JAMES CARNEY : Pianist on the Fast Track

James Carney is living testimony to the fact that jazz education can work--and work very well.

Most collegiate jazz programs have long been viewed as cookie-cutter producers of technically adept big-band players. But Carney, a former rock ‘n’ roll pianist, found out that California Institute of the Arts in Valencia was different. When he enrolled there a few years ago, he discovered that the emphasis was on individuality.

“You’re encouraged, from the very beginning, to have your own sound and your own ideas,” says Carney, a 28-year-old native of Syracuse, N.Y.

“They don’t force feed you anything,” he says. “So, for example, instead of having you run off a Charlie Parker lick, they’ll show you the chord and the scale he used, but they expect you to use them to come up with something of your own.”

Although he has not yet made a record deal, Carney has been on a fast track. He was the pianist with a CalArts jazz ensemble that won a Gold Award for performance at the 1990 Musicfest USA competition, and last July Keyboard magazine’s “Discoveries” column glowingly described him as “coming from a Mingus-meets-Shorter mold.”

Carney’s live performances, as well as a self-produced tape of his music, reveal a remarkably eclectic approach to composition. Ranging from ‘60s avant-garde to contemporary fusion, he manages to integrate a variety of styles into what is his ultimate goal--a highly personal form of musical expression.

“If anything,” Carney explains, “my current work is fairly conservative in terms of where I want to be. I mean, I know I can’t play over rhythm changes the way Hampton Hawes or Bud Powell could, but I also have learned enough about what they did to understand how to find my own way to play.”

Ideally, he would like to find a balance between his composing and his piano playing that directly reflects a wide open, creatively receptive approach to his music.