Pianist, composer and lyricist, Dave Bass, is a great American success story that reads like a riveting bio-pic script. This Cincinnati kid began piano lessons at age seven, and shortly after graduating high school, played in bands that opened for Captain Beefheart and Alice Cooper. He was soon accepted into Boston’s Berklee College of Music, leaving after just a few months to study piano with the legendary Madame Margaret Chaloff. Madame schooled him and other young, immensely talented jazz artists as Keith Jarrett, Leonard Bernstein, Steve Kuhn and Kenny Werner, who understood the importance of developing a signature sound and style. Chaloff taught in the “Russian Technique” – a unique tool for tone production and musical articulation. A typical lesson might not go beyond using a “weightless wrist” to correctly play a single note. While in Boston, he also studied composition with George Russell and Avram David, again formed his own band, worked a variety of commercial gigs, serendipitously landing a great stint as Brenda Lee’s pianist, leaving Boston behind for multiple tours of Japan, Singapore and Malaysia.