Album Notes

Terry Disley – Biography 2008.

Terry Disley was born in London where he studied piano and theory of music from age 8. He spent the next 12 years studying classical repertoire, jazz, composition, piano accordion, saxophone, harmony and arranging at the Salterton School of Music. He began composing at age 11 and by 13 was writing for his own electric/acoustic chamber group. Since then he has gone on to write for a multitude of ensembles including string quartets, electronic contemporary dance music, jazz (both big band and small groups), ambient music, vocal scat jazz, film scores and contemporary pop songs.

In 1982 Terry and the Latin / jazz group Macondo won the Best Young Jazz Musician’s of the year award in London. As a highly acclaimed jazz pianist he appeared many times at London’s prestigious Ronnie Scott’s club opening shows for such jazz icons as McCoy Tyner, Cedar Walton, Jimmy Heath and Monty Alexander. He also played a series of engagements at Peter Ind’s Tenor Clef Club in London with quartets featuring legends Eddie Henderson, John Stubblefield, Cecile Payne, and Urbie Green.

He composed tracks for both of the Grammy Award nominated albums “Reference Point” and “Aart” by British new age jazz group Acoustic Alchemy, with whom he toured and recorded extensively throughout the 80’s and 90’s. He also wrote “the Beautiful Game” for Alchemy – a top ten hit for 16 weeks resulting in a top twenty placement in the “Best Contemporary Jazz Album of 2000” – Billboard Magazine.

As a player and performer Terry was featured soloist with London’s Metropolitan Orchestra on the soundtrack or the film “Beautiful Girls” starring Matt Dillon and Uma Thurman, in which Timothy Hutton played the part of a pianist for whom Terry created the music. He was also featured on soundtracks for “The Ref”, “Showgirls” and “Crime Time” along with Marianne Faithful. In 1997 he composed the music for the motion picture ‘Monument Avenue’, directed by Ted Demme and starring Dennis Leahry.

He collaborated with pop star Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame on a whole range of projects throughout 1992-97. One highlight was opening concerts at 5 Bob Dylan shows in Tokyo in 1997 to an audience of 5,000 people each night – although his largest audience thus far was when he played to 85,000 people with UK ska / reggae band Madness at the Roskilde Festival in Denmark. He was Dave Stewart’s musical director for 5 years, recording 25 albums and 4 major motion picture soundtracks. As a session player in London he was much in demand working on projects with Sir Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Bryan Ferry, Mick Jagger, Brian Wilson, Van Morrison, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Tom Jones and Bon Jovi.

Since 1997 he has lived in San Francisco recording and performing with his own projects, recording three solo albums in amongst his touring schedule, session and arranging work. From 1999 – 2002 he fronted a jazz trio “Three Thinking” at the Ana Mandara - actor Don Johnson’s Vietnamese style club and restaurant. In 2002 he was featured alongside Yellow Jackets musicians Will Kennedy (drums), and Marc Russo (sax), on J Thompson’s CD Romantic Night, and in 2003 he co-wrote the music for the San Francisco Oracle World Convention with Chris Hedge from the Magnetic Poets. Terry performed a solo piano improvisation on this theme to an audience of 15,000 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco accompanied by a state of the art hi-tech laser light display.

Reuniting with his old band mates Acoustic Alchemy (2004-2006) he one again toured America and the UK, this time as Special Guest Artist featuring some of his own material along with tracks from the release “The Best of Acoustic Alchemy.”

Terry formed his own group “The Terry Disley Experience” in 2003 and released the first of a series of albums. The “Experience” album put him firmly on the map in the contemporary jazz radio market and the track “Side to Side” was voted by 17,047 KKSF Radio 103.7 listeners as the best unsigned artist track of the year. He subsequently released the CD’s “Across the Pond” (2006) and “London Underground” (2008).

This latest product “London Underground” was officially released in May 2008 to a sold out show at Yoshi’s Jazz Club in San Francisco. Terry’s piano pyrotechnics on this CD has been likened to that of Joe Zawinul, McCoy Tyner and Gonzalo Rubalcabo (Keyboard Magazine 2008).

Website - www.terrydisley.com