Lynne Arriale

Pianist/composer Lynne Arriale’s career is graced by a love of melody and a joy of musical discovery. Arriale has performed on international concert and festival stages over the past 25 years. The consummate storyteller, she immediately connects with her listeners. JazzTimes wrote, "She achieves a special, deep connection with her audience, and the energy flows both ways. Arriale’s emotional authenticity allows her audience to feel and think along with her… Lynne Arriale’s music lies at the synaptic intersection where brain meets heart, where body meets soul. She is one of jazzdom’s most intensely unique voices."

At the core of Arriale’s appeal is her ability to communicate with her band and listeners. "The poet laureate of her generation” (Jazz Police), her performances and recordings with her trio led to comparisons with the great trios of Bill Evans and Keith Jarrett, yet she has been consistently praised as having a "singular voice" as a pianist, leader, composer, and arranger. "I really can’t compare her to anyone," said recent collaborator and multi-Grammy winner Randy Brecker. "Her music transcends the word ‘jazz’ – it is just pure music."

Arriale was the first prize winner of the 1993 International Great American Jazz Piano Competition, and soon launched her touring and recording career. Her 13 CDs as a leader have topped the Jazzweek Radio Charts; Inspiration and Arise reached #1 and Come Together #3, Nuance #4 and were included on numerous "Best Of" lists, including The New Yorker and United Press International. Her tenth trio recording, LIVE (CD/DVD) was named one of UPI’s Best Jazz CDs and among The New Yorker Magazine’s Best CDs of the year. Solo was named one of the top CDs of 2012 by JAZZIZ Magazine, and Convergence was named one of the top 50 CDs of 2011 by JazzTimes.

She was selected to substitute for Marian McPartland with the 100 Golden Fingers tour of Japan with iconic jazz pianists Tommy Flanagan, Hank Jones, Monty Alexander, Cedar Walton, Kenny Barron, Harold Mabern, Roger Kellaway, Junior Mance and Ray Bryant. Arriale has performed and/or recorded with jazz greats Randy Brecker, George Mraz, Benny Golson, Rufus Reid and Marian McPartland, to name a few. Her international performances on concert and festival stages include the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Montreux, Burghausen, Gilmore, Spoleto Arts, Montreal, Monterey, North Sea, Stuttgart, Pori, San Francisco, Ottawa, Zagreb, Perth, Brisbane, Rouen, Cannes MIDEM, Sardinia, Rochester, Wigan, Poznan, Estoril, Palermo, Inverness, Cork and San Javier. Arriale has toured Brazil, Germany, Austria, Serbia, Poland, Switzerland, Italy, Croatia, France, Belgium,The Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Greece, Australia, Japan, Spain, Portugal, South Africa, England, Ireland, Scotland, Canada, China, South Africa and the U.S.

Arriale’s live TV and radio appearances and concert performances include Profile of a Recording Artist, NPR’s Weekend Edition, Jazz Set, Piano Jazz with Marian McPartland, NPR’s Jazz Piano Christmas, CNN/FN Biz, the BBC, Radio France and German National Television.Press features include Billboard, Downbeat, JazzTimes, JAZZIZ, BBC Magazine, The London Times and cover stories for JazzEd, One Way and M Magazines.

A devoted educator and Yamaha artist, Arriale is currently Professor of Jazz Studies and Director of Small Ensembles at The University of North Florida in Jacksonville. She has served as a faculty member of the Jamey Aebersold Summer Jazz Workshops, the Centrum Port Townsend Jazz Workshop, the Thelonious Monk Institute in Aspen and numerous clinics and workshops worldwide, including the US, UK, Europe, Canada, Brazil and South Africa. She is a member and piano pedagogy representative of The Jazz Education Network and has adjudicated the Montreux Jazz Competition, American Pianists Association Fellowship Awards, The Kennedy Center’s Mary Lou Williams Competition and the Jacksonville Piano Competition. With jazz icon Toshiko Akiyoshi, she was a featured mentor at The Mary Lou Williams Emerging Artist Workshop at the Kennedy Center.

