Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

MARKOWITZ, Phil

(b 6 September 1952) Pianist, composer and clinician. He taught at Eastman, played with Art Pepper, Miroslav Vitous, the Mel Lewis orchestra, Chet Baker, Al Di Meola, many others; recorded with Baker, the Brecker brothers, on Di Meola's Soaring Through A Dream, on Phil Woods's Astor And Elis. His lovely 'Sno' Peas' was recorded by Bill Evans, who knew a good tune when he heard one. The Joe Locke/Phil Markowitz Quartet with Eddie Gomez and Keith Copeland played at Carnegie Hall in 1984 and made a live album in Rochester, later called Restless Dreams on a Chief CD.

Markowitz's own trio sets were Sno' Peas on Ken Music (with Gomez and Al Foster), In The Woods '94 on Passage (Ray Cumming on bass, Glenn Davis on drums). Sound Tracks '96-7 on Milestone had a quartet playing film themes. The atmospheric and beautifully produced (by Markowitz) Taxi Ride '98 on Passage saw the trio tastefully augmented, with Toots Thielmans on harmonica, Eugene Friesen on cello, and a wordless vocal by Davia Sacks on 'If It Were Me'.

Markowitz has an affinity with reedmen. There is an import on Night Bird called Seven Plus Eight, a duo with saxophonist Maurizio Giammarco; and for many years Markowitz has been working with reedman Dave Liebman: he has played, produced and written on several Liebman albums, and their duo albums on Zoho are But Beautiful (recorded in Osaka) and Manhattan Dialogues (2005). They have also worked together in Saxophone Summit, with Joe Lovano, the late Michael Brecker, Cecil McBee and Billy Hart on bass and drums; a well-received CD was called Gathering of the Spirits, and a new CD and a world tour were planned for Saxophone Summit II, with Ravi Coltrane succeeding the much-missed Brecker. Markowitz has also worked for years with the quartet and big band of New York saxophonist Bob Mintzer (b 27 January 1953, New Rochelle); Mintzer was a soloist in the Buddy Rich band, and also plays in the jazz-rock quartet the Yellowjackets.

A new Markowitz trio set in 2008 was Catalysis, his first album on Sunnyside, with Jay Anderson and Adam Nussbaum on bass and drums.