Surprisiingly, pianist Don Bernard started playinhg jazz only recently. As a child, he suffered through classical piano lessons, but felt he owed his mother another shot at "the ivories"  - despite threatening to chop-off his fingers if he could not  find "G" on the piano. These days, Don can safely say, "How about a Gb6#9 for Mom??"

 

During high school, he played bass with the typical garage bands imitating the Beach Boys or The Beatles. While in college, he developed an interest in "Chicago  Bues" after discovering blues legends Buddy Guy and Paul Butterfield. By the early 1970’s, he was playing with "The Maxwell Street Band”   and opened up for "The J. Geils Band" on two occasions.

Don's profession requires extensive, on-going training, and his dedication meant there was no room for music. This was the case until 2001, when he had the good  fortune of meeting a coworker named Frank Wilner who was the DJ and host of the "Frankly Jazz" radio show on local station 103.9-FM in Concord, NH. It was Frank who introduced Don to the music of Bill Evans, Herbie  Hancock, Horace  Silver, and John Coltrane.

 

As a player, his lucky break came when he began studying with Miles Donahue, an incredible jazz saxophonist and compose/arranger who is a contemporary of the late icon Charlie Banacos and the legendary Jerry Bergonzi. To Don's surprise, who would have thought that the best piano teacher would actually be a  virtuoso saxophone player? In Don's opinion, those serious about learning the art of jazz should look him up. ("Thanks, Miles!").