Larry Karush

Instrumental command, inventive spontaneity, and an international outlook on sound have allowed Los Angeles pianist and composer Larry Karush to merge Western jazz traditions with global music forms. Longtime associate of percussionist Glen Valez and bassist Glen Moore from the world-fusion group Oregon, Karush has woven Indian, African, and Brazilian elements into his improvisations. His playing conveys rigorous intellect yet conveys an equal measure of emotional depth; Audiophile Audition observed that “[Karush’s] style is cerebral but with guts and emotion.”

Although his parents enjoyed an eclectic range of recordings, neither pursued music themselves. At six he was enrolled in classical piano lessons that explicitly discouraged improvisation. A decisive shift occurred once he began working with L.A.-based instructor Steve Saxe, who, Karush remembered in a March 2000 interview, “was my first teacher to see music as a continuum. He taught me about boogie-woogie and jazz.”

He originally envisioned no professional path in music. While completing a psychology degree at Reed College in Portland, OR, he met Glen Moore; that encounter prompted several years of private study before he obtained a master’s degree in musical performance from New York University. His first appearance on record took place on May 24, 1976, in a duo project with Moore. The same year he contributed to Steve Reich’s landmark avant-garde release Music for 18 Musicians and later appeared on albums by John Abercrombie and Jane Ira Bloom.

Karush, Moore, and Velez subsequently formed the improvisational trio Mokave, whose self-titled debut album appeared in 1991. Since then he has alternated between trio projects and solo recordings while regularly touring with his own group, the Larry Karush Ensemble, whose members include Dave Carpenter on bass, Kendall Key on drums, and Joey DeLeon on percussion.