Pianist, composer, and scholar David Ake has worked alongside some of the world's most creative musicians. Among his recordings are the solo-piano CD In Between (Posi-Tone); The Dark, from the trio EEA (Origin Arts); Bridges (Posi-Tone), with Ralph Alessi, Scott Colley, Ravi Coltrane, Peter Epstein, and Mark Ferber, which appeared on a number Best-of lists for 2013; and his most recent Posi-Tone release, Lake Effect, with Peter Epstein, Mark Ferber, and Sam Minaie.

In addition to his extensive performance credits, Ake is an award winning musicologist and educator. He authored the books Jazz Cultures (2002) and Jazz Matters (2010), and co-edited the essay collection Jazz/Not Jazz with Daniel Goldmark and Charles Hiroshi Garrett (2012), all for the University of California Press. In fall 2015 he was named professor and chair of the Department of Musicology at the University of Miami's Frost School of Music. Prior to that appointment, Ake had chaired the Department of Music at Case Western Reserve University, and was a longtime faculty member at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he served as Director of the School of the Arts, among other leadership positions. He holds a Ph.D. in musicology and M.A. in ethnomusicology from UCLA, as well as degrees in jazz performance from the California Institute of the Arts and the University of Miami. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.