Archive for Dan Tepfer

Giant Steps, from Astrophysics to Jazz

Posted in Jazz, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on January 21, 2012 by telescoper

I’m indebted to Alan Heavens (currently of Edinburgh University, shortly to move to Imperial College) for drawing my attention to outstanding young jazz pianist and composer Dan Tepfer. I’ve been listening to quite a lot of Dan’s music, over the past few days and I think he’s brilliant. What’s even more interesting about him from the point of view of this blog is his background:  he is a former Astrophysics student (at the University of Edinburgh). He changed direction away from academic studies in order to focus on his music, relocated to New York and has subsequently received rave reviews for his performances both live and on various albums. He tours extensively in the USA and worldwide; next time he’s in the UK I’m definitely going to check out one of his live gigs. Do visit his website; as a taster here’s his  highly original (and pretty long) live version of the John Coltrane classic Giant Steps..

7 Comments »