MWM, jazz pianist, composer, educator and author, seeks musical fulfillment, personal growth and a good recipe for saag paneer. --- Jazz pianist, composer, educator and author Noah Baerman grew up in Connecticut, studying jazz at New Haven's Educational Center for the Arts and at Jackie McLean's Artists' Collective in Hartford. In the 1990s, he earned B.M. and M.M. degrees in Jazz Studies from Rutgers University, where his mentor was Kenny Barron. Aside from Barron, his instructors included Ted Dunbar, Joanne Brackeen, Bill Fielder, Ralph Bowen, Larry Ridley and Michael Mossman.
He also discovered a broad range of music through studies in jazz history with Phil Schaap and Lewis Porter. While at Rutgers, he performed extensively in and around New York with jazz artists including Bowen, Charles Fambrough, Stefon Harris, Rufus Reid, Akira Tana, Mark Turner and many others. From 1994-1999, he co-led the quartet Positive Rhythmic Force, performing throughout the east coast and recording two CDs.
Since then he has participated in numerous recordings as a sideman and under his own name. The second of these, his 2003 release Patch Kit, features the renowned bassist Ron Carter and drummer Ben Riley. By this time, Noah's performing career had been hampered significantly by his struggles with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), an incurable connective tissue disorder, and the tunes on Patch Kit are inspired by the difficulties and humble triumphs associated with this circumstance. Patch Kit was conceived as benefit album for the Ehlers-Danlos National Foundation and a means of raising awareness of EDS, and the album has succeeded on both counts. Patch Kit received significant airplay nationally and received press coverage in such publications as JazzTimes, Jazziz, Jazz Critics (Japan) and All About Jazz ? New York. It also attracted the attention of many musicians, including legendary pianist Marian McPartland, who invited Noah to be a guest on her long-running NPR radio program ?Piano Jazz? in 2005.
Patch Kit was followed by What It Is, a trio album documenting a live performance on Noah's 30th birthday in December, 2003. His next album was 2005 release Soul Force, a tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King's life and message. Soul Force features a large ensemble including such guest artists as trombonist Robin Eubanks, percussionist Warren Smith and saxophonists Steve Wilson, Jimmy Greene, Wayne Escoffery and Claire Daly. The album demonstrates Noah's continued commitment to ?message music? in the tradition of artists like Max Roach, Charles Mingus, Nina Simone and Charlie Haden. In 2008 he released the trio album Bliss and was awarded a ?New Works? grant from Chamber Music America/Doris Duke Foundation to create the extended suite Know Thyself, which was premeired in 2009 at Wesleyan University's Center for the Arts and at the Jazz Gallery in NY before being released in 2010 as an album. Noah is also a member of the collective quintet Playdate, which features Amanda Monaco and Wayne Escoffery and released its eponymous first album on Posi-Tone Records in 2009.
Noah currently lives in Connecticut where he and his wife, visual artist Kate Ten Eyck, are foster parents and passionate advocates for youth issues. He teaches privately and at several institutions including Charter Oak State College and Wesleyan University, where he has directed the Jazz Ensemble since 2007. His teaching style has been codified through a series of well-regarded instructional books published by the Alfred Publishing Company. These include Jazz Keyboard Harmony, the three-volume Complete Jazz Keyboard Method and the Big Book of Jazz Piano Improvisation, as well as an instructional DVD. In 2008, Alfred published the Versatile Keyboardist, his ninth book. Noah is also a prolific composer, having earned honors from the Billboard Song Contest (First Prize, jazz category), the Unisong Contest (First Prize, jazz category), and ASCAP (?ASCAPlus Awards? every year since 2004).