Arriale’s affinity for music and specifically the piano was evident early on, but well outside a jazz context. Adopted as an infant, she grew up in Milwaukee and was given a plastic toy piano at age 3. Playing by ear, she soon had a repertoire of songs that she had learned from the radio and records, mostly from Broadway musicals. Throughout her school and college years, she studied classical music, earning a master’s degree before turning to jazz. “Discovering the unlimited creative potential and artistic freedom in jazz changed my life,” said Arriale.

Later she learned that her biological mother was a jazz vocalist; perhaps there is something to heredity, given her reverence for songful melodies. Motema Music's founder, Jana Herzen, refers to Lynne’s "singer’s-like" ability to connect with an audience… "Though she played the piano and not a sound came from her lips, I had the distinct impression I was listening to a singer."

Arriale always sings when she is practicing and composing. "I have found that the key to expressive playing and truly spontaneous improvisation is singing," says Arriale." I focus on the melody regardless of where spontaneous improvisation takes me. I search for the 'heart' of the song, find what makes it special to me and use it as musical inspiration.It is very important to me that my music has a vocal quality and a heart connection. It’s a lifelong process to teach my fingers how to sing."

“Lynne Arriale’s remarkable career is graced by a rare commitment to authenticity and vulnerability defined by careful craft and high artistic standards. It is precisely this willingness to remain so emotionally exposed that makes her performances so accessible to music lovers of all kinds” (All About Jazz). Show less

Lynne Arriale Trio: Being Human

Read "Being Human" reviewed by Pierre Giroux

by Pierre Giroux
April 9, 2024

In the album Being Human, the Lynne Arriale Trio has crafted a release that delves into many dimensions of our shared humanity. Accompanied by the rhythmic backbone of bassist Alon Near and the pulsating energy of drummer Lukasz Zyta, the trio embarks on an exhilarating sonic journey. A suite of ten original compositions is the frame on which Arriale hangs her musical narrative. Many of the tracks are dedicated to those who have inspired her life, ...

Album Review

Lynne Arriale: Being Human

Read "Being Human" reviewed by Doug Collette

by Doug Collette
March 5, 2024

It is worth (re)stating what a balm to the soul is good jazz music. Still, on her seventeenth album as a leader, pianist/composer Lynne Arriale expounds upon that verity with bassist Alon Near and drummer Lukasz Zyta, all the while refraining from overstatement. In so doing, Arriale and company extend the conscious decision to emphasize empathy as captured on her previous album, The Lights Are Always On (Challenge Records, 2022). A rush of rippling piano at the outset ...

Album Review

Lynne Arriale: Being Human

Read "Being Human" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic

by Mike Jurkovic
February 28, 2024

In need of some serious uplift? Try Being Human, a sure high water mark for pianist/composer Lynne Arriale. Locked into that too often wayward network of connections between heart, brain and her vividly emotive lyricism, Arriale's seventeenth artistic statement serves as a conduit to our shared hopes, dreams, thoughts, prayers, and best wishes for a better world. Lithesome and balletic, with a feminine mystique and facility that's essential yet hard to define, Being Human throws a warm light ...

Catching Up With

Lynne Arriale: A Suite Of Hope In Chaotic Times

by Anya Wassenberg
June 20, 2022

Pianist/composer Lynne Arriale's The Lights Are Always On (Challenge Records, 2022) is a suite of compositions that reflects on the tumultuous period of history we live in. Through the chaos, though, she offers a message on hope and the indomitable nature of the human spirit. “The theme of the album was inspired by an interview that I heard with Dr. Prakash Gatta, who is a physician who was treating COVID patients," Arriale explains. She had been struck, in ...

Album Review

Lynne Arriale Trio: The Lights Are Always On

Read "The Lights Are Always On" reviewed by Jack Bowers

by Jack Bowers
June 8, 2022

Music with “a message" need not be inscrutable or bombastic, as pianist/composer Lynne Arriale proves time and again on The Lights Are Always On, whose ten original Arriale compositions are dedicated to caregivers, healers, truth-tellers and defenders of democracy in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and the brazen hoax-fueled attack on the U.S. Capitol building on January 6, 2021. In fact, much of the music on Arriale's sixteenth album as leader is more understated than emphatic, ...

