Lee Tomboulian

Last updated
Lee Tomboulian
Birth nameLeland Diran Tomboulian
Born (1960-01-08) January 8, 1960 (age 64)
White Plains, New York, U.S.
Genres Jazz, bossa nova, Afro-cuban jazz
Occupation(s)Musician, educator
Instrument(s)Piano, accordion
Years active1980s–present
Website www.leetomboulian.com

Leland Diran Tomboulian (born January 8, 1960) is an American jazz pianist, accordionist, composer, arranger, and educator.

Contents

Early life and career

Lee Tomboulian was born in White Plains into a music-loving family, [1] the youngest of four children of Clyde Tomboulian and sculptor Norma Tomboulian. He displayed an affinity for music, in particular for the piano, by age seven, and was given several years of private instruction.

Tomboulian attended the University of Arkansas, majoring in music composition with a minor in theater arts. He continued to live and work in Arkansas for more than a decade, where he met his wife, jazz singer Elizabeth (Betty) Elkins, in the late eighties.

In 1989 he formed the ensemble Circo Verde. The group was influenced especially by the music of Brazil and Uruguay. [1] A particular inspiration was Brazilian percussionist Airto Moreira's 1973 album Fingers , whose Uruguayan rhythm section formed their own influential jazz fusion trio, Opa. One of Opa's founding members, Hugo Fattoruso, produced the debut recording of Tomboulian's self-described "pop-latin-jazz" ensemble more than a decade later. [2] [1]

In 1992, Tomboulian married Elizabeth Elkins. [3] The following year, they departed Arkansas for Denton, Texas where Tombolian attended the University of North Texas as a graduate student, earning a Master of Music in Jazz Studies in 1997. [4] While earning his degree, he performed and recorded with the university's One O'Clock Lab Band, appearing on the CD Lab '97. The album features a track, "B.B.", composed and arranged by Tomboulian. [5] At some point during the Tomboulians' 12-year stay in Denton, Circo Verde's name became simply Circo, under which name its two albums were recorded. [6]

In 2005, the Tomboulians moved to Wisconsin, where Lee served as Instructor of Jazz Piano and Improvisation at Lawrence University Conservatory of Music. He continued in this capacity until 2011, when the couple relocated to New York City. Since then, Tomboulian has released a CD, Imaginarium, with solo piano and overdubbed accordion.

Discography

As le.dHe is er

As sideman

With Kelly Franklin

With Little Jack Melody and his Turks

With Trout Fishing in America

With Brian Moore

With The One O'Clock Lab Band

With The Two O'Clock Jazz Band

With Al Gibson

With The UNT Jazz Repertory Ensemble

With Tony Hakim

With Pete Brewer

With Mary Ellen Spann

With Susan Colin

With Faith to Faith

With Colin Boyd

With Lisa Perry

With John Adams

With Wycliffe Gordon

With Maria Schneider

With Stuart Dempster

With Terrell Stafford

As arranger/composer

With The One O'Clock Lab Band

With Al Gibson

With The Lawrence University Conservatory of Music

Related Research Articles

James Garland Riggs is an American saxophonist in classical and jazz idioms, big band director, collegiate music educator, and international music clinician. He is also a University of North Texas Regents Professor Emeritus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Serry Sr.</span> American concert accordionist, arranger, and composer

John Serry Sr. was an American concert accordionist, arranger, composer, organist, and educator. He performed on the CBS Radio and Television networks and contributed to Voice of America's cultural diplomacy initiatives during the Golden Age of Radio. He also concertized on the accordion as a member of several orchestras and jazz ensembles for nearly forty years between the 1930s and 1960s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">One O'Clock Lab Band</span> Jazz band at the University of North Texas College of Music

One O'Clock Lab Band is an ensemble of the Jazz Studies division at the University of North Texas College of Music in Denton, Texas. Since the 1970s, the band's albums have received seven Grammy Award nominations, including two for Lab 2009. Steve Wiest directed the band from 2008 to 2014. Jay Saunders became interim director in 2014.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colburn School</span> Private performing arts school in Los Angeles, California

The Colburn School is a private performing arts school in Los Angeles with a focus on music and dance. It consists of four divisions: the Conservatory of Music, Music Academy, Community School of Performing Arts and the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute. Founded in 1950, the school is named after its principal benefactor, Richard D. Colburn.

Emiliano Bucci is a pianist, piano teacher, musicology doctor, electronic composer, sound engineer, a highly appreciated music professor in a public school, and a filmmaker.

Frederick I. Sturm was a jazz composer, arranger and teacher.

