Jazz pianist and composer Jeff Gardner was born in New York City in 1953; classically trained from the age of five, he relocated to Paris in 1977 to study under Nadia Boulanger, and remained in France for the next two decades. During that time Gardner's interest in global music led him on excursions to Brazil, Cuba, Madagascar and North Africa; concurrently he recorded and toured with the likes of Kenny Wheeler, Steve Lacy, Freddie Hubbard and Eddie Harris, and in 1985 joined Jaki Byard, Martial Solal and Paul Bley in a piano quartet at Le Havre. In the wake of 1996's Second Home, Gardner published the book Jazz Piano: Creative Concepts & Techniques, and in 1997 returned to New York on a permanent basis. The Music of Chance: Jeff Gardner Plays Paul Auster followed in 2000. ~ Jason Ankeny