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Fusing jazz and Broadway in his compositions
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BY: RONNA A. NOVELLO Special Sections Editor
Ezra Weiss chose a musical instrument for his high-school rock band based on a very sound premise: The chick factor.
The instrument that generates the most attention from girls? A guitar.
“Often what gives a musician his start is that it’s a good way to pick up girls,” Weiss notes with a laugh during a phone interview with the CJN. After that, talent moves to the forefront, and these days, it’s what Weiss counts on to garner his share of the spotlight.
The jazz composer/pianist comes to Nighttown in Cleveland Heights Tues., Oct. 30, at 7 p.m. with the Ezra Weiss Quartet, featuring drummer Billy Hart.
Weiss, 28, a native of Phoenix, Ariz., was a late bloomer musically. No child prodigy, but a nice Jewish boy who was bar mitzvah at Temple Beth Israel. He played saxophone in the school band at age 10 and started piano at 12, followed by stints in the high-school marching, jazz and concert bands.
Actively involved in children’s theater, he loved all the old Broadway musicals. His dad had a big collection of all the shows, from “Kiss Me Kate” to “West Side Story,” one of his early favorites. “I’d listen to the records and then run out to rent the movies.” Toward the end of high school, Weiss’s tastes broadened. Dad’s collection also had included Ray Charles and Carmen McRae. The seeds were sown for soul and jazz. “At some point, I heard Miles Davis, and after that I knew that’s what I wanted to do,” he says. “I wanted to write music. I wanted to be like Stephen Sondheim.”
Exit stage right to Oberlin College. The Ohio liberal arts school sent Weiss a flier proclaiming, “Think one person can change the world? So do we.” The idealist in him thought, “Sure, I’m going to change the world” and Oberlin was the place to do it.
“That really caught my attention,” he admits. “Phoenix is pretty conservative, and Oberlin is not. I wanted to be somewhere different from where I’d grown up.”
He played Cleveland a few times during the Oberlin years, several with his own band. “I wish I’d been a better pianist back then,” he remarks wistfully.
Even talented musicians can find music school intimidating. Everyone who’s there can play his or her instrument; it’s the range of skills that sets one student apart from another.
“You’re learning all these skills, and they’re new to you,” Weiss explains. “If it hasn’t clicked yet and you’re with a lot of people who’ve already got it, well, people can be cruel. I was never serious about practicing piano until I got to college.”
Weiss started hitting the keyboard seriously in grad school at Queen’s College, New York City, where he majored in jazz piano.
From New York, he moved back to Phoenix, then to Portland, Ore., a city he’d lived in several years before. He’s settled in there for a while, closer to his folks, “the most supportive people.”
Weiss works for the Northwest Children’s Theater in Portland, directing musical theater. “We do a really cool class called ‘How to write a rock musical,’” he says. “During one hardcore week in summer, the kids write a rock musical from scratch and perform it. It’s intense and frustrating but very rewarding.”
In addition to his theater work, teaching piano and composing commissions help put bread on Weiss’s table between gigs. Right now, he’s working on a big band score for Willamette University and a transcription of some of Billy Hart’s music.
Composition is his first love. He enjoys featuring other instruments in his pieces and working with band members. Weiss’s new album “Get Happy” is his third. It’s about relationships and the search for happiness n looking back at the past, the adrenalin rush of new love, the sting of disappointment when things don’t work out, and the yearning for happiness but not quite achieving it.
“In the end, it’s all about acceptance,” Weiss notes. “I tend to like a lot of really personal, emotional kinds of music. An album’s got to have happy moments.”
“I wanted to write music. I wanted to be like Stephen Sondheim.”
Ezra Weiss
The instrument that generates the most attention from girls? A guitar.
“Often what gives a musician his start is that it’s a good way to pick up girls,” Weiss notes with a laugh during a phone interview with the CJN. After that, talent moves to the forefront, and these days, it’s what Weiss counts on to garner his share of the spotlight.
The jazz composer/pianist comes to Nighttown in Cleveland Heights Tues., Oct. 30, at 7 p.m. with the Ezra Weiss Quartet, featuring drummer Billy Hart.
Weiss, 28, a native of Phoenix, Ariz., was a late bloomer musically. No child prodigy, but a nice Jewish boy who was bar mitzvah at Temple Beth Israel. He played saxophone in the school band at age 10 and started piano at 12, followed by stints in the high-school marching, jazz and concert bands.
Actively involved in children’s theater, he loved all the old Broadway musicals. His dad had a big collection of all the shows, from “Kiss Me Kate” to “West Side Story,” one of his early favorites. “I’d listen to the records and then run out to rent the movies.” Toward the end of high school, Weiss’s tastes broadened. Dad’s collection also had included Ray Charles and Carmen McRae. The seeds were sown for soul and jazz. “At some point, I heard Miles Davis, and after that I knew that’s what I wanted to do,” he says. “I wanted to write music. I wanted to be like Stephen Sondheim.”
Exit stage right to Oberlin College. The Ohio liberal arts school sent Weiss a flier proclaiming, “Think one person can change the world? So do we.” The idealist in him thought, “Sure, I’m going to change the world” and Oberlin was the place to do it.
“That really caught my attention,” he admits. “Phoenix is pretty conservative, and Oberlin is not. I wanted to be somewhere different from where I’d grown up.”
He played Cleveland a few times during the Oberlin years, several with his own band. “I wish I’d been a better pianist back then,” he remarks wistfully.
Even talented musicians can find music school intimidating. Everyone who’s there can play his or her instrument; it’s the range of skills that sets one student apart from another.
“You’re learning all these skills, and they’re new to you,” Weiss explains. “If it hasn’t clicked yet and you’re with a lot of people who’ve already got it, well, people can be cruel. I was never serious about practicing piano until I got to college.”
Weiss started hitting the keyboard seriously in grad school at Queen’s College, New York City, where he majored in jazz piano.
From New York, he moved back to Phoenix, then to Portland, Ore., a city he’d lived in several years before. He’s settled in there for a while, closer to his folks, “the most supportive people.”
Weiss works for the Northwest Children’s Theater in Portland, directing musical theater. “We do a really cool class called ‘How to write a rock musical,’” he says. “During one hardcore week in summer, the kids write a rock musical from scratch and perform it. It’s intense and frustrating but very rewarding.”
In addition to his theater work, teaching piano and composing commissions help put bread on Weiss’s table between gigs. Right now, he’s working on a big band score for Willamette University and a transcription of some of Billy Hart’s music.
Composition is his first love. He enjoys featuring other instruments in his pieces and working with band members. Weiss’s new album “Get Happy” is his third. It’s about relationships and the search for happiness n looking back at the past, the adrenalin rush of new love, the sting of disappointment when things don’t work out, and the yearning for happiness but not quite achieving it.
“In the end, it’s all about acceptance,” Weiss notes. “I tend to like a lot of really personal, emotional kinds of music. An album’s got to have happy moments.”
“I wanted to write music. I wanted to be like Stephen Sondheim.”
Ezra Weiss
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