Gary Peacock is a seminal part of jazz history. Born May 12th 1935 in Burley, Idaho, he grew up in Yakima, Washington, studied piano at the Westlake College of Music in Los Angeles and played piano in the army until the group’s bassist quit and Peacock took over the chair.

Back in the US, Peacock worked on the West Coast with Bud Shank, Art Pepper, Barney Kessel, Paul Bley and Ornette Coleman and on the East Coast with Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Jimmy Giuffre, Albert Ayler, Paul Motian, Roland Kirk and Don Cherry. In 1964 Peacock left the music scene to study Eastern medicine in Japan, then came back to America to study biology. Gradually he started playing again and in the early ’80s he started working with Keith Jarrett and Jack DeJohnette, a collaboration that continues to this day.

Peacock makes his home in upstate New York, where among other activities he helps run a meditation group in a prison.