Biographical Entry #1

Ray Skjelbred has been a featured piano soloist in concerts and festivals for many years. He has appeared at the West Coast Ragtime Festival, Breda Jazz Festival in Holland, the America's Finest City Festival in San Diego, the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland and many others. He has also led his own groups (the Ray Skjelbred Quartet, the Great Excelsior Jazz Band, Berkeley Rhythm, the Yeti Chasers, Ray Skjelbred and his Cubs, the Monogram Boys, and the First Thursday Band) and has played and recorded with most of the leading traditional jazz musicians of the past few decades. Ray has worked with Turk Murphy's Jazz Band, Bob Mielke's Bearcats, Hal Smith's Roadrunners and with a variety of other groups that included or were led by Dick Oxtot, Ev Farey, Jim Goodwin, Bob Helm, Bill Napier, Richard Hadlock, John Gill, Clint Baker, Chris Tyle, Monte Ballou, Kim Cusack, Simon Stribling and many others.

He currently works most often with Bob Schulz and the Frisco Jazz Band, Simon Stribling's New Orleans Ale Stars, Glenn Crytzer and his Syncopators, and his own First Thursday Band (which plays regularly at the New Orleans Creole Restaurant in Seattle's Pioneer Square). Ray has also been a chosen accompanist for jazz and blues singers such as Barbara Dane, Barbara Lashley, Rebecca Kilgore, Claire Austin, Pat Yankee, Carol Leigh and the legendary Victoria Spivey.

His piano work appears on the Triangle/Rhythm Master, Solo Art, Arcola, Pianomania, Euphonic, Stomp Off, Jazzology, Berkeley Rhythm and Orangapoid labels.

Ray Skjelbred usually performs an eclectic mix of early jazz standards, blues, barrelhouse, classic ragtime, unexpected pop tunes and original compositions.

To engage Ray Skjelbred as a piano soloist,
or his Quartet (Katie Cavera, Clint Baker and Hal Smith)
or his band "Ray Skjelbred and his Cubs"
(Katie, Clint, Hal plus the great Kim Cusack on clarinet),
or his other group "The First Thursday Band"
(Steve Wright, Dave Brown, Mike Daugherty)

Contact Ray Skjelbred at
rayskjelbred@gmail.com

Biographical Entry #2

Actually I'm just a neighborhood kid growing up in Chicago and growing older in Seattle, all at the same time! I have generally thought of myself as an English teacher first (retired in the last year), then pianist and poet. My life has had the human influence of family, farmers, cowboys, baseball players, actors, writers and musicians, but perhaps I feel most affected  by rivers, forests and mountains.

I listen to red-winged blackbirds, wooden bats hitting baseballs, wind moving through poplar trees and dog yawns. Also music---Norwegian Hardanger fiddle music, Tibetan horns, Charles Ives, old cowboys and jazz. I always lean toward sounds that reassure me of the truth and beauty of the world we inhabit.

Burt Bales

I love music that shows passion, daring and surprise. For me, the pianists I admire who most represent these ideas and to whom I listen most often are Earl Hines, Jess Stacy, Joe Sullivan, Mary Lou Williams, Art Hodes, Thelonious Monk, Zinky Cohn, George Zack, Cassino Simpson, Horace Henderson, Frank Melrose, Jimmy Yancey, Big Maceo, Bill Evans, Burt Bales, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Paul Lingle, Alex Hill, Sir Charles Thompson and Eddie Whitley.

I am proud that my father came from Norway, that my mother's family consisted of farmers in Wisconsin and that my wife and children are good guides and partners in my life.

Quotes

He plays so good it scares me. - Jess Stacy

Tremendous ability and imagination - Turk Murphy

Ray's playing is the ultimate illustration of jazz as the "sound of surprise.'" - Hal Smith

No money can pay your true value - Barbara Dane

What an honor, Ray! I listen to this cd (Pass the Jug) so often and it gets better each time. How could it go wrong with the genius of Ray Skjelbred.

- Ida Melrose, daughter of "Kansas City" Frank Melrose

...the nearest to Art Hodes I've ever heard.

- John G. Featherstone (Storyville Magazine)

Jess Reincarnate. - Dick Neeld (Jersey Jazz)

In Ray Skjelbred we have another two-handed pianist whose inspirational melodic vision is partnered by a driving left-hand that needs no bass or drums to prop it up.

- Clarrie Henley (Jersey Jazz)

You are really a great musician and authentic jazzman.

- John Simmen, Swiss jazz critic.

I really appreciate the depth and soul of your playing. - Bill Carter

Like any good Chicagoan he always plays hard for right now...

- Richard Hadlock

The sheer range of Skjelbred's mastery is impressive, but his application of jazz taste and historic awareness (in context of the styles) is equally dazzling.

- William J. Schaefer (Pass the Jug review, Mississippi Rag)

Burt Bales performing at Pier 23, 1959