Bill Buchman's Jazz is an always soulful jazz band featuring great New York Musicians..

...delivering inspiring contemporary jazz, latin, BOP, swing, and blues…

…in its incarnations from duo to sextet, Bill’s, music swings.

This is a group of musicians whose exemplary musical capacities, experience, dedication and compatibility enable them to make inspiring music of the first order!

BANDLEADER:

Bill Buchman is a jazz pianist/bandleader with roots and has performed widely around the US, France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway. His style covers a wide range and his thoroughly contemporary group, like him, has a foundation in everything from bop, soul jazz, Latin, and swing to down home blues.. Bill has played with jazz greats such as Jo Jones (of Count Basie fame), Bobby Hackett, Red Callender, Alan Dawson, Sammy Rimington, John La Porta, Joe Muranyi, Joe Lee Wilson, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Per Goldschmidt, Emmanuel Abdul Rahim and Nils”Bert”Dahlander. Bill studied piano at the New England Conservatory of Music and received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees there. There, Bill did long term studies with Jaki Byard and Ran Blake, two leading exponents of jazz and Third Stream music. Bill also took courses with George Russell, John Lewis and Joe Maneri and in more recent times studied and performed with latin music with master drummer/composer Emmanuel Abdul Rahim. 

Press:

“The real thing ….an altogether outstanding jazz pianist…. dynamic, expressive, and colorful”  Kjeld Frandsen - Berlingske Tidende, Denmark’s national newspaper.

“Buchman plays each note precisely where it is of greatest value’ -  Ricardo Perez, KSFR, Santa Fe Public Radio

 ‘ ...originality, creativity, and rhythm…Bill Buchman’s trio encompasses all these and more! – Tom Macek, WRRG, Chicago

Education:

Piano and music studies with Jaki Byard, Ran Blake, George Russell, John Lewis, Emmanuel Abdul Rahim, Joe Maneri, Margaret Chaloff, and Dan Ricigliano. Received Bachelor’s and Master’s in Music from the New England Conservatory of Music.

Band Members:

Waldron Mahdi Ricks -Trumpet, Flugelhorn

Trumpet player Waldron Ricks has played alongside many contemporary jazz greats and has played at top venues as a leader and sideman in New York City, in Boston and in  Europe. In New York, he has played with David Murray, Greg Tardy, Buster Williams, Mike Longo, the Charlie Persip Big Band, the Mingus band and the Basie Band and toured Europe with James Carter. As a sideman, Ricks performed as part of the John Coltrane Memorial Concert in Boston, Mass., from 1994 – 1999, featured alongside such jazz greats as Cecil McBee, Teri Lynn Carrington, Shirley Scott, Bill Pierce and Frank Foster.

Waldron, whose musician father gave him his first lessons, has studied in Detroit with Marcus Belgrave, and in NY with Barry Harris, Tommy Turrentine, and Wallace Roney and is a graduate of the The New England Conservatory of Music and has a Masters degree in Music Education from Lehman College.  

Alex Gressel - Bass

Dynamic bassist Alex started playing in theaters in his native Austria and and played jazz for 5 years in Copenhagen, Denmark and thereabouts. There and here in the US Alex has had the great fortune to play with many world-class musicians such as the originator of Bossa Nova and Samba Jazz drumming, Edison Machado, with Marilyn Mazur, Clarence "C" Sharpe, Mark Thompson, Cecil Payne, Gil Coggins, Sadik Hakim, Tommy Turrentine, Mozar Terra, Johnny O'Neal, Gene Bertoncini, Houston Person, Roni Ben-Hur. He played, as well, in the bands of Rio Clemente, Warren Chiasson, Roy Meriwether Philip Harper and David Gibson.

Studies include with Helge Ploug-Christensen at the Royal Danish Music Conservatory from '75-'79, with Cecil McBee and Michael Moore at Long Island University; with John Tchicai, Jens Jefsen, and NHØP in Denmark, and with Jay Leonhart and Morris Edwards in New York

Larry Johnson - Drums

Experienced Drummer Larry Johnson has worked with Donald Byrd, Stanley Turrentine, Hank Crawford, Roy Ayers, Lou Donaldson, and Olu Dara. He has toured all over the U.S., Europe, the Caribbean and Canada and played as well in South Africa, Hong Kong and Okinawa and Tokyo, Japan. Larry studied as a youth at the Youngstown Academy Music. Under Jim Vivo. and, following that, at North Texas State University.