Radio & Podcasts

New Releases Plus Birthday Celebrations for Charles Mingus, Bessie Smith and More

by Mary Foster Conklin
April 25, 2022

This broadcast presents a burst of new releases from saxophonists Jessy J and Bill Kirchner (a 2013 live concert featuring Carol Fredette), vocalists Deanne Matley (her tribute to Oscar Peterson), Mark Winkler and a single from Robin McKelle, pianist Lynne Arriale and the USAF Airmen of Note featuring Diane Schuur, with birthday shoutouts to Charles Mingus, Bessie Smith, Pete Malinverni, Judy Wexler, Haruna Fukazawa and Carol Fredette among others. Thanks for listening and please support the artists you hear by ...

Radio & Podcasts

A Look Back at Notable Recordings Composed by Women in 2020

by Mary Foster Conklin
January 11, 2021

Happy New Year! The broadcast begins 2021 with a look back at some of the notable 2020 releases made despite the disruption of the pandemic and all of its difficulties. Thanks for listening and please continue your support of the artists you hear by purchasing their music during this time of lockdown.Playlist Anne Sajdera “New Year" from New Year (Bijuri) 00:00 Kenny Washington “The Best Is Yet To Come" from What's the Hurry (Lower 9th Records) 05:06 Host ...

Performance / Tour

With Fierce and Elegant Conviction: Lynne Arriale in the Twin Cities

Source: JazzINK by Andrea Canter
February 8, 2013

So what do Hoagy Carmichael, Abduallah Ibrahim, Monk, Sting and Blondie have in common? Lynne Arriale. At any given performance, on any recent recording, the pianist's set list can cover all of the above, along with a good sampling of her own compositions. This may not seem all that unusual in this era of modern jazz artists taking on, and taking apart, anything from the full genre labeled “music." What is more unusual is finding an artist of Arriale's caliber ...
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Performance / Tour

Motema Artist Lynne Arriale On Tour In Support of New Album, "Solo"

Source: Jason Byrne, Red Cat Publicity
March 5, 2012

"Lynne Arriale's brilliant musicianship and bandstand instincts place her among the top jazz pianists of the day" —The New York Times Motéma Proudly Releases SOLO The Compelling & Intimate New Solo Piano Recording From Pianist/Composer LYNNE ARRIALE LYNNE ARRIALE—ON TOUR: Lynne's “Solo," featuring Omer Avital, bass/oud & Anthony Pinciotti, drums NEW DATE JUST ADDED

March 10—Yoshi's, San Francisco, CA March 11—Bach Dancing and Dynamite, Half Moon Bay, CA March 13-14—Dimitriou's Jazz Alley, Seattle, WA March 15-16—Dazzle, Denver, CO March 17—Yardbird ...
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Recording

Motéma Proudly Releases Solo The Compelling New Recording From Lynne Arriale

Source: Jason Byrne, Red Cat Publicity
February 15, 2012

"Lynne Arriale's brilliant musicianship and bandstand instincts place her among the top jazz pianists of the day" —The New York Times Motéma Proudly Releases SOLO, The Compelling & Intimate New Solo Piano Recording FromPianist/Composer LYNNE ARRIALE LYNNE ARRIALE—ON TOUR: Lynne's “Solo," featuring Omer Avital, bass/oud & Anthony Pinciotti, drums March 11—Bach Dancing and Dynamite, Half Moon Bay, CA March 13-14—Dimitriou's Jazz Alley, Seattle, WA March 15-16—Dazzle, Denver, CO March 17—Yardbird Suite, Edmonton, Canada March 18שrd Sunday Jazz Series, Moline, IL ...
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Performance / Tour

Two-Fer Next Weekend? Second, Catch Lynne Arriale at Exodus to Jazz Saturday Evening...

