Full Jazz Bio

“Pianist Gordon Lee’s solos are often vast feats of architecture, their immense proportions looming up with great suddenness…symphonic precision as well as spontaneous improvisation”

Jazz Society of Oregon

Gordon Lee is a composer, jazz pianist, arranger, conductor and music educator. Although he is best known for his jazz performances and compositions, Lee is active in many styles of music. He has had commissions to compose chamber music and music for large ensembles from Oregon Symphony members, the Amadei String Quartet, big bands, and vocalists including a collaboration with Ghanaian singer Obo Addy on an orchestral suite in 2004. He taught improvisation, theory and jazz history at Western Oregon University from 1999 to 2019 and was Executive Director of the award winning W.O.U./Mel Brown Summer Jazz Camp. He conducted the jazz ensembles at Reed College from 2009 to 2017. 

After a degree in music at Indiana University, Lee moved to Portland, Oregon in 1977 and began playing with one of the originators of jazz-rock fusion, Native American saxophonist and song writer Jim Pepper. This association lasted until Pepper’s death in 1992. Lee has organized and presented many Pepper memorial concerts since then, including at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C. in 2007. 

In 1980 Lee moved to New York City and worked as a jazz pianist. He was one of the house pianists at 1/5 Avenue from 1981-1984. He performed with such jazz and pop stars as Don Cherry, Bill Frisell, Gladys Knight and the Pips, the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra, and the Temptations. The roster of great musicians Lee has worked with are Benny Golson, Bobby Hutcherson, Dewey Redman, Houston Person, Lew Solof, Frank Foster, Joe Lovano, Javon Jackson & Richie Cole .

In 1985 Lee returned to Portland, Oregon. He began playing with drummer Mel Brown in 1986, a musical relationship that continued for over 20 years, playing every Tuesday night at Jimmy Mak’s jazz club in Portland. In 1989 the Mel Brown Sextet, playing Lee’s compositions and arrangements, won the international Hennessy Jazz Search beating out over 700 bands from around the world. The next year Lee’s cd “Gordon Bleu” won Best Jazz Recording of 1990 from the Northwest Music Association. Lee has other cd’s since then: “Land Whales in New York” featuring Jim Pepper, 1991; “On the Shoulders of Giants” with Leroy Vinnegar and Dick Berk in 1993; and “Rough Jazz” with John Gross and Alan Jones 1997. His 2004 album, "Flying Dream”, featuring Lee’s music and an all star big band, “This Path” a trio album from 2010 and “Tuesday Night” with the Mel Brown Septet in 2014 are on the Origin Arts label. “One, two, three” and “Rough Jazz Live at Jimmy Mak’s” are on the Diatic Records label

Lee received a Master's of Music degree in conducting from Portland State University in 1999 and conducted the jazz band at Western Oregon University from 1999-2003. He has performed all over the world: several times at the Mt. Hood Festival of Jazz; the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl in L A.; the JFK Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C.; Les Ducs des Lombards in Paris, France; across Austria and southern Germany as well as Tokyo, Japan; Lima Peru; Istanbul, Turkey. He has performed with the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of David Amram and the Oregon Symphony under Norman Leyden and Bill Conti. He was a guest lecturer and performer in China in 2007, 2015 and 2016. 

With his unique experience in jazz, classical, world music and their blending, as composer, pianist and conductor, Gordon Lee blazes new paths. He continues his intention of presenting the highest quality original music while informing the public about the many potentials for spiritual growth that music can be.