Lyle Mays
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Biography
Lyle Mays is a celebrated American jazz pianist who has picked up eleven Grammy Awards as a member of the Pat Metheny Group, for whom he composed and arranged most of the music. He has released two solo albums, 'Lyle Mays' (1986) and 'Solo: Improvisations for Expanded Piano' (2000), which went to number 33 on the Billboard Jazz Albums Chart. He has performed and recorded as the Lyle Mays Quartet with Marc Johnson on bass, Bob Sheppard on saxophone and Mark Walker on drums including a two-disc release, 'The Ludwigsburg Concert' (2016) recorded live in 1993.
Born in Wisconsin to a musical family, he learned to play the piano as a child and played the organ in church as a teenager. He graduated from the University of North Texas where he composed and arranged music for its celebrated One O'Clock Lab Band. Following a stint with the Woody Herman band, he joined Pat Metheny in founding the guitarist's group, which went on to enjoy enormous success.
With Metheny, he wrote the music for the Steppenwolf Theater Company of Chicago's stage production of 'Orphans' and for John Schlesinger's 1985 feature film 'The Falcon and the Snowman' starring Timothy Hutton and Sean Penn. He wrote 'Twelve Days in the Shadow of a Miracle', a classical piece recorded by the Debussy Trio in 1996 and composed music for releases for children including 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit' (1992) read by Meryl Streep.
On 10th February 2020 Mays passed away aged 66 following a long battle with illness.
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Albums
Top Tracks
- Track Popularity
- Bill Evans featuring Jack DeJohnette
- Sienna featuring Jack DeJohnette
- Possible Straight
- "It's For You" by Lyle Mays
- As Falls Wichita, So Falls Wichita Falls by Lyle Mays
- Let Me Count The Ways
- This Moment
- The Imperative
- We Are All Alone
- Black Ice
- Procession
- Lightning Field
- Origami
- Long Life
- Locked In Amber
- Where Are You from Today featuring Jack DeJohnette
- Falling Grace featuring Jack DeJohnette
- Something Left Unsaid featuring Jack DeJohnette
- Trio #2 featuring Jack DeJohnette
- Lincoln Reviews His Notes featuring Jack DeJohnette
- Hard Eights featuring Jack DeJohnette
- Fictionary featuring Jack DeJohnette
- On the Other Hand featuring Jack DeJohnette
- Ozark by Lyle Mays
