Gary Brunotte is an American post-bop

Post-bop

Post-bop is a term for a form of small-combo jazz music that evolved in the early-to-mid sixties. The genre's origins lie in seminal work by John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Charles Mingus, Wayne Shorter and Herbie Hancock...

 jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 musician, noted as a pianist, organist

Organ (music)

The organ , is a keyboard instrument of one or more divisions, each played with its own keyboard operated either with the hands or with the feet. The organ is a relatively old musical instrument in the Western musical tradition, dating from the time of Ctesibius of Alexandria who is credited with...

, music arranger

Arrangement

The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...

, and composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

.

Brunotte began on accordion

Accordion

The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....

 at age 9, but switched to organ and then piano in his 20s while attending college. He was an instructor at the Berklee College of Music

Berklee College of Music

Berklee College of Music, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known primarily as a school for jazz, rock and popular music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including hip...

 in [Boston from 1977-1980. While living in Boston, he studied piano with Charlie Banacos

Charlie Banacos

Charlie Banacos was an American pianist, composer, author and educator, concentrating on jazz.Banacos created over 100 courses of study for improvisation and composition. His concepts of teaching and his courses influenced educators since the late 1950s...

.

Upon leaving Berklee he moved to New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 where he received a National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

 grant to write a big band suite for the Boston

Boston

Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...

 based Herb Pomeroy Big Band

Herb Pomeroy

Irving Herbert "Herb" Pomeroy, III was an influential swing and bebop jazz trumpeter and educator...

 in 1981. From 1987-1991 he worked at Coda Music Software and was instrumental in the development and release of a music notation software called Finale written by Phil Farrand

Phil Farrand

Phil Farrand is an American computer programmer and consultant, webmaster and author. He is known for his Nitpicker's Guides, in which he nitpicks plot holes and continuity errors in the various Star Trek television programs and movies, and for the creation of Nitcentral, a website devoted to the...

.

In 1992 Brunotte recorded his debut CD for distribution by the Altenburgh record label. It included saxophonist Eric Marienthal

Eric Marienthal

Eric Marienthal is a Los Angeles-based contemporary saxophonist best known for his work in the jazz, jazz fusion, smooth jazz, and pop genres....

, plus two members from the group Flim & the BB's

Flim & the BB's

"Flim & The BB's" was a contemporary jazz band that became popular not only to jazz fans but also "tech-heads" because of the methods and type of equipment and technology that went into their recordings...

. From 2004-2007 he recorded three additional CDs under his own label again using drummer Bill Berg

Bill Berg (musician)

Bill Berg is a noted drummer in jazz and fusion music, best known for his work with the group Flim & the BB's, as well as guitarist Wayne Johnson. He also served as the drummer for fellow Hibbing, Minnesota native Bob Dylan's notable record Blood on the Tracks.Berg has also recorded and worked...

 formerly of Flim & the BB's

Flim & the BB's

"Flim & The BB's" was a contemporary jazz band that became popular not only to jazz fans but also "tech-heads" because of the methods and type of equipment and technology that went into their recordings...

. In 2008 he released a CD on the Sincopato Records label with former Berklee classmate and good friend, Gian Wiegner. It was a quartet (organ/guitar/bass/drums) format. Brunotte currently resides in Durham, North Carolina

Durham, North Carolina

Durham is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the county seat of Durham County and also extends into Wake County. It is the fifth-largest city in the state, and the 85th-largest in the United States by population, with 228,330 residents as of the 2010 United States census...

 and graduated in 2010 with a Master of Music Degree - Jazz Studies from North Carolina Central University

North Carolina Central University

North Carolina Central University is a public historically black university in the University of North Carolina system, located in Durham, North Carolina, offering programs at the baccalaureate, master’s, professional and doctoral levels....

.

Select discography

• Yesterdays Dream - 1993
• Conversations - 2005
• Smile - 2006
• Manic Moments 2007
• About Time - 2008

External links