Biography
Jan Leder, the jazz flutist born in Queens, revealed her musical gifts remarkably early by striking out tunes on the household piano at the age of three and soon outdistancing her older siblings after beginning six years of piano instruction at five under her classically trained mother. Only when she reached junior high did she first take up the flute that would become her signature instrument. Her formal training remained grounded in classical technique, among them a three-year period with flutist and conductor Paul Dunkel, yet she simultaneously developed an independent ear by learning to improvise rock & roll and pop/R&B material with neighborhood guitarists in New York’s Central Park.
At seventeen she began private study with the celebrated jazz pianist Lennie Tristano and remained under his guidance until his death in 1978. Although she has long credited Tristano with shaping her artistic identity, broader recognition and commercial traction did not materialize until the final years of the 1990s. Her decisive break arrived in 1994 when Buddy Scott and other Monad Records personnel heard her at The Dockside in Tarrytown, New York. A live tape featuring Art Lillard and fellow musicians at the Five Spot so persuaded Scott that he offered her a contract and issued the unaltered performance as the album Passage to Freedom.
That recording preserved strong contributions from drummer Lillard, pianist Jon Davis, bassist Yosuke Inoue, and guitarist Mark McCarron, yet it appeared just as Monad Records ceased operations, leaving the debut largely unavailable and overlooked for nearly two years. Online exposure in 1998 and 1999 finally reached a wider public and elicited favorable notices for Passage to Freedom. In 1998, A-Records vocalist Diane Hubka included Leder’s original composition “Thinking of You” on her own first album, Haven’t We Met, which earned a Jazz Award nomination in the Best Debut CD category. The association led directly to a recording agreement with A-Records, an imprint of the Dutch label Challenge Records.
Leder’s second album, Nonchalant, appeared in 1999 and augmented the instrumental core of Lillard, McCarron, and Davis with New York bassist Sean Smith, percussionist Daniel Moreno, and vocalists Angela DeNiro, Mary Foster Conklin, and Cleve Douglass.
At seventeen she began private study with the celebrated jazz pianist Lennie Tristano and remained under his guidance until his death in 1978. Although she has long credited Tristano with shaping her artistic identity, broader recognition and commercial traction did not materialize until the final years of the 1990s. Her decisive break arrived in 1994 when Buddy Scott and other Monad Records personnel heard her at The Dockside in Tarrytown, New York. A live tape featuring Art Lillard and fellow musicians at the Five Spot so persuaded Scott that he offered her a contract and issued the unaltered performance as the album Passage to Freedom.
That recording preserved strong contributions from drummer Lillard, pianist Jon Davis, bassist Yosuke Inoue, and guitarist Mark McCarron, yet it appeared just as Monad Records ceased operations, leaving the debut largely unavailable and overlooked for nearly two years. Online exposure in 1998 and 1999 finally reached a wider public and elicited favorable notices for Passage to Freedom. In 1998, A-Records vocalist Diane Hubka included Leder’s original composition “Thinking of You” on her own first album, Haven’t We Met, which earned a Jazz Award nomination in the Best Debut CD category. The association led directly to a recording agreement with A-Records, an imprint of the Dutch label Challenge Records.
Leder’s second album, Nonchalant, appeared in 1999 and augmented the instrumental core of Lillard, McCarron, and Davis with New York bassist Sean Smith, percussionist Daniel Moreno, and vocalists Angela DeNiro, Mary Foster Conklin, and Cleve Douglass.
Albums