The accordion is in a wide variety of musical genres, mainly in traditional and popular music. In some regions, such as in Europe and North America, it has become mainly restricted to traditional, folk and ethnic music. Nonetheless, the button accordion (melodeon) and the piano accordion are widely taught and played in Ireland, and have remained a steady fixture within Irish traditional music, both in Ireland and abroad, particularly in the United States and Great Britain. Numerous virtuoso Irish accordion players have recorded many albums over the past century or so; the earliest Irish music records were made in the 1920s, in New York City, by fiddler and Sligo immigrant Michael Coleman, widely considered to have paved the way for other traditional musicians to record themselves. Accordions are also played within other Celtic styles, as well as in English traditional music, American traditional music, polka, Galician folk music, and Eastern European folk music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Chirillo</span> American jazz musician

James Louis Chirillo is an American jazz guitarist, banjoist, composer, arranger, and band leader.

Jack Leroy Petersen is an American jazz guitarist and educator. He was a pedagogical architect for jazz guitar and jazz improvisation at Berklee College of Music, University of North Texas College of Music, and University of North Florida.

"Mi Burrito" is a popular Latin-American folk song, but the big band jazz arrangement is an original composition by Raymond Harry Brown. Brown composed it for his wife in 1973 when he had a rehearsal band in New York City that included his brother, Steve Brown, Steve Gadd, Tony Levin, Will Lee, Marvin Stamm, Louie Del Gaddo, Dave Taylor, Tom Malone, Sam Burtis, and others. Brown named the composition after a huge stuffed animal burro that he purchased for his wife rural Kentucky, when he was on the road with the Studio Band of The United States Army Field Band.

John Serry Jr. is an American jazz pianist and composer, as well as a composer of contemporary classical music works that feature percussion, on which he also doubles. He is a son of the accordionist and composer John Serry. His debut solo album was 'Exhibition', for which he received a Grammy Nomination for his composition, 'Sabotage'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of North Texas College of Music</span> Public school

The University of North Texas College of Music, based in Denton, is a comprehensive music school among the largest enrollment of any music institution accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music. It developed the first jazz studies program in the nation, and it remains one of the top schools for jazz. As one of thirteen colleges and schools at the University of North Texas, it has been among the largest music institutions of higher learning in North America since the 1940s. North Texas has been a member of the National Association of Schools of Music for 85 years. Since the 1970s, approximately one-third of all North Texas music students have been enrolled at the graduate level. Music at North Texas dates back to the founding of the university in 1890 when Eliza Jane McKissack, its founding director, structured it as a conservatory.

The Two O'Clock Lab Band is the second highest level of nine big bands of the Jazz Studies Division at the University of North Texas College of Music, a comprehensive music school with the largest enrollment of any music institution accredited by the National Association of Schools of Music, and oldest in the world offering a degree in jazz studies.

Lawrence University Conservatory of Music is a conservatory on the campus of Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. Founded in 1894, it is one of the oldest operating conservatories in the United States. Attached to a liberal arts college, the conservatory is exclusively an undergraduate institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bubba Kolb</span> Musical artist

Franklin Dial "Bubba" Kolb is an American jazz pianist and trombonist who, from 1975 to 1981, led a jazz trio, "The Bubba Kolb Trio," in residence at the World Village Lounge at the Lake Buena Vista Village, Florida. The trio backed major jazz artists appearing nightly as guests, two-weeks each, year-round. The artists included Carl Fontana, Rich Matteson, Benny Carter, Zoot Sims, Clark Terry, Urbie Green, Hank Jones, Red Norvo, Charlie Byrd, Barbara Carroll, Clark Terry, Barney Kessell, Buddy Tate, Buddy DeFranco, Louis Bellson, Marian McPartland, Art Farmer, Kai Winding, Kenny Burrell, Flip Phillips, Al Grey, Bobby Hacket, Pee Wee Erwin, Vic Dickenson, Milt Jackson, James Moody, Ira Sullivan, Billy Taylor, Teddy Wilson, Laurindo Almeida, Art Pepper, Bucky Pizzarelli, Frank Rosolino and Jimmy Forrest.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steve Wiest</span> American musician

