Selected recordings & live sets.
Debut album
Modern-jazz originals for trio and quintet — featuring Ambrose Akinmusire, Dayna Stephens, Yunior Terry & Yaala Ballin.
Arrangements and original compositions for concert forces.
Full catalog on SoundCloud → · More on YouTube →
“I love all kinds of music. But jazz is the one I’ll always return to — it’s so full of freedom, and of life energy.”Billy White
Billy White is a West Coast-based jazz pianist and composer whose path has been anything but traditional.
A San Francisco Bay Area native, he studied jazz piano at UCLA — on scholarship, under masters Kenny Burrell and Gerald Wilson — while earning a degree in ethnomusicology. Those years took him from a jazz/hip-hop group in Paris to the study of Gnawa trance music in Morocco, and into writing for film. He eventually settled in Brooklyn, where he leads his own trio and quintet.
His debut as a leader, First Things First (Porto Franco Records, 2010), drew national jazz-press praise for its compositions and group interplay — with a band featuring Ambrose Akinmusire, Dayna Stephens, Yunior Terry, and Yaala Ballin.
Upcoming & recent.
“First Things First, one of the year’s most impressive debuts.” San Francisco Chronicle · Kimberly Chun & Andrew Gilbert
Debut album First Things First (Porto Franco Records, 2010) — reviewed in the national jazz press.
For bookings, scoring inquiries, and press:
Email Billy