Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Bill Carrothers was born July 13, 1964 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  He began playing piano at age five, studying with his church organist before learning jazz from pianist Bobby Peterson. By age 15 he was performing in jazz clubs, and in 1982 he briefly attended North Texas State University.

After a year at North Texas, Carrothers was a member of Irv Williams’ band before a move to New York City in 1988. He performed at the Knitting Factory, The Village Gate, and Birdland as well as Blues Alley in Washington, D.C. He has worked with Buddy DeFranco, Curtis Fuller, Billy Higgins, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Konitz, James Moody, Gary Peacock, Dewey Redman, Charlie Rouse, James Spaulding, Terell Stafford, Toots Thielemans, and Prince.

He has performed in France,  Belgium, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. In 2009 Bill played a week-long stand at the Village Vanguard with his European trio Nicolas Thys and Dre Pallemaerts, which resulted in a 2011.

He performs solo piano concerts, made his Monterey Jazz Festival debut and is a regular on the Chicago scene. He is an adjunct professor at Lawrence University in Wisconsin. Carrothers was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque for Jazz in 2004 and was nominated for the Les Victoires du Jazz, twice.

Pianist and composer Bill Carrothers, who has cited Clifford Brown, Shirley Horn, and Oscar Peterson as influences on his development as a musician, continues to perform without shoes to better feel the piano pedals, sitting in a chair to achieve his preferred seating height.

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