teaches a gaggle of pupils, writes and records music for film and TV, has authored and teaches the music and music business courses at the School of Audio Engineering (SAE), and goes out on miniature European tours playing classy jazz standards for dinner and classic rock ‘n roll songs later in the bar. He has also released Out The Box, a jazz-kind-of-funk CD plus a few ballads, featuring none other than saxman David Sholl.
Bill Gordon’s history serves as a deep and inspiring resource, just like his fat love of music. Ever the late bloomer, the rhythm guitar player at the piano, the ballad dude with a feel for Chopin, his retirement plan is not to. His path is wide and curvy, and he walks it with the assuredness achieved by a lifelong devotion to music, playing and dancing by the jukebox in his heart.
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