Ralph Bowen

Biography

Ralph Bowen got his start on piano as a young child, then picked up clarinet and saxophone. By age thirteen he was leading a quartet and playing in Toronto big bands. A Canada Council grant during his teens let him study at the Banff School of Fine Arts with Pat LaBarbera and Phil Nimmons. Back in Toronto, he spent eight years studying with LaBarbera and built a lasting connection with drummer Keith Blackley and his father, Jim Blackley.

He also played and recorded with the Canadian fusion group Manteca. Two more grants in 1983 and 1984 funded his jazz studies at Indiana University under David Baker. In 1985, the same year the Toronto Globe and Mail named him and Cecil Taylor Main Jazz Men of the Year, Bowen won an audition to co-lead Out of the Blue, a Blue Note Records all-star band based in New York. He relocated to New York and eventually cut four albums for the label.

Starting in 1986, he toured with pianist Michel Camilo, recording albums and soundtracks. Between 1986 and 1991 he completed three world tours with Horace Silver and a European tour with Jim Beard. His other collaborators include Orrin Evans, Jim Trompeter, Renee Rosnes, Earl MacDonald, Ralph Peterson Jr., Charles Fambrough, and Anthony Branker. Bowen now directs the jazz program at Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts.