User:Heidi Bayer/sandbox

James Carney (b. October 14, 1963) is an American jazz pianist, composer, and presenter living in Brooklyn, New York.

Carney was born in Syracuse New York, the youngest of four siblings, and began his musical training as a Tuba player. In high school he took up the keyboards and began playing rock and roll gigs along the East Coast with the bands Screen Test and The Eighties. In February 2020 an episode of "The Young Sheldon" featured a song recorded by Screen Test entitled "Make Something Happen". https://www.syracuse.com/entertainment/2020/02/blast-from-the-past-80s-syracuse-bands-song-featured-on-young-sheldon-tv-show.html

An Ahmanson Foundation Scholar, Carney began studying jazz piano and composition at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) under Charlie Haden, David Roitstein and James Newton in 1986. At CalArts, he met, played with and recorded albums with musicians Ravi Coltrane, Ralph Alessi, Peter Epstein and Darek Oles under the first CalArts promotional [http://jazzarchive.calarts.edu/album/1990#show-performers label sponsored by Joe Smith President of Capitol Records in 1990. The featured song was Tracks for the Troubadors].

Carney was discovered by Keyboard Magazine in 1991 by Titus Levi, who explained that Carney's original compositions came from a "Mingus-meets-shorter" mold and his horn arrangements were uplifting and butted up against each other in "contrapuntal webs". In 1992 in a review in the Los Angeles Times

Carney produced his first album in 1993 "Fables from the Aqueduct" which featured Ravi Coltrane, Peter Epstein, Chuck Manning, Scott Mayo, Ralph Alessi, Darek Oles and Dan Morris.

On Carney's third album in 1993 Thread Modern Drummer reviewer Jeff Potter wrote "It's criminal that jazz pianist Carney hasn't cracked the major labels."