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Michael Jefry Stevens
Biography
Pianist/composer Michael Jefry Stevens is a musician at the forefront of both modern mainstream jazz and creative improvised musics. Born March 13, 1951 in New York City, he took early piano studies at five years of age, moved with his family to Florida at age eight, and after many years of practice, took up rock & roll as a teenager playing the Farfisa organ. But he heard modern jazz, specifically Miles Davis and John Coltrane, and it transformed his style. After a short and uninspired stint in college, Stevens returned to N.Y.C. in 1980, studied at Queens College with Sir Roland Hanna, Jimmy Heath and Donald Byrd, eventually receiving a Masters Degree in Music in 1992. But Stevens was already quite active on the Big Apple music scene since the late '80s, working alongside saxophonist Mark Whitecage in the ensemble Liquid Time. The most prolific group the pianist played with was the Mosaic Sextet, which included a young Dave Douglas on trumpet, violinist Mark Feldman, Michael Rabinowitz on bassoon, bassist Joe Fonda and drummer Harvey Sorgen. Subsequent collaborations and partnerships were with the Stevens, Siegel, Ferguson trio, several other ensembles with Fonda and Sorgen, most prominently the Fonda/Stevens Group with Whitecage and trumpeter Herb Robertson, and the cooperative ensemble Conference Call with Fonda and featuring saxophonist/clarinetist Gebhard Ullman.
Selected Discography