Ray Santisi

Ray Santisi (c.1935-) is an American jazz pianist and educator. He performed with people such as Charlie Parker, Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon, Mel Torme, Irene Kral, Natalie Cole and many others. The Raleigh, N.C. News and Observer reportedly called him " the most exciting piano player I've heard since those first sessions with Bill Evans and Marian McPartland and Oscar Peterson."^[1]

In 1990 Santisi released Spellbinder and as a regular performer at the Ryles Jazz Club, he released a live album in 2005.^[2]He has also performed at Carnegie Hall.^[3] He has performed for many years with The Real Thing and in the 1960s performed with the Benny Golson Quartet.^[4] He has composed a waltz piece called Pendulums, inspired by the famous jitterbug Waltz of Fats Waller.^[5]Santisi has recorded on the Blue Note Records, Capitol Records, Prestige Records, Sonnet Records, Roulette Records, and United Artists Records labels.

Santisi has been a Professor of Jazz Piano at the Berklee College of Music since 1957, after attending the college as a student from 1954.^[6][7]He has taught many notable jazz musicians such as Diana Krall, Makoto Ozone, Joe Zawinul, Keith Jarrett and Jane Ira Bloom. He has also taught at Stan Kenton's summer jazz clinics on college campuses. He is the primary author of Berklee Jazz Piano, published by Hal Leonard in 2009. Santisi was also a founder of the early Jazz Workshops in Boston and is the co-owner of the Stables Jazz Club.^[2]In 2008 he was inducted into the IAJE Jazz Education Hall of Fame.

References

External links

• Video of extracts from Berklee Jazz Piano
• Ray Santisi's "been there, done that" , with archive pictures