Laurence Hobgood

Laurence Hobgood
Winter Jazzfest 2012 photo credit: Dave Kaufman
Background information
Born	December 23, 1959 (55 years) Salisbury, North Carolina, US
Genres	Jazz
Occupation(s)	pianist, producer, songwriter, educator, composer
Instruments	Piano
Years active	1992–present
Labels	Blue Note, Concord, Naim, Circumstantial
Website	laurencehobgood.com

Laurence Hobgood (born 1959) is a contemporary jazz piano virtuoso, composer, arranger, producer, lyricist and educator. Perhaps best known for his twenty-year collaboration with vocalist Kurt Elling, Hobgood has had a varied and dynamic career. In addition to his prowess at the piano he's identified by many as a key player in the imaginative updating of the "American Songbook", particularly in his arranging for vocalists; his stylized re-imagining of both classic songbook repertoire and more recent artists' work (Carole King; Earth, Wind & Fire; Paul Simon; Burt Bacharach; Sting; U2, etc.) has had a far-ranging influence within the jazz world and beyond.

Born Dec. 23, 1959, in Salisbury, North Carolina, Laurence is the son of Burnet Mclean and Jane Bishop Hobgood. His father was the director of the small but thriving Theater Department at Catawba College. Soon the family moved to Ithaca, New York, where his father earned his Ph.D., then again to Dallas, Texas, in 1964 where Burnet served as Chairman of the Southern Methodist University (SMU) Department of Theater for eleven years.

In Dallas Hobgood attended Lakewood Elementary School and J.L. Long Junior High School. He also began piano study, beginning in SMU’s piano prep program, but moving quickly to private lessons with Kenneth Newsome, and then Dorothy Brin Crocker, a celebrated children’s piano teacher in the Southwest. His first forays into composing and improvising happened during this period; his emerging improvisational instinct was not always a welcome influence during his classical study.

In 1975 the Hobgoods moved to Urbana, Illinois, where Burnet assumed the Chair of the Theater program at University of Illinois. During high school Hobgood studied jazz for the first time with Tony Caramia, a new professor in piano pedagogy but an accomplished jazz player. In the fall of 1978, after entering the University of Illinois Music Department, Hobgood returned to classical study with notable British pianist Ian Hobson. It was during his lessons with Hobson that Hobgood learned the technical system that cemented his approach and that he still practices today.