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Verified Global Musician

Craig Taborn

Craig Taborn is a pianist, electronic keyboardist, composer, improviser, and bandleader working across solo, ensemble, and installation forms.

PianoElectronic keyboardsComposerImproviser5 current shows

Photo source · Photo: Dirk Neven, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Career Overview

About Craig Taborn

Taborn's official biography identifies the Minneapolis-born musician as a pianist, electronic keyboardist, improviser, and composer. It describes a practice that moves between acoustic and electronic sound, structured composition and open improvisation, and solo and ensemble work.[1]

The artist and ECM catalogs trace leader recordings from Light Made Lighter and Junk Magic through the solo-piano albums Avenging Angel and Shadow Plays, the Daylight Ghosts quartet, and the 60xSixty web installation. His biography also documents more than two hundred sideman appearances without treating that breadth as permanent project membership.[1][2][3]

Ensembles and Career Threads

Bands & Projects

Pianist, composer, and improviser

Solo piano

Avenging Angel and the fully improvised concert Shadow Plays frame Taborn's exploration of piano texture, space, structure, and spontaneous form.[1][4][6]

Leader, pianist, and electronic keyboardist

Daylight Ghosts

The ECM quartet joins Taborn with Chris Speed, Chris Lightcap, and Dave King in a setting that combines acoustic and electronic sound.[5]

Composer and installation artist

60xSixty

Launched 2021

Taborn's site presents sixty short works in randomized sequence as a web installation about the subjective experience of time.[1][2]

Selected, Not Exhaustive

Recordings to Know

2011 · ECM Records

Avenging Angel

Solo pianist and composer

Taborn's first ECM leader album is a thirteen-piece solo-piano recording made at Auditorio RSI in Lugano.[4]

Release details

2017 · ECM Records

Daylight Ghosts

Quartet leader, pianist, and electronic keyboardist

The quartet album brings piano and electronic keyboards together with reeds, bass, and drums in Taborn's third ECM leader release.[5]

Release details

2021 · ECM Records

Shadow Plays

Solo pianist and improviser

Recorded live at the Vienna Konzerthaus in 2020, Shadow Plays documents a fully improvised solo recital.[6]

Release details

Artist-Authorized Destinations

Start Listening

Official music guide

Browse Taborn's leader recordings, collaborations, installations, and artist-selected purchase or listening paths.

ECM artist catalog

Hear samples and review personnel for Taborn's solo, trio, quartet, and collaborative ECM recordings.

60xSixty installation

Start the artist's randomized sequence of sixty approximately one-minute electronic and acoustic pieces.

Live Calendar

Upcoming Jazz DateBook Shows

Fri, Sep 11, 7:00 PM

Kevin Hays - Album Release

The Jazz Gallery · New York

Show details

Fri, Sep 11, 8:00 PM

Prism Quartet + Craig Taborn

Solar Myth · Philadelphia

Show details

Fri, Sep 11, 9:00 PM

Kevin Hays - Album Release

The Jazz Gallery · New York

Show details

Sat, Sep 12, 7:00 PM

Kevin Hays - Album Release

The Jazz Gallery · New York

Show details

Sat, Sep 12, 9:00 PM

Kevin Hays - Album Release

The Jazz Gallery · New York

Show details

Sources

Career copy is original synthesis from the artist, label, and project sources below. Current dates come from Jazz DateBook event inventory.

  1. [1] Official biography

    Craig Taborn

  2. [2] Official recordings and installations guide

    Craig Taborn

  3. [3] Label artist catalog

    ECM Records

  4. [4] Avenging Angel release and audio

    ECM Records

  5. [5] Daylight Ghosts release and audio

    ECM Records

  6. [6] Shadow Plays release and audio

    ECM Records