Source: Jazz@Rochester
April 4, 2011

Whether or not you caught Antonio Ciacca Trio earlier in the day at Naz, pianist Lynne Arriale makes a stop on her tour promoting a new Motema disc Convergence at Exodus To Jazz, 8:00 pm on April 9th at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation. She will be there with a killing group, joined by saxophonist JD Allen, Omer Avital on bass and Johnathan Blake on drums. Arriale was here last summer playing sets at the Xerox Auditorium during the ...
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Radio

The Jazz Session #233: Lynne Arriale

Source: AAJ Staff
January 20, 2011

211

Contest

Announcing the Winners of the "Motema - 4 CD" Giveaway!

Source: All About Jazz
February 8, 2010

261

Contest

Enter the Motema Music 4-CD Giveaway!

Source: All About Jazz
January 1, 2010

All About Jazz members are invited to enter the Motema Music 4-CD giveaway contest starting today. Five winners will win all four CD's listed below at the conclusion of the contest on February 1st. Click here to enter the contest

(Following Lynne Arriale at AAJ automatically enters you in the contest.)

Good luck! Your Friends at Motema Music

Lynne Arriale - Nuance

Critically acclaimed for her 'singular voice' as a pianist, leader, composer, arranger ...
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Performance / Tour

Lynne Arriale "Nuance" Tour Continues with Chicago's Jazz Showcase Show - May 21-24

Source: All About Jazz
May 17, 2009

Star Lynne Arriale Headlines Show At Chicago's Jazz Showcase Featuring Hans Glawischnig and Anthony Pinciotti May 21 - May 24 Showtimes at 8:00pm & 10:00pm Plus Added Show: Sunday May 24th @ 4:00pm Jazz Piano Star LYNNE ARRIALE is set to perform at Chicagos popular Jazz Showcase, Thursday MAY 21-Sunday May 24, with 2 shows each night, at 8:00PM and 10:00PM, plus Sunday added show at 4:00PM. Jazz Showcase is located at Dearborn Station, 806 S. ...
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Performance / Tour

The Lynne Arriale Nuance Quartet only NYC Appearance on May 19th at 7:30pm & 9:30pm

Source: All About Jazz
May 15, 2009

Lynne Arriale headlines show at New York's Jazz Standard Only NY area performance “The Lynne Arriale Nuance Quartet" Featuring Lynne Arriale, Randy Brecker, George Mraz and Anthony Pinciotti Tuesday, May 19th - 7:30pm & 9:30pm (New York, NY) Jazz Piano Star Lynne Arriale's The Lynne Arriale Nuance Quartet is set to perform two shows at Manhattans Jazz Standard club (116 East 27th Street), Tuesday, May 19th at 7:30PM and 9:30PM. In addition to Ms. Arriale, the show features the amazing ...
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Recording

Lynne Arriale Set to Release "Nuance - The Bennett Studio Sessions" CD/DVD on May 12

Source: All About Jazz
March 19, 2009

New York, NY- Motema Music proudly announces the release of Lynne Arriale's Nuance The Bennett Studio Sessions featuring Randy Brecker, George Mraz and Anthony Pinciotti, on sale May 12, 2009. In a departure from her ten previous trio recordings, leader/composer/arranger Arriale is collaborating with an extraordinary new lineup of iconic musicians: Grammy winning Randy Brecker on trumpet/flugelhorn; jazz legend George Mraz on bass; and critically acclaimed Anthony Pinciotti on drums.

The project was recorded at the multi-Grammy and Emmy Award ...
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Primary Instrument

Piano

Clinic/Workshop Information

"Can you really teach jazz? In the space of three hours, Arriale laid my mind to rest. She possesses that rare gift of reducing complex and intangible issues to inspirational basics." –The London Times Lynne Arriale is currently Associate Professor of Jazz Piano, Director of Small Ensembles at the University of North Florida in Jacksonville and a Yamaha Artist. She is dedicated to helping students discover and develop their unique musical gifts and learn the art of jazz improvisation. Lynne also teaches privately, either in person, by phone or Skype and would be happy to discuss the possibility of your taking lessons with her. WORKSHOPS & CLINICS Lynne Arriale has the unique ability to articulate the essential elements of the process of becoming a jazz musician