Bio

Laura Klein was born in New York City and started attend­ing the Man­hat­tan School of Music’s prepara­tory school at age seven. She majored in music at SUNY Buf­falo, study­ing with mas­ter pianists Rus­lana Antonow­icz, Leo Smit, and Yvar Mikashoff. After receiv­ing her degree, she attended Berklee School of Music where she stud­ied jazz per­for­mance, com­po­si­tion and arrang­ing with Mick Goodrick, John La Porta, Phil Wil­son, and oth­ers. She was hired by the great drum­mer Joe Hunt to be in his trio, and while liv­ing in Boston, played with Bob Mover, Ron Hor­ton, Jamie Baum, Frank Lon­don, George Schuller, Ken Fil­liano, Ira Cole­man, and many of the other musi­cians on the Boston scene at that time. While at Berklee she met her future hus­band and musi­cal part­ner, guitarist/composer/arranger Tony Cor­man, reeds player Dave Tid­ball, and drum­mer Alan Hall. She also began a long musi­cal col­lab­o­ra­tion with vibra­phon­ist Ted Wolff, whose men­tor, the great Gary Bur­ton, brought him onto the Berklee faculty.

Upon relo­cat­ing to the San Fran­cisco Bay Area in 1984, Laura per­formed with John Dankworth and the SF Sym­phony, with the Rudi Salvini Big Band (with lumi­nar­ies Allen Smith and Johnny Coles), and in the Benny Barth trio. She and her hus­band formed the group Tricer­atops, which appeared at Yoshi’s, Kimball’s, Jazz on the Hill, SF Per­for­mances, and numer­ous fes­ti­vals. Band mem­bers included Jim Zim­mer­man, Dean Reilly, Jeff Cress­man, Dave Eshel­man, Clark Gay­ton, Jules Row­ell, and other top Bay Area musicians.

Since then, Laura has led a busy free-lance per­form­ing life, shar­ing the stage with many Bay Area musi­cians includ­ing Clairdee, Jason Lewis, Jackie Ryan, Nico­las Bearde, Ed Reed, Noel Jewkes, Alan Hall,  Bob Ken­motsu, Leon Joyce, Jr., John San­tos, Mary Fet­tig, Chris Amberger, Des­tiny Muham­mad, Ruth Davies, Roger Glenn, Kay Kostopoulous, Mar­cus Shelby, and count­less oth­ers. She has per­formed with numer­ous big bands includ­ing the Morches­tra, the CSM Band, and the Mont­clair Women’s Big Band, and played in Steve McQuarry’s Trib­ute to Carla Bley at SF Jazz.

Laura has appeared with her own trio and quar­tet at SF Jazz, Pied­mont Piano, Sacra­mento Jazz Coop­er­a­tive, JB Piano, Healds­burg Jazz,  Sun­set Music Series, Cal­i­for­nia Jazz Con­ser­va­tory, and other venues. She and her hus­band, guitarist/composer Tony Cor­man, per­form together as TonaLaura Jazz Duo. They co-lead Five­Play Jazz Quin­tet, which per­forms their orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions. FivePlay’s mem­bers include Dave Tid­ball and bassist Paul Smith.  Five­Play has four CDs, all of which have received national and inter­na­tional air­play.  Guest artists with Five­Play include the late Eddie Mar­shall, Ron Hor­ton, Clairdee, and Celia Mal­heiros. The group has per­formed widely in the Bay Area, includ­ing Yoshi’s, the  Cal­i­for­nia Jazz Con­ser­va­tory, Vallejo Jazz, Pied­mont Piano, Red Poppy Art House, and the Sound Room, done two live con­cert broad­casts on KPFA-FM, and been fea­tured twice on Jim Bennett’s “In The Moment” on KCSM-FM. FivePlay’s per­for­mance of Laura’s com­po­si­tion, “Glow In the Dark”, was fea­tured on the sound­track of the doc­u­men­tary, “The Grant Green Story”.

Laura’s record­ings include: Five­Play Jazz Quin­tet, Five of Hearts, Five and More, Cerulean Blue (with Ted Wolff), Tricer­atops, and Jenny Fer­ris’ Day In, Day Out.

Jim Ben­nett  pro­duced and recorded a con­cert of Laura’s com­po­si­tions, per­formed by Laura Klein, Jason Lewis and Jeff Neigh­bor, which was broad­cast on KCSM-FM’s “In the Moment” series. Laura was also fea­tured on Alisa Clancy’s “Desert Island Jazz” pro­gram on KCSM.

Laura is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of the Alexan­der Tech­nique at the Cal­i­for­nia Jazz Conservatory.

To con­tact Laura Klein about book­ings, obtain­ing CD’s, or to get on an email list for future appear­ances, email her.