Steve Wiest(néJohn Stephen Wiest; born 1957) is an American trombonist, composer, arranger, big band director, music educator at the collegiate level, jazz clinician, author, and illustrator/cartoonist. From 1981 to 1985, he was a featured trombonist and arranger with the Maynard Ferguson Band. Wiest is in his tenth year as Associate Professor of Jazz Studies and Commercial Music at the University of Denver Lamont School of Music. He is the Coordinator of the 21st Century Music Initiative at the school. Wiest has been a professor for thirty-five of the forty-three years that he has been a professional trombonist, composer, and arranger. From 2007 to 2014, Wiest was Associate Professor of Music in Jazz Studies at the University of North Texas College of Music and, from March 2009 to August 2014, he was director of the One O'Clock Lab Band and coordinator of the Lab Band program. At North Texas, Wiest also taught conducting, trombone, and oversaw The U-Tubes — the College of Music's jazz trombone band. Wiest is a three-time Grammy nominee — individually in 2008 for Best instrumental Arrangement and in 2010 for Best Instrumental Composition, and collaboratively in 2010 for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, which he directed. As of 2013, Wiest has in excess of 58 arrangements and compositions to his credit, which include 10 original compositions from his current project (see 2013–2014 project below).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Juan Manuel Abras</span> Musical artist

Juan Manuel Abras Contel is a classical music composer, conductor, musicologist and historian from Sweden. Born in Stockholm to a European family that moved around the world, Abras became a cosmopolitan artist and scientist.

Timothy M. Ries is an American saxophonist, composer, arranger, band leader, and music educator at the collegiate/conservatory level. Ries is in his seventeenth year as a professor of jazz studies at the University of Toronto. His universe of work as composer, arranger, and instrumentalist ranges from rock to jazz to classical to experimental to ethno to fusions of respective genres thereof. His notable works with wide popularity include The Rolling Stones Project, a culmination of jazz arrangements of music by the Rolling Stones produced on two albums, the first in 2005 and the second in 2008.

<i>North/South Convergence</i> 2001 studio album by Lee Tomboulian

North/South Convergence is the debut studio album for both American keyboardist/composer-arranger Lee Tomboulian and his Latin jazz ensemble Circo, recorded in September 2000 and released on December 3, 2001 by Circo Records.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yang Jing (composer)</span> Chinese-born Swiss musical artist

Yang Jing is a Chinese born, Swiss composer and world-famous concert pipa soloist.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Article from the Denton Record-Chronicle". www.circomusic.faithweb.com. August 13, 2000. Retrieved July 22, 2014.
  2. Hughes, Dave (December 1, 2001). "Circo: North/South Convergence". All About Jazz. Retrieved July 21, 2014.
  3. Tomboulian, Betty (Elizabeth Ann Elkins) Archived July 27, 2014, at the Wayback Machine . Encyclopedia of Jazz Musicians. Retrieved 2014-07-23.
  4. Breeding, Lucinda (June 20, 2013). "Former Denton musician releases 'Imaginarium'". Denton Record-Chronicle. Retrieved July 21, 2014.
  5. "Arkansas Jazz Calendar: Monday Jazz Welcomes Lee and Betty Tomboulian" (.pdf). www.arjazz.org. August 1998. Retrieved July 22, 2014.
  6. Gladstone, Michael P. (February 11, 2008). "Lee Tomboulian and Circo: Return to Whenever". All About Jazz. Retrieved July 22, 2014.
  7. "North South Convergence (Musical CD, 2000)". WorldCat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  8. "Return to Whenever (Musical CD, 2007)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  9. "Imaginarium (Musical CD, 2012)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  10. "Labyrinth (Musical CD, 1993)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Lee Tomboulian Discography. CD Universe. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  12. "The Signpost (Musical CD, 1995)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  13. 1 2 "Lab '97 (Musical CD, 1997)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  14. 1 2 "It's About Time (Musical CD, 1999)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  15. "Rockin' in Rhythm (Musical CD, 1999)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  16. "Summer Place (Musical CD, 2000)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  17. "Second Wind (Musical CD, 2000)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  18. "Little Red Robin (Musical CD, 2002)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  19. "Shabbat Favorites (Musical CD, 2003)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  20. "Every Day: Songs of a Spiritual Life (Musical CD, 2005)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  21. "Topical Rose (Musical CD, 2005)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  22. "Trios (Musical CD, 2006)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  23. "Jazz Celebration Weekend, November 11, 2006: Wycliffe Gordon (Musical CD, 2006)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  24. "Jazz Series, June 1, 2007 (Musical CD, 2007)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  25. "Stuart Dempster, trombone with Brian Pertl, didjeridu & Dane Richeson, percussion (Musical CD, 2009)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-22.
  26. "Terell Stafford, trumpet: w[ith] Jazz Faculty Trio (Musical CD, 2011)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  27. "A concert for humanity | WorldCat.org". www.worldcat.org. Retrieved June 17, 2023.
  28. "Hybrid Ensemble and Solo Jazz Singers in Concert (Musical CD, 2009)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.
  29. "Hybrid Ensemble concert, May 22, 2010 (Musical CD, 2010)". Worldcat. Retrieved 2014-07-21.

Further reading

Audio

Text