Ran Blake
Ran Blake atBach Dancing & Dynamite Society, Half Moon Bay, California, June 14, 1987
Background information
Born	(1935-04-20)April 20, 1935 (age 90) Springfield, Massachusetts, United States
Genres	Jazz
Occupations	Musician, composer
Instrument	Piano
Years active	1950s–present
Website	ranblake.com

Ran Blake (born April 20, 1935) is an American pianist, composer, and educator. He is known for his unique style that combines blues,gospel, classical, and film noir influences into an innovative and dark jazz sound. His career spans over 40 recording credits on jazz albums along with more than 40 years of teaching jazz at theNew England Conservatory of Music, where he started the Department ofThird Stream (now called the Department of Contemporary Improvisation) withGunther Schuller.

Blake was born inSpringfield, Massachusetts, on April 20, 1935.^[1] He grew up inSuffield, Connecticut, and became fascinated by film noir after seeingRobert Siodmak'sSpiral Staircase as a twelve-year-old. He began playing piano as a young child, and as a teenager studied with Ray Cassarino. In his teenage years, he developed a love for gospel music and studied the compositions ofBéla Bartók andClaude Debussy.^[2] After high school, he attendedBard College in New York, graduating in 1960 with a Bachelor of Arts degree^[1] in Jazz, a major that had not previously existed at the school. At Bard he metJeanne Lee, with whom he performed for many years. He also studied withJohn Lewis,Oscar Peterson, andGunther Schuller^[1] at the School of Jazz inLenox, Massachusetts.

Beginning in the late 1950s, Blake was part of a duo with vocalistJeanne Lee.^[1] Together they recorded his first albumThe Newest Sound Around, which was released onRCA in 1962, and the next year they toured Europe together.^[3] The album shows Blake's signature style beginning to develop, as they paid homage to Blake's early influences with a tribute to David Raksin's "Laura" and a reworking of the gospel standard, "The Church on Russell Street". Lee and Blake continued to play together throughout their careers and released another album in 1989 entitledYou Stepped out of a Cloud.

Blake metGunther Schuller in a chance encounter atAtlantic Records in 1959.^[3] Recognizing Blake's talent, Schuller asked him to study at the School of Jazz in Lenox, Massachusetts. This was a summer program that existed from 1957 to 1960. It was unique in that it brought together many of the world's foremost jazz musicians of the time, includingDizzy Gillespie andWilliam Russo, to teach students about jazz for an intensive three weeks.^[4] Blake attended the School in 1959 and 1960. During his summers in Lenox, Blake began to develop his signature style. Schuller became a great friend and mentor to Blake throughout his career. Schuller organized the recording ofThe Newest Sound Around for Blake and Lee, and it was he who brought Blake to Atlantic Records, and later to the New England Conservatory.

Blake met jazz pianist, composer, and arrangerMary Lou Williams during a performance at The Composer, a New York nightclub. She later became a mentor and a significant influence on his work. During his time as a student at Bard, Blake often travelled to see Williams perform and to take lessons from her. Later, Williams and Blake worked together while she was a visiting faculty member at the School of Jazz.

In 1966, Blake released his first record as a soloist,Ran Blake Plays Solo Piano, on New York-based labelESP Disk.

In 1967, Schuller, president of theNew England Conservatory, recruited Blake to fill a faculty position as the Conservatory's Community Services Director.^[3] In this position, Blake was responsible for putting on concerts in prisons, retirement homes, and community centers. Blake remained in this role until 1973, when he took on the chairmanship of the new Third Stream Department (now Contemporary Improvisation) at the New England Conservatory, an initiative he started with Schuller.^[5]

Schuller coined the phrase "Third Stream"^[3] in 1957 during a talk atBrandeis University. According to Schuller, Third Stream is "a new genre of music located about halfway between jazz and classical music". This new genre was created, in Schuller's opinion, to combat purists in both the jazz world and the classical world: to play Third Stream music one had to be proficient in both.^{[citation needed]}

