Ran Blake

Since the early 1960s the third stream pianist and music educator Ran Blake has issued numerous distinctive, frequently solo, jazz recordings that highlight his striking juxtapositions of silence and “outbursts” together with inventive reworkings of longstanding standards. Over many decades he has left a lasting imprint on the field through his influence on countless music students at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music. Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on April 20, 1935, he earned his degree from Bard College while also pursuing studies at Columbia University and at the School of Jazz in his home state. Beginning in 1957, Blake formed a partnership with vocalist Jeanne Lee, and the pair embarked on a European tour in 1963. His first album, The Newest Sound Around, received the RCA Album First Prize in Germany that same year. The successor to his debut, Ran Blake Plays Solo Piano, appeared on ESP in 1965. Two years afterward he joined the jazz faculty at Boston’s New England Conservatory of Music, where fifty years later he remained an active instructor and had also chaired the school’s contemporary improvisation department.

Blake has received fellowships from the Massachusetts Artists Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, and the NEA. His recorded output encompasses Blue Potato (Milestone, 1969); Third Stream Today (Golden Crest, 1977); Film Noir (Novus, 1980); Duke Dreams (Soul Note, 1981); the double-disc survey of jazz standards and international folk music titled Painted Rhythms: The Complete Ran Blake (GM Recordings, 1985); the duo session with Anthony Braxton, A Memory of Vienna (Hatology, 1988); and the duo with Clifford Jordan, Masters from Different Worlds (Mapleshade, 1989). Although his activity lessened during the 1990s, he still produced, among other projects, the Sarah Vaughan tribute Unmarked Van (Soul Note, 1995) and, in a duo with flügelhorn player and trumpeter Enrico Rava, a return to film noir themes and additional material called Duo en Noir (2000) on composer Franz Koglmann’s Between the Lines imprint. That year he also honored hard bop pianist Horace Silver with Horace Is Blue: A Silver Noir.

The next year Blake joined vocalist Sara Serpa for Camera Obscura and issued the trio recording Sonic Temples. Further acclaimed albums followed, among them All That Is Tied (2006), Driftwoods (2009), and the concert set Grey December: Live in Rome (2011). He then worked with singer Dominique Eade on Whirlpool (2011) and reunited with Serpa on Aurora (2012). Kaleidoscope with drummer Jon Hazilla emerged the year after that. Blake next saluted West Coast singer Chris Connor through Cocktails at Dusk: A Noir Tribute to Chris Connor (2014). In 2015 he released the George Russell-themed Ghost Tones and once more collaborated with Serpa on Kitano Noir. A year later he drew inspiration from legendary film noir and French new wave director Claude Chabrol for Chabrol Noir. In 2017 he rejoined longtime associate Eade for Town & Country.