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{{short description|American pianist, composer, and educator|bot=PearBOT 5}}
{{Infobox musical artist <!-- See Wikipedia:WikiProject Musicians -->
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| background = non_vocal_instrumentalist
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| occupation = Musician, composer
| instrument = Piano
| years_active = 1950s–present
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'''Ran Blake''' (born April 20, 1935) is an American pianist, composer, and educator. He is known for his unique style that combines blues, [[Gospel music|gospel]], classical, and film noir influences into an innovative and dark jazz sound. His career spans over 40 recording credits on jazz albums along with more than 40 years of teaching jazz at the [[New England Conservatory of Music]], where he started the Department of [[Third Stream]] (now called the Department of Contemporary Improvisation) with [[Gunther Schuller]].
==Early life==
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==Performing and studying==
Beginning in the late 1950s, Blake was part of a duo with vocalist [[Jeanne Lee]].<ref name="Feather" /> Together they recorded his first album ''[[The Newest Sound Around]]'', which was released on [[RCA]] in 1962, and the next year they toured Europe together.<ref name="LarkinJazz">{{cite book|title=[[Encyclopedia of Popular Music|The Guinness
Blake met [[Gunther Schuller]] in a chance encounter at [[Atlantic Records]] in 1959.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> Recognizing Blake's talent, Schuller asked him to study at the School of Jazz in Lenox, Massachusetts. This was a summer program that existed from 1957 to 1960. It was unique in that it brought together many of the world's foremost jazz musicians of the time, including [[Dizzy Gillespie]] and [[William Russo (musician)|William Russo]], to teach students about jazz for an intensive three weeks.<ref>Fitzgerald, Michael (November 1, 1993) [http://www.jazzdiscography.com/Lenox/lenhome.htm "The Lenox School of Jazz"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029055227/http://www.jazzdiscography.com/Lenox/lenhome.htm |date=2013-10-29 }}. jazzdiscography.com</ref> Blake attended the School in 1959 and 1960. During his summers in Lenox, Blake began to develop his signature style. Schuller became a great friend and mentor to Blake throughout his career. Schuller organized the recording of ''The Newest Sound Around'' for Blake and Lee, and it was he who brought Blake to Atlantic Records, and later to the New England Conservatory.
Blake met jazz pianist, composer, and arranger [[Mary Lou Williams]] during a performance at The Composer, a New York nightclub. She later became a mentor and a significant influence on his work. During his time as a student at Bard, Blake often travelled to see Williams perform and to take lessons from her. Later, Williams and Blake worked together while she was a visiting faculty member at the School of Jazz.
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In 1967, Schuller, president of the [[New England Conservatory]], recruited Blake to fill a faculty position as the Conservatory's Community Services Director.<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> In this position, Blake was responsible for putting on concerts in prisons, retirement homes, and community centers. Blake remained in this role until 1973, when he took on the chairmanship of the new Third Stream Department (now Contemporary Improvisation) at the New England Conservatory, an initiative he started with Schuller.<ref>College Music Symposium, Vol. 21, No. 2, Fall, 1981, pp. 192–194.</ref>
Schuller coined the phrase "[[Third Stream]]"<ref name="LarkinJazz"/> in 1957 during a talk at [[Brandeis University]]. According to Schuller, Third Stream is "a new genre of music located about halfway between jazz and classical music". This new genre was created, in Schuller's opinion, to combat purists in both the jazz world and the classical world: to play Third Stream music one had to be proficient in both.{{citation needed|date=October 2022}}
When Schuller met Blake, two years after creating Third Stream, Blake's blend of influences, from free jazz and gospel music to classical composition and film noir soundtracks, appealed to him. When the two of them created the department at the NEC, it was natural that Blake would be the chairman. He remained in that position until 2005. He is a faculty member at the New England Conservatory.{{citation needed|date=October 2022}} Musicians [[Don Byron]], [[Matthew Shipp]], [[John Medeski]], [[Frank London]], [[Grayson Hugh]], and [[Yitzhak Yedid]] have studied with Blake at NEC. He was awarded a [[Guggenheim Fellowship]] for composition in 1982 and a [[MacArthur Fellows Program|MacArthur Genius Grant]] six years later.<ref name="Feather" />
==Recording career==
Blake has continued recording throughout his career as an educator and has amassed over forty recording credits on jazz albums. His first album with Jeanne Lee won the RCA Album First Prize in Germany, the 1980 Prix Billie Holiday, and is part of the Académie du Jazz.<ref name="nec">{{cite web |title=Ran Blake |url=https://necmusic.edu/faculty/ran-blake |website=necmusic.edu |access-date=
After that album, he recorded primarily as a solo pianist, though many of his collaborative albums have received critical acclaim. In 1981, Blake recorded an album of songs by, or associated with, [[Duke Ellington]], entitled ''[[Duke Dreams]]'', which was awarded 4.5 stars by [[AllMusic]], and a five-star rating in Down Beat and the All Music Guide to Jazz.{{citation needed|date=October 2022}} In 1986, he recorded ''[[Short Life of Barbara Monk]]'' with saxophonist [[Ricky Ford]], which was selected by the Penguin Guide to Jazz to be part of their Core Collection. He has collaborated with a number of other musicians, including [[Jaki Byard]], [[Houston Person]], [[Steve Lacy (saxophonist)|Steve Lacy]], [[Clifford Jordan]] and [[Christine Correa]].{{citation needed|date=October 2022}} ==Educational philosophy==
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|Some tracks solo piano; some tracks duo, with David "Knife" Fabris (guitar); one track Fabris (guitar) solo
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*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta5xr2cPyng&t=19s 'Ep. 87: Ran Blake, pianist/composer/educator'] Interview by Tigran Arakelyan
{{Ran Blake}}
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[[Category:Post-bop pianists]]
[[Category:American jazz pianists]]
[[Category:American male jazz pianists]]
[[Category:Musicians from Springfield, Massachusetts]]
[[Category:Bard College alumni]]
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[[Category:20th-century American pianists]]
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[[Category:Ilk Records artists]]
[[Category:Improvising Artists Records artists]]
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