When Schuller met Blake, two years after creating Third Stream, Blake's blend of influences, from free jazz and gospel music to classical composition and film noir soundtracks, appealed to him. When the two of them created the department at the NEC, it was natural that Blake would be the chairman. He remained in that position until 2005. He is a faculty member at the New England Conservatory.^{[citation needed]}

MusiciansDon Byron,Matthew Shipp,John Medeski,Frank London,Grayson Hugh, andYitzhak Yedid have studied with Blake at NEC. He was awarded aGuggenheim Fellowship for composition in 1982 and aMacArthur Genius Grant six years later.^[1]

Blake has continued recording throughout his career as an educator and has amassed over forty recording credits on jazz albums. His first album with Jeanne Lee won the RCA Album First Prize in Germany, the 1980 Prix Billie Holiday, and is part of the Académie du Jazz.^[6]

After that album, he recorded primarily as a solo pianist, though many of his collaborative albums have received critical acclaim. In 1981, Blake recorded an album of songs by, or associated with,Duke Ellington, entitledDuke Dreams, which was awarded 4.5 stars byAllMusic,^[7], a five-star rating in Down Beat^{[citation needed]} and the All Music Guide to Jazz.^[8]

In 1986, he recordedShort Life of Barbara Monk with saxophonistRicky Ford, which was selected by the Penguin Guide to Jazz to be part of their Core Collection. He has collaborated with a number of other musicians, includingJaki Byard,Houston Person,Steve Lacy,Clifford Jordan andChristine Correa.^{[citation needed]}

Blake's philosophy in teaching differs from that of many music educators, even in the jazz world. He calls his approach "the primacy of the ear^[9]". In 1977, he wrote an article for the Music Educator's Journal on having a career as a "Pop/Rock/Jazz instrumentalist".^[10] Blake also wroteThird Stream and the Importance of the Ear (1981), which served as a guide to his educational style, as well as an explanation and expansion upon the concept ofThird Stream.^[11]

In the article, he stressed that "the ear is and should be of primary importance." He discussed the more practical aspects of a career in music and stressed the importance of luck and showmanship over education and background. Blake's focus on improvisation and ear training, coupled with his diverse influences, have made him one of the more innovative music educators of the jazz world. He invites the reader to view Third Stream composition as any composition that bridges two distinct musical cultures, not just classical-jazz fusion. He also stresses the importance of improvisation, and cites the need for improvisational education as one of the reasons he and Schuller started the Third Stream Department at the NEC. Blake argues that music is an aural art, and it must therefore be taught not by being "preoccupied with playing Chopin preludes on the piano or the latest copy ofThe Real Book (a popular jazz fake book) on the horn or guitar,"^[11] but by dedicated listening, imitating, and improvising. He calls for students to listen and sing along to melodies on tape until they can reproduce the melody without the tape. It is essential, according to Blake, that a student do this before touching an instrument, as imitating the mechanics of a performance alone does not develop one's ear.

In 2010, Ran Blake published a book with Jason Rogers entitledThe Primacy of the Ear. In the 144-page work, Blake details his thinking about the artistic process and distills his approach both to teaching and playing. It explores the relationship between the ear and the mind, musical memory, ear training exercises, and an approach to developing one's personal style.^[9]

An asterisk (*) after the year indicates that it is the year of release.

• Ran Blake – official site
• Ran Blake discography atDiscogs
• Ran Blake at NPR Music
• 'Ep. 87: Ran Blake, pianist/composer/educator' Interview by Tigran Arakelyan

• 1935 births
• Living people
• Third stream pianists
• Post-bop pianists
• American jazz pianists
• American male jazz pianists
• Musicians from Springfield, Massachusetts
• Bard College alumni
• MacArthur Fellows
• New England Conservatory faculty
• Novus Records artists
• Milestone Records artists
• Avant-garde jazz pianists
• ESP-Disk artists
• 20th-century American pianists
• Jazz musicians from Massachusetts
• Ilk Records artists
• Improvising Artists Records artists
• Music & Arts artists
• Sunnyside Records artists
• Black Saint/Soul Note artists
• Impulse! Records artists
• 20th-century American male musicians
• NoBusiness Records artists

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