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Lee Shaw
Lee Shaw was born in Ada, Oklahoma. She began studying piano at the age of five. After graduating from high school, she attended the Oklahoma College for Women where she earned her Bachelor of Music in Piano. She earned her Master’s degree in piano at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago. She also studied privately with concert pianist, Jesus Maria Sanroma in Puerto Rico. When she began playing piano in nightclubs in Chicago, she was sharing bills with the likes of Anita O’Day, Dinah Washington and Sarah Vaughan. It was the 1950s, and fresh out of the conservatory, she drew mostly on her classical background, her encyclopedic knowledge of popular songs and her uncanny ability to play in any key. On the job training and study with the great Oscar Peterson turned Shaw into the first-rate jazz pianist she later became. She has had her own trio for more than 40 years, during which time she has performed in clubs, concerts and festivals in the United States, Canada and Europe. Shaw, who has lived in the Albany region for the last three decades, has been a guest on Marian McPartland’s NPR program “Piano Jazz” and appears frequently on WAMC’s Roundtable. She was inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame in 1993. She is also an inductee of the Alumni Hall of Fame from the college from which she graduated. The Lee Shaw Trio appeared at the Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Festival in 1999 and will be appearing this coming June at the Saratoga Jazz Festival. In 2002, she was given an Honorary Doctorate by the College of Saint Rose. Shaw has been adjunct faculty at the College of Saint Rose since 1983 and also teaches privately. Among her most accomplished students is John Medeski, keyboardist with Medeski, Martin and Wood.
Awards
1987: “Bring Home the Stars”
Albany, NY 1988: “A Place for Jazz” Plaque Reads: “By Active presence as a musician and teacher, has added brilliance to the art of Jazz and to the quality of our lives” 1991: Hall of Fame Award
Capital Area Musician’s Association 1991: Lifetime Achievement Award
Troy-Cohoes YMCA 1993: Inducted into the Oklahoma Jazz Hall of Fame 1993: Lee Shaw Day; Hometown of Ada, Oklahoma 1999: Alumni Hall of Fame
University of Science and Art
Chickasha, OK 2001: Swingtime Lifetime Achievement Award 2002: Honorary Doctorate
College of St. Rose
Albany, NY 2005: Albany Musician’s Association
Certificate of Recognition for Excellence
“Musician, Jazz Educator, Superb Pianist and Teacher”
Tags
Lee Shaw Trio: Live At Art Gallery Reutlingen
by Bruce Lindsay
After over fifty years as a musician, composer and educator Lee Shaw remains active and in demand. While never the most prolific recording artist, she continues to record in her 80s, and 2011 may well be one of her busiest years, with two albums in quick succession. Together Again: Live At The Egg (Artists Recording Collective) featured Shaw and John Medeski, her former pupil. Live At The Art Gallery Reutlingen comes from three concerts recorded at this German venue in ...
Continue ReadingLee Shaw Trio: Blossom
by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
Curiously, it happens that one of the most exciting “young" pianists on the scene today is an eighty-something year-old woman named Lee Shaw. Shaw's playing has an energy and freshness that sounds great alongside other new rising stars of the piano-trio idiom: Aaron Goldberg, Aaron Parks, Robert Glasper, Yaron Herman and Elan Mehler.
Shaw's story is recounted in a DVD documentary included with her 2008 release, Live In Graz (Artists Recording Collective). For many years she led a rhythm section ...
Continue ReadingLee Shaw Trio: Live in Graz
by Jeff Dayton-Johnson
Live in Graz gives listeners a chance to catch up with one of the more improbable second acts in jazz: that of eighty-something pianist Lee Shaw. A poised Shaw usefully recounts the biographical details in the accompanying DVD (which is unfortunately somewhat shoddily produced): she acquired a broad musical education in tiny Ada, Oklahoma; later continued that schooling, playing requests in Chicago nightclubs; then, for many years, she backed up “horn players from the city" at clubs in Albany, New ...
Continue ReadingLee Shaw Trio: Live in Graz
by J Hunter
Lee Shaw TrioLive in GrazARC--Artists Recording Collective2008
It's hard to remember this in the face of accomplished players like saxophonist Anat Cohen, pianist and vocalist Eliane Elias and drummer Cindy Blackman, but it is an unfortunate fact: female instrumentalists (and female leaders, come to that) are still a fairly rare phenomenon, even in this most inclusive of musical genres. Then again, it's certainly a more conducive atmosphere than it was when Lee ...
Continue ReadingJohn Medeski and Lee Shaw "Together Again" Live
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Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards
Lee Shaw gets into her 84th year with a flair. Her live European CD we covered several days ago (see below). Today it's a CD of her trio (Rich Syracuse, Jeff “Siege" Siegel) plus her former student John Medeski live at the Egg in Albany, Together Again (ARC 2222). Lee sticks to her piano while John goes from piano to melodica to Hammond. The new edition of the Smithsonian jazz anthology includes a Medeski, Martin and Wood cut, so in ...
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Lee Shaw Holds Forth Swingingly in Reutlingen
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Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards
When you review upwards of 550 CDs a year (on my two main blogs), plus quite a few for Cadence and my third blog, you can find yourself struggling to avoid the generic sorts of descriptions one can easily fall into. Take today's selection, the Lee Shaw Trio plus guests Live at Art Gallery Reutlingen (Artists Recording Collective 2239). It's a perfectly nice date, exceptional for the rapport that pianist Shaw develops with guest baritonist Michael Lutzeier and tenor man ...
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The Lee Shaw Trio - Live at Art Gallery Reutlingen (ARC, 2011)
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Music and More by Tim Niland
I have fond memories of seeing pianist Lee Shaw many times when I was living in upstate New York, so I was excited to see that she was still playing well and releasing two albums this year, this one from a German jazz festival and another from Albany with her one time student John Medeski. On this album she is joined by her long-time trio mates, Rich Syracuse on bass and Jeff Siegel on drums, and two alternating saxophonists, Johannes ...
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The Jazz Session #141: Lee Shaw
Source:
Michael Ricci
Pianist Lee Shaw is living a fascinating life. From her childhood in Oklahoma in the 1920s to her early exposure to jazz in Chicago to her decades-long career as a jazz pianist, Shaw has been everywhere and played with just about everyone. In this interview, recorded at the Rotary Club of Albany, NY, Shaw talks about her early years; why she decided to become a jazz pianist rather than a classical accompanist; and the impulsive proposal that led to a ...
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