Jay Leonhart

Jay Leonhart ( born December 6, 1940 in Baltimore, Maryland as James Chancellor Leonhart ) is an American bassist, singer and songwriter in the fields of jazz and popular music.

Life and work

Leonhart comes from a musical family and first started playing the piano, guitar and banjo. At fourteen, he moved to the bass and played in Baltimore in a Dixieland jazz band. He had 1946/48 and again in 1956/57, teaching at the Peabody Institute studied, with completion 1960/61, at the Berklee College of Music and then at Oscar Peterson's Advanced School of Contemporary Music in Toronto, which he left in order to touring big bands like Buddy to play Morrow and Mike Longo. In the early 1960s he began to work as a professional musician, as with John Eaton. From 1963 to 1967 he played in the backing band of Ethel Ennis, next he worked as an insurance broker and pilot.

In 1968 he came to New York, where he met the singer Donna ornamental and married. Leonhart played in the bands of Urbie Green ( 1968-1970 ), Marian McPartland (1970 to 1973), Jim Hall (1971 to 1973), Tony Bennett ( 1971-1974 ) and 1974/1975 in the Thad Jones / Mel Lewis Big Band; Moreover, since 1974, he worked in a duo with Barbara Carroll. He was also a freelancer for Lee Konitz, Buddy Rich, Tal Farlow and others, having worked otherwise mostly as a session musician for artists such as James Taylor, Ozzy Osbourne and Queen Latifah. He also took up with Chuck Wayne and Harold Ousley. Between 1975 and 1995, he was three times awarded as The Most Valuable Bassist with the price of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

Jay Leonhart has released a number of albums under his own name, including with Roger Kellaway and for the label DMP and Sunnyside, where he emerges as a singer humorous songs and vocalizations; his most famous title is " It's Impossible to Sing and Play the Bass ". He refuted in his one-man show ( The Bass Lesson ).

He composed some songs for various artists as Blossom Dearie, Lee Konitz and Gary Burton. Leonhart also worked on recordings by Benny Bailey, Dick Hyman, Bucky Pizzarelli, Gerry Mulligan, Louis Bellson, John Bunch, Eddie Higgins, Meredith D' Ambrosio, and Dave Grusin. He regularly performs in duo with trombonist Wycliffe Gordon; together was the album This Rhythm on My Mind.

Disco Graphical Notes

• Two Lane Highway ( 1992)
• Salamander Pie ( 1983)
• There's Gonna Be Trouble ( 1984) ( with Joe Beck)
• Cool (2004)
• Group 15 Plays Monk (2007)