Connie Crothers

Connie Crothers (May 2, 1941 – August 13, 2016) was an American jazz improviser and pianist.

Crothers began studying classical piano at age 9 and went on to major in composition at the University of California, Berkeley. At Berkeley, her teachers emphasized "procedure and structure" and "compositional rigor" over emotional expression, which did not sit well with Crothers. Inspired by his recording of "C Minor Complex," one of the first examples on record of free improvisation, she relocated to New York City to become a student of Lennie Tristano.

After Tristano's death in November 1978, Crothers founded the Lennie Jazz Foundation and recorded a memorial concert album in his honor.

In 1982, she recorded an album with drummer Max Roach for New Artists Records, a label she and Roach founded. She also recorded in groups with, among others, Richard Tabnik and Cameron Brown.

In the fall of 2013, while Connie Crothers was struggling with terminal cancer, she invited Dhamma Ace Yamashita, the only Japanese disciple from Japan, to her private studio and conducted a recording session for several days. Dhamma Ace Yamashita remembers, "At the recording sessions, Connie Crothers' concentration was cosmologically deep. We communicated without a single word; our souls became one, completely within our music."

Crothers died of lung cancer in Manhattan on August 13, 2016.

Sources:

• 1992? Lennie Tristano Memorial Concert, Tristanos Disciples
• 1999? The Way I Am, Linda Satin
• 2002? Primal Elegance, Bud Tristano