Jon Ballantyne (born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, Canada) is a pianist and composer who resides in the New York area.[1]
Ballantyne started playing piano at an early age and began formal study at the age of six. His father, Fred, is a pianist and both parents are jazz enthusiasts and exposed him to the recordings of Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Bill Evans and Duke Ellington.
He studied classical piano and played in a garage-band when he was a teenager, as well as playing tenor saxophone and piano in high school concert and stage bands. He attended high school at City Park Collegiate Institute (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan).
Ballantyne was awarded a scholarship to North Texas State University (attending from 1982 to 1985) where he played in the One O'clock Lab Band.
In the fall of 1987, Ballantyne joined the Woody Herman Thundering Herd for an extensive tour of the U.S. He re-joined the band in the late 1990s for some European and United Kingdom tours, as well as performances in the Northeast, New England and Florida.
As a six-year resident of Park Slope, Brooklyn in the 1990s, he played afternoon jam sessions in his studio apartment with forward-looking musicians, most of them neighbors, such as Seamus Blake, Bill Carrothers, Phil Haynes, Donny McCaslin, Dave Pietro, Scott Neumann, Jay Rosen, Tony Scherr, Mark Turner, Elliot Zigmund, and Matt Wilson.
He has conducted educational clinics at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, the University of Colorado Boulder, University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, McGill University, University of Toronto, Concordia University, and the University of Saskatchewan, among others.
From 1999 to 2006, Ballantyne led a quartet with bassist Boris Kozlov, drummer Jeff Hirshfield, and saxophonist/bass clarinetist Douglas Yates, as well as a trio featuring Drew Gress and Gene Jackson. Ballantyne also played several solo piano concert tours in the 90's, 2000's and most recently, in 2014.
In 2013, Ballantyne toured Canada extensively with the Alan Jones Canadian All Star Sextet, featuring drummer Alan Jones (leader and compositions), Seamus Blake (tenor), Phil Dwyer (alto), Ingrid Jensen (trumpet), Brad Turner (trumpet, one city) and Tom Wakeling (bass).
Ballantyne performs often at noted jazz clubs in the Northeastern US, such as The Deer Head Inn (Delaware Water Gap), Small's (New York), Zinc Bar (New York), Cleopatra's Needle (New York), Mezzrow (New York), and Chris's Jazz Cafe (Philadelphia).
There were sold-out performances of the Bill Goodwin Trio, which Ballantyne is a member of, at Mezzrow Jazz Club in New York in early 2023.
Currently, Ballantyne plays in the Trios of Bill Goodwin (with bassist Evan Gregor), Gene Perla (The Parker Trio, with drummer Adam Nussbaum), and tenor saxophonist Dan Wilkins' quartet. He also plays with guitarist Bill Washer as a duo called the "Mode for Joe Duo," which features the music of Joe Henderson, whom Washer played with from 1969 to 1972 and Ballantyne 1989–92. A live recording of this duo will be released in the Spring of 2024 on the Deer Head Records label, followed by a new trio release ("Trio It Is") in the summer of 2024 on Vector Disc Records, with Bill Goodwin and Evan Gregor as a follow-up to their widely-acclaimed 2017 album.
An asterisk (*) indicates that the year is that of release.