John Esposito

Who is John Esposito?

John Esposito is an American jazz pianist of advanced bebop tendencies. Known as a composer for his own groups and a versatile sideman capable of all styles from stride piano to free improvisation, he is a pianist highly influenced by modernism, and capable of playing off of several rhythmic and harmonic levels at once. As manifested in music for his quintet and trio, Esposito's compositions are couched in an expansion of bebop harmony, often using rhythmic schemes of complex and suble metric modulation. Some of his pieces are transformations of jazz standards rendered unrecognizable by such techniques as running the chord progression backwards, or using a complex system of chord substitutions.

Born in Brooklyn, Esposito was raised in the Hudson Valley in a family that included policemen but also artists and musicians. His grandfather, a violin maker, was a jazz violinist and reed player, and played in the 1920s with the Paul Whiteman Orchestra. Esposito attended the State University of New York at Albany. Majoring in musical composition, he drew influences from visiting composers who came through, including John Cage, Robert Ashley, Frederic Rzewski, and Elliot Carter.