![]() Early on I knew that’s what I wanted to do for a living.” These players were telling stories and making conversation with each other and I wanted to be part of that. Particularly the guys that were making it happen like Thelonious Monk, Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans and Art Tatum. "I really started to listen carefully to my father’s vinyl in a way I hadn’t before. “I wanted to know how to make the notes sound longer and sharper or how to soften the sound," he remembered. When she would finish with her lessons, Green would slide onto the bench and try to compose his own music and make sense out of the sounds generated from the short black keys and the longer white keys. ![]() ![]() I was in love.”īut to Green’s dismay, he was not the first family member to take piano lessons - that privilege went to his older sister. "The black keys and white keys were pure magic. “The minute we walked inside I remember walking up to a piano and I started trying to make sense of the keys," he said. His family was living in Oakland, California, when, early one morning, they all packed into the family car and headed to a warehouse that sold used pianos. He has lectured at the Juilliard School and Berklee College of Music, among other institutions, and is currently on staff in the Department of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.īut after years of playing on the world's stages, Green, 55, still remembers the joy of playing his first piano. That musical love affair has help Green become one of the world's pre-eminent jazz pianists.
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