Pianist Dan Cray is one of the most dynamic young jazz artists working today. Jazz Radio Berlin has hailed him as a "key figure when it comes to escorting jazz into the new millennium," while the Indianapolis Star enthused that his playing had "both the depth and the playfulness characteristic of jazz piano at its best."

 

Dan was a finalist for both the 2004 American Pianists Association Cole Porter Fellowship and the 2003 Montreux Jazz Festival Solo Piano Competition, and has performed around the world with his group and others.

 

For the past 10 years, Dan has led a group with good friends bassist Clark Sommers and drummer Greg Wyser-Pratte. Together they've released four CDs as the Dan Cray Trio: Who Cares (2001), No One (Blujazz 2003), Save Us (Blujazz 2005), and Over Here Over Heard (Crawdad 2008). Dan has also been privileged to work with a number of other established jazz musicians and ensembles, including Eddie Johnson, Bobby Broom, Ira Sullivan, Orbert Davis, Eric Schneider, George Fludas, Kurt Elling, Ari Brown and the Chicago Jazz Orchestra.

 

He also works frequently in a duo context with saxophonist Geof Bradfield. Dan graduated with bachelor degrees in Jazz Studies and European History from Northwestern University, where he studied with Donald Isaak and Michael Kocour.