Harlem Speaks - Bill Kirchner, Saxophonist

Bill Kirchner is an award-winning saxophonist, composer-arranger, bandleader, record and radio producer, jazz historian, and educator. His jazz ensemble, the Bill Kirchner Nonet, has appeared at major festivals, concerts, and nightclubs since 1980. His latest CDs (on A-Records) are Trance Dance with the Nonet and Some Enchanted Evening, a collection of duets with pianists Michael Abene, Marc Copland, and Harold Danko. The Nonet also has recorded two albums for Sea Breeze Records:What It Is To Be Frank and Infant Eyes. For over a decade, Kirchner has been closely involved with jazz Recordings—as a producer and liner-notes annotator—for Blue Note, BMG, Challenge, Columbia, Denon/Savoy, Fantasy, GRP, Mosaic, the Smithsonian Collection of Recordings, Verve, and Warner Bros. He received a 1995 NAIRD Indie award for “Best Liner Notes” for the Smithsonian’s Big Band Renaissance: The Evolution of the Jazz Orchestra and a 1996 Grammy for “Best Album Notes” for Miles Davis and Gil Evans: The Complete Columbia Studio Recordings. He teaches advanced jazz composition, jazz history, and score analysis at the New School University in New York City. He also teaches graduate courses at New Jersey City University and a Duke Ellington course at Manhattan School of Music.