Creative jazz pianist, composer, and bandleader
Edward Simon was born in Punta, Cardón, Venezuela in 1969, first traveling to the United States in 1981 at 12 years of age and attending the Performing Arts School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After graduating at age 15, he studied classical piano and music performance under a scholarship at Philadelphia’s University of the Arts, then moved on to the Manhattan School of Music, where he studied jazz piano and music performance. By 1988 he was performing and recording professionally;
Simon made his first recorded appearance on the 1988
Greg Osby album Mind Games, and the following year he joined saxophonist
Bobby Watson's
Horizon ensemble, remaining with the band until 1994 and appearing on such
Watson albums as
The Inventor (1990), Present Tense (1992), and Midwest Shuffle (1994). Upon departing
Watson's group,
Simon became a member of trumpeter
Terence Blanchard's band between 1994 and 2002; the pianist can be heard on a number of
Blanchard albums, including
Romantic Defiance and the score to the
Spike Lee-directed movie Clockers (both 1995),
The Heart Speaks (1996), the score to the Kasi Lemmons film Eve's Bayou (1997), and
Let's Get Lost (2001). During these years,
Simon also appeared on recordings by the likes of guitarist
Kevin Eubanks, alto saxophonist
Dave Binney, flutist
Herbie Mann, and tenor saxophonist
Mark Turner.
Simon's debut as a leader arrived in 1994 with
Beauty Within on the Audioquest label; the album also introduced listeners to
the Edward Simon Group, a trio featuring the pianist accompanied by electric bassist
Anthony Jackson and drummer
Horacio "El Negro" Hernández. The following year found
Simon recording and releasing an eponymous sophomore album with a new trio featuring bassist
Larry Grenadier and drummer
Adam Cruz, along with occasional support from
Turner on tenor saxophone and
Milton Cardona on percussion.
Simon expanded his ensemble beyond the post-bop piano trio format for 1998's La Bikina, including both
Turner and
Binney on saxophones and
Diego Urcola on trumpet in addition to drummer/percussionist
Cruz, bassist
Ben Street, percussionist
Pernel Saturnino, and
Cardona contributing vocals. However, the ensuing years would see
Simon continue to explore the possibilities of the piano-bass-drums trio with a series of recordings including 2003's
The Process (with bassist
John Patitucci and drummer
Eric Harland); 2004's
Simplicitas (with bassist
Avishai Cohen and drummer
Adam Cruz); and 2006's
Unicity, 2009's
Poesía, and 2013's
Trio Live in New York at Jazz Standard (all with
Patitucci and drummer
Brian Blade).
Meanwhile,
Simon and
Binney co-founded the collaborative creative jazz quartet Afinidad in 2000; the band (with bassist
Scott Colley and drummer
Brian Blade) released an eponymous debut in 2001 and
Océanos in 2007. In 2003
Simon founded Ensemble Venezuela, an ambitious project melding creative jazz with the traditional musics of his home country, and in 2005 he received a Chamber Music America commission to compose Venezuelan Suite for the ensemble.
Simon assembled ten musicians (including saxophonist
Turner and drummer
Cruz) from the United States, Venezuela, and Colombia to record the suite at Brooklyn's Systems Two studio in 2012; the album Venezuelan Suite was released by the Sunnyside label in January 2014.
Simon is also a member of
the SF Jazz Collective. ~ Dave Lynch