Sponsor-An-Artist

Support the Artist…
Support the Music…

Show your support for the artist by sponsoring their promotion.

1. Contribute funds to upgrade their promotion level
2. Contribute funds to extend their current promotion

Show your support for the music by buying CDs.

Sponsor-An-Artist
Today for Tomorrow

Jon Weber

"Jon Weber is a virtuoso, pure and simple." It's a wonderful thing when jazz insiders from all over the world enthusiastically discover an intelligent, creative young talent like Jon Weber. A spectacular solo pianist, his brilliantly crafted spontaneous orchestrations easily place him in the rarefied company of today's elite jazz musicians.

The youngest of 7 children, Jon's musical passion (plus absolute pitch and recall) surfaced at age 3 on a toy organ. By 6, he internalized 2000 standards from his Grandma's piano rolls, reharmonizing, improvising and constantly shuffling the deck rythmically and harmonically. As a teenager, Jon prodigiously scribbled musical ideas on every piece of paper available. Multiple-clef orchestrations penciled upon hundreds of envelopes, notebooks (and occasionally actual staff paper), filled his room and schoolbooks. By age 19, Jon's jazz quintet (all original music) had opened up for Pat Metheney, Buddy Rich, Freddie Hubbard, Angela Bofil, and Stanley Turrentine at various major summer jazz festivals. Jon's compositional flurry raged nonstop until age 22. "I fell under the spell of solo pianists Art Tatum and Dave McKenna, and for the last two decades, I've concentrated on absorbing their orchestral concepts into my own musical vocabulary."

Since 1989, Jon has performed a Sunday-Thursday gig at Chicago's Four Seasons Hotel with time off for Jazz Festivals. "Whenever a stellar performer joined me onstage (Stevie Wonder, Wynton Marsalis, Bobby McFerrin) I longed to perform with my own original ensemble again." "Last summer, I rediscovered manuscripts I'd written in high school and started calling every great musician I knew. 'SIMPLE COMPLEX' took on a life of its own very quickly." Weber's quintet, the surprise hit of Melbourne's January 2003 International Jazz Fest, inspired this review by "The Age" newspaper: "The tunes are mind-bendingly complex with overlapping time signatures, accent shifts, and rhythmic feels that swerve from Cuban montunos to Indian tabla patterns to straight-ahead jazz at the blink of an eye. Weber spiked his challenging charts with infectious latin grooves while fellow musicians rode the odd-metered passages with unflappable poise."

Weber's quickly becoming a favorite at New York's 92nd Street "Y" jazz series, performing piano duos with Dick Hyman, the late Sir Roland Hanna, Cyrus Chestnut, and Bill Charlap. Jon Weber, a true original, is rapidly emerging as a youthful, singular personality in jazz.

"SIMPLE COMPLEX," released in May 2004 (2ndCenturyJazz Records), features Jon on piano, drummer Mark Walker, tenor sax master Eric Alexander, trumpeters Diego Urcola...

"SIMPLE COMPLEX," released in May 2004 (2ndCenturyJazz Records), features Jon on piano, drummer Mark Walker, tenor sax master Eric Alexander, trumpeters Diego Urcola and Roy Hargrove, bassists Avishai Cohen, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, and Peter Washington, plus vibraphonist Gary Burton. "How lucky can a guy get?!" adds Jon. "World-class players - each giving a 100th percentile performance."

Number 1 Jazz CD of 2004 - Chicago Tribune
"The originality of his compositions, the ingenuity of his arrangements and the high sheen of the ensemble performances he leads on SIMPLE COMPLEX force the listener to reassess Weber's gifts. Even Weber's most ardent fans never could have guessed that the man can write and arrange at such an exalted level. Every cut on this disc, in fact, offers a distinct world of expression, as articulated by Weber and such luminaries as vibist Gary Burton, saxophonist Eric Alexander, flügelhornist Roy Hargrove and guitarrist John Moulder among others." - Howard Reich