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All Music Guide:
Jazz pianist Joel Forrester co-founded the witty jazz ensemble the Microscopic Septet with saxophonist Philip Johnston, associated with Thelonious Monk, and plays solo and with his ensemble People Like Us. All of his work reveals an individualistic blend of composition and improvisation, including the theme song he composed for NPR's show Fresh Air.
Born in Pennsylvania, Forrester moved to New York as a young man to pursue his interest in jazz piano. While there, he met Thelonious Monk, who inspired him to focus on "music that hadn't been written yet." Toward that end, Forrester played with various groups in the New York jazz scene, including the Illustrious Others, whose works were collected in the 1999 release Joel Forrester & the Illustrious Others.
By 1980, Forrester established himself as a fixture in the city's experimental jazz scene, playing with like-minded musicians that included Philip Johnston, whose Microscopic Septet was just beginning to form. Forrester joined the group, becoming its longest-running member second only to Johnston himself. Throughout the group's decade-plus-duration, Forrester wrote about half of the group's prolific output, which combined a big-band-like lineup with experimental composition techniques.
When the Microscopic Septet ended in 1992, Forrester continued to play solo gigs in New York and Paris and resumed playing in different ensembles. These included Joel Forrester's Private Life and People Like Us, his second long-running group.
People Like Us pays homage to Monk with its bebop leanings, but also reveals the complex, often witty composition skills Forrester honed with the Microscopic Septet. The group also features former Micros Dave Hofstra and Dave Sewelson; along with baritone saxophonist Claire Daly, who also played with the all-female big band Diva; and the late, great drummer Denis Charles, who also worked with Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman during his long, memorable career. With People Like Us, Forrester has recorded three albums: 1997's No ... Really, 1998's In Heaven, and 1999's Believe It; as a solo artist, he released Stop the Music in 1997.
Wikipedia:
Joel Forrester, American jazz composer and pianist. He is notable for having composed the theme song to NPR's Fresh Air.
Forrester was born on May 2, 1946 and was reared in Pittsburgh. He has played jazz piano professionally since age 15; his first composition (based on an Erroll Garner lick) was entitled “Tiber Rag” and was submitted as a high-school Latin project in 1962.
Forrester was further educated at Ohio University and while there furnished music for the early films of Andy Warhol , a fellow Pittsburgher. He was involved in the Civil Rights Movement, registered voters in Montgomery, Alabama, in spring of 1965 and was a draft resister during the Vietnam War, serving several months in prison in 1970/71.
Joel and the former Mary Harrison, a dancer, married in 1970; they have had one child, Max. In 1973, following several years on Federal parole (passed in Boston and San Francisco), Forrester moved to New York City where he has lived and worked ever since. In the late 1970s, Joel was introduced to Thelonious Monk by a friend, Baroness Pannonica deKoenigswarter. He received Monk’s personal encouragement - Monk told Forrester "You can play!" and advised him to concentrate on making new compositions.
With saxophonist Phillip Johnston, Forrester co-founded, in 1981, the Microscopic Septet, with which he played, composed, toured, and recorded for 12 years. When the band broke up in 1992, Forrester took his family to Paris where they lived for a year. While there, he developed a second musical career as an improvising accompanist to silent film, earning the plaudits of the Paris Free Voice, which called him "the world's finest" at that lost art. In coming years, he would play for films in the leading museums of Paris: The Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, the Forum des Images.
Back in New York, Joel founded the quartet PEOPLE LIKE US, featuring Claire Daly on baritone saxophone; its original drummer was Denis Charles. He recorded extensively for KOCH International, working with producer Donald Elfman. He currently (2012) maintains a quintet and trio in New York and a quintet in France.
In addition to the theme to Fresh Air, Forrester's 1650 compositions (as of 2012) include the 8-hour repetitive piano piece “Industrial Arts” and the off-Broadway satire Fascist Living, which closed after two performances in 2000.
At 66 (2012), Forrester continues to find steady work as a pianist specializing in his own compositions and gigging an average of five times a week. His piano styles include stride, ragtime, boogie-woogie, bop, and trance." He records for Elfman's Ride Symbol label; he has been selected for five years running to do a week of outdoor concerts in New York's Bryant Park; he is a perennial winner of a BMI composition award; and Downbeat commissioned and published his essay on making a life in music.
