Jon Weber, the Chicago-based pianist, stands out as a post-bop specialist whose supple technique and sensitivity to intricate harmonic structures define his approach. Though largely self-taught, he showed an early gift for transforming familiar melodies, so that by the age of three he could regularly be heard picking out children’s songs on a toy organ. During his teenage years he began writing original material and led his own jazz quintet, which sometimes opened for headliners such as Freddie Hubbard and Stanley Turrentine. At roughly sixteen he took up the guitar and mastered counterpoint on his own, a discipline that soon led to arranging assignments for several Midwestern groups, among them the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. After high school Weber enrolled at Wisconsin University and made Chicago his permanent base in the late 1980s. Since settling there he has collaborated as both sideman and leader with an extensive roster of jazz musicians. His first recording, Jazz Wagon, appeared in 1993; the follow-up, Simple Complex, arrived in 2004. The latter date showcases an all-star lineup that includes trumpeter Roy Hargrove, tenor saxophonist Eric Alexander and vibraphonist Gary Burton, and incorporates pieces Weber had sketched while still in high school before revisiting them much later.
