Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Mary Louise Knutson was born on April 19, 1966. The Minneapolis based jazz pianist and composer released her debut CD “Call Me When You Get There” in 2001 charted in the Top 50 in the U.S. and Canada that brought her national recognition. Knutson’s 2011 sophomore project on her Meridian Label, “In The Bubble”, charted in the Top 10 on JazzWeek and stayed for an unprecedented 19 weeks straight.

Mary received Lawrence University’s distinguished Nathan M. Pusey Alumni Achievement Award, was a Top 5 finalist in the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams “Women In Jazz” Pianist Competition, has been nominated for Jazz Artist of the Year and Pianist of the Year by the Minneapolis Music Awards, and has won two composition awards from Billboard Magazine.

As an educator she has sat on the faculty of Carleton College instructing jazz piano and improvisation, and currently teaches privately and conducts a variety of master classes such as Intro to Composition, Freedom From the Written Page: Beginning Improv for Pianists, and Making Sense of Jazz, among others.

Knutson has performed and toured with jazz greats Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby McFerrin, Dianne Reeves, Kevin Mahogany, Nicholas Payton, Ernie Watts, Slide Hampton, Greg Abate, Bobby Shew and Von Freeman to name a few and has crossed over into other genres to play with Smokey Robinson, Trisha Yearwood, Donny Osmond, Phyllis Diller, Rob Schneider and more. The pianist regularly performs with her group, with area vocalists Connie Evingson and Debbie Duncan; and with the JazzMN Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra and the Chuck Lazarus Quartet.

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