January 31-2014
. . . classicist, too
Dahveed Behroozi is not a big name in the jazz field in the United States—at least not yet.
But at the age of 32, his first album is about to be released.
Behroozi is a jazz pianist and composer steeped, like many modern jazz artists, in European classical music. He has spent about 10 of the past 15 years studying, teaching and performing around New York City.
But now he is returning to the San Francisco Bay area, to San Jose where he was born and reared. He has accepted a job offer from San Jose State University where he will be teaching jazz piano, while also offering classes in jazz and classical piano at Santa Clara University.
But his debut album, “Games,” is the biggest development in his life. A live trio session with bassist Thomas Morgan and drummer Tim Bulkley, the album consists of six original Behroozi compositions that reflect his immersion in the classical repertoire and his facility as an improviser following in the footsteps of such conservatory-trained jazz masters as Bill Evans and Fred Hersch.
“The writing is pretty structured, but I’d say it’s about half composed and half improvised,” says Behroozi.
“The majority of the music was written after my masters in classical piano, and a lot of those ideas come from Mozart, Bach and Brahms, analyzing those harmonic concepts.”
Andrew Gilbert, writing for the San Jose Mercury News, said, “Judging from performances I heard around the Bay Area seven or eight years ago, Behroozi could have documented his playing back then and received due recognition as a highly promising new voice. The pianist is making a relatively late recording debut as a leader because he holds himself to an exacting standard.”
Behroozi told Gilbert he recorded quite a few sessions before “Games” but was “never 100 percent happy about them. Finally I came to a place where I was happy enough. ‘Games’ wasn’t an intentional thing. It was a concert where we played all original material the first set, and I was really happy with both the sound and the energy between the audience and performers.”
Music flows in his Persian veins. His father, guitarist Bahram Behroozi, was a longtime music professor at San Jose City College, and the paternal side of his family, which hails from Iran and now resides mostly in Los Angeles, includes numerous artists and musicians.
He began studying violin and piano around the age of eight and was drawn to big band swing while attending middle school, where he played in the jazz band.
In high school, he joined the orchestra and concentrated on the violin.
Before long, he made the move to New York, where he spent three years at the Manhattan School of Music studying with Fred Hersch, “a life-changing experience,” Behroozi says. “That’s where I really learned to practice and the fundamentals of piano playing. I spent most of my time on transcriptions and exploring the [Great] American Songbook.”
After graduating, he came back to the Bay Area, where he performed widely and taught at San Jose City College. But he was eager to return to New York. Pursuing his passion for classical music, he enrolled in a master’s program at the Brooklyn College Conservatory of Music.