Marc Copland

Born in Philadelphia in 1948, Marc Copland began his career as an alto saxophonist under the name Marc Cohen before switching to piano in the early 1970s — a rare change of instrument at that level in American jazz. Trained in New York, notably at Columbia University, Copland was part of the loft scene and played for a time with Chico Hamilton. From the late 1980s he established a discography as a leader at the piano with My Foolish Heart (1988), followed by All Blues at Night (1992) and Songs Without End (1994), among others. His career has since taken him back and forth between the United States and Europe, most often performing solo, in duo, trio or quartet formats, with regular collaborators such as Gary Peacock, John Abercrombie, Dave Liebman, Drew Gress and Bill Stewart. Marc Copland’s music is situated in modern jazz with post-bop foundations, characterized by often restrained tempos, highly nuanced playing, shifting harmonies and a marked taste for ballads and suspended atmospheres. This approach informs albums such as Haunted Heart and Other Ballads (2001), Time Within Time (2005), Alone (2009), Gary (2018), focused on compositions by Gary Peacock, and John (2020), devoted to John Abercrombie.