Adam Wolff has been playing the piano for most of his life. Starting at the age of 8, he spent ten years studying classical piano performance, music theory, and creative music expression in Ithaca, New York.
Raised in New York and Chicago, he returned to New York City in the 80’s, and spent many years playing music full time in Manhattan. While living in New York, Wolff studied with several great pianists: Barry Harris (Keeper of the Bebop Flame), Mike Longo (Musical Director for Dizzy Gillespie) and Kenny Werner (Author of Effortless Mastery and a global music legend). Wolff also performed/recorded with many great jazz players including Victor Lewis, Calvin Hill, Rebecca Franks, and others. He was fortunate to record with two of Ahmad Jamal’s drummers: Vernel Fournier and Frank Gant. (Vernel Fournier is credited with developing the iconic drumbeat used in Jamal’s recording of “Poinciana” in the 1950’s.)
During this time, Wolff also taught music at the Johnny Colon School of Music in East Harlem, as well as playing jazz piano in clubs, restaurants, concert venues, and private engagements throughout the New York City region.
In 1987, he was approached by Long Island University in Brooklyn and offered a full music scholarship. Immersing himself in the study of music history, composition, arranging, and performance during the day and playing gigs five nights a week was an intense formative process. Graduating Summa Cum Laude was a high point for Wolff.
Relocating to San Diego in the 1990’s, Adam Wolff performed with different groups, ranging from jazz to popular dance music to creative expression performances. One highlight was performing a radio concert on KSDS of his original music and arrangements with a jazz sextet. In 2004, Wolff co-founded Blue44, a music collective with a distinctive theme of “ambient grooves”. Playing a variety of venues throughout the San Diego region, and recording several live CD’s, the group specialized in spontaneous musical performances that sounded like pre-conceived and fully arranged compositions.
In the last few years, there has been a resurgence of interest in jazz, and Wolff has been taking advantage of the trend, performing in solo, duo, trio, and quartet group formats throughout the San Diego region. His music contains key elements of excitement and hard swinging, soulful, creative musical expression. These elements come through in his performances, no matter who he is playing with. Wolff also enjoys sharing his extensive knowledge of jazz history, and finds that audiences appreciate expanding their own understanding and knowledge of jazz eras, events, locales, evolutions, musicians, and composers.
Adam Wolff performs regularly at a variety of local venues, with a rotating lineup of San Diego’s finest jazz bassists, drummers, vocalists, and horn players. He provides an exciting variety of jazz classics, standards, blues-based grooves, and jazz-inflected pop songs. Combining an intimate atmosphere with cool jazz brings to mind the New York clubs he played in for many years.