An accomplished jazz pianist and highly regarded educator, Cliff Korman likes to say that twenty years of immersion in the musical universe of Brasil sheds a different light on the way he looks at American jazz. He has developed numerous jazz projects featuring Brazilian and American musicians and presenting a variety of original compositions and arrangements. His understanding of the diversity of sound, instrumentation and harmonic patterns of Brazilian music of the twentieth century enables him to continuously explore the complex interconnections that link the music of the Americas.
Korman has performed as a soloist and co-leader in New York venues such as Birdland, The Knickerbocker Bar and Grill, and Lincoln Center, and in Italy at the Cantar da Costa Festival of Brazilian Music and Culture and the Jazz and Image Festival in Rome. He toured with vocalist Astrud Gilberto from 1989-94, and for many years has participated in important Brazilian projects such as the “Tribute to Antonio Carlos Jobim” at Carnegie Hall under the direction of Cesar Camargo Mariano and a two-piano production with Wagner Tiso and Milton Nascimento at the International Festival of MPB (Música Popular Brasileira) in São Paulo. He has produced and arranged a number of Brazilian Jazz CD’s for Chesky Records including Chuck Mangione’s “The Feeling’s Back” and “Entre Amigos”, a project featuring vocalist Rosa Passos and bassist Ron Carter.
His release “Migrations” (Planet Arts, 2004), is an aural representation of the mark Brazilian music and culture have made on his compositions and improvisational language. His duo record “Mood Ingênuo: The Dream of Pixinguinha and Duke Ellington”(Jazzheads, 1999) with Grammy Award winner Paulo Moura represents one of the first cross-cultural explorations of jazz and choro. Their recording “Gafieira Dance Brasil” (independent, 2000) pays homage to the dance roots of the instrumental and improvisational tradition of Brazilian music.
Cliff holds a Master of Arts in Jazz Performance from the City College of New York, where he trained with Roland Hanna, Ron Carter and Kenny Barron. He regularly teaches courses and seminars on Jazz Piano, Jazz Theory, Improvisation, Rhythm Section Skills, and Brazilian Instrumental Music at institutions including City College, the Escola de Música of Brasilia, the Collective, the New School. He is currently a candidate for the Doctorate of Musical Arts in Jazz Studies at the Manhattan School of Music, where he teaches a course on Brazilian Popular Music History and leads the Brazilian combo.
Korman’s research in the fields of Jazz and Brazilian music has received prestigious recognition, including a Fulbright Lecture/Research grant in Brasil, the invitation by the Society for American Music to deliver a paper on the music of Thelonious Monk, the publication of an article on the same topic in the Annual Review of Jazz Studies, and the invitation to present his lecture Jazz & Brazilian Instrumental Music: Common Roots, Divergent Paths at the Jazz Research Roundtable at Rutgers University. With guitarist Nelson Faria he is co-author of the instructional book “Inside the Brazilian Rhythm Section” (Sher Music 2002).
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