Please become my facebook friend at www.facebook.com/john.d.wright
Please become part of my contact list at LinkedIn by going to www.linkedin.com/in/johnwrightpianomusic
You can also use a second email address to reach me. Please email me at [email protected] to hire me for solo piano, piano with a singer, jazz trios, or bigger bands with guitar and horns. We also have a great flute player.
I have a new site for the fans to go to if you want to be interactive with John Wright or the band. It is
www.ceruleanbluemusic.webs.com.
I hope lots of people will go to this site. It has a picture of a basketball at the top.
I also am interested in sharing my faith, for those who are interested only. I hope you will go to what in my opinion is the best website in the world and it is
www.lds.org.
I love this website, and it fills me with hope and excitement.
We distribute Kangen Water. You can read about it at
www.samyejohn.yourbodyiswater.info.
Kangen Water is the kind of water used in over 100 Japanese hospitals, as well as in many homes, but it has not been known enough about in the United States. As a nation, the Japanese are much healthier than Americans, and one reason is the kind of water they drink. We are working to fix this problem. Kangen Water comes in various forms of Ph which do various things. High Ph water is to drink. It will help your body to be non-acidic, and it is an anti-oxidant. It is also microclustered to go easily into your cells. These three properties of alkalinity, microclustering, and anti-oxidation are the three keys to why this water is better to drink than who knows what comes out of your tap, or the sometimes acidic water you get in plastic bottles. The water in plastic bottles is not an anti-oxidant, and Kangen Water is even more anti-oxidant than green tea.
The machine also makes acidic water. Acidic water has low Ph and will kill infections. One doctor told a person to amputate their feet because of gangrene, and the person instead soaked their feet in the acidic water and the feet were saved and healed. This shows that doctors mean well, but if they don't have the education of Kangen Water they are like the doctors in the days of George Washington, who did not know things. Please go to our web site at
www.samyejohn.yourbodyiswater.info.
John Wright says:
I am an enthusiastic missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I went on a mission to Taiwan in 1981, and I want to keep that missionary spirit in my daily life now that I am back in America. The best way to do that is to study and read the Book of Mormon every day. As of Nov 29th 2008 I am on page 493 of the Book of Mormon. I can't count how many times in my life I have read the Book of Mormon, but one of our prophets Spencer W. Kimball read it at least 67 times, and he was very powerful in sharing his testimony of the Church. The first thing to know about the Church is that it was restored to the earth by the Prophet Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith was a 14 year old boy in New York and he wanted to know which church to join. He had not decided to start a church. He read James 1:5 in the Bible about if we lack wisdom we should ask God, so he did exactly that and he had the First Vision. That is where Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father came to him and Jesus Christ told him to join none of the churches. A few years later he again was praying and he had a visit from the Angel Moroni. Moroni was a prophet who lived in Ancient America, and he told Joseph Smith about some gold plates that were buried in a hillside not far from Joseph Smith's home. After four years Joseph Smith was allowed to translate the plates, and that is how we got the Book of Mormon. I like to read the Book of Mormon at least a half hour a day if circumstances permit, and I also like to read it at various times during the day. It is filled with spiritual insight, and it tells of a colony of people who came from Jerusalem and settled in Ancient America in about 600 BC. After many years of various levels of wickedness and righteousness they were visited by Jesus Christ shortly after his resurrection as told about in the Bible. Some people by mistake think that the Book of Mormon competes with the Bible or goes against it, but really those who have studied the matter know that the Book of Mormon is the best thing that ever happened to the Bible. The Book of Mormon strengthens and confirms many Bible stories that critics and skeptical people have reasoned away in their intellectuality. I hope every person in the world will find a copy of the Book of Mormon and read it at least a half hour a day like one of our prophets President Ezra Taft Benson taught in General Conference while he was alive. I know the Book of Mormon is true. Please be open minded about this. Many years ago brave pioneers crossed the plains because they knew this is true, and in our day we must do other things to show our faith, like pay tithing and share our testimonies. Once again, please go to the best website in the world and it is
www.lds.org.
I hope I can read the Book of Mormon at least 67 times in my life like that great prophet Spencer W. Kimball.
John Wright
I teach a lot of piano lessons and my piano students need to know some good pianists to listen to. I put over 16 Myspace sites for famous pianists in my top friends, along with some other jazz artists like Wayne Shorter (if you go to his you can find in his top friends my favorite band Weather Report), and Gary Peacock to name two. I hope that this will get my students started on some good jazz artists to listen to. There are many more, and in my other friends you will find other jazz artists too.
One of my favorite albums growing up had Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner, Keith Jarrett, and Herbie Hancock all performing some songs. I can't remeber exactly the songs but it had two or three from each of the four pianists, and I really loved that album. It had "Tones For Joan's Bones" for one of the Chick Corea ones. Because my memory of that album is so good, I put those four first out of all the jazz pianists I profile on this site. I just love to play and listen to jazz, but those four are some of the great ones. I also love to play and listen to Bill Evans because he is such a genius.
Samye Wright says:
Cerulean Blue... I picked this name for our band because as a visual artist it was my favorite color in the artist's palate. A rich turquiouse blue It also made me think of the color of the sky. A color so deep, on a mid summer's day that you can look into the sky and keep on looking forever and not just keep looking but keep seeing too. It also made me think of the word sureal. Knowing but not knowing, a rich, deep feeling, with edge and excitement to it, the same kind of feeling I get when I listened to my new husband's music, when I listened to "Canyon Princess," the song John, my husband wrote for me for our wedding day two years ago.
Cerulean Blue is a collaboration between John and I, two jazz lovers who fell in love, while he was teaching my children piano lessons, and patiently charming me, their single mother. He calls me his Rachel because as he says, that process took nearly seven years! After we married, I realized John's circle of influence included many of the finest jazz musicians in the Intermountain West. I also realized because John was so gifted, kind and reliable, thay all respected him and loved him. Suddenly my foremost passion became to pull all these men together and help John form the finest jazz collective in the city. Cerulean Blue was born.
Cerulean Blue has been In existence for almost as long as our marriage. I know the marriage will last, and with all of the patronage we're getting I have high hopes for the band too. We have performed at the Woods on 9th and we were on Fox 13 News, and immediately we became their band of preference. We are also a favorite at many other wedding venues. We have performed a Motown Wedding at La Caille, at the Canyons Resort, and at a roaring twenties party for the Chamber of Commerse at the Perry Hotel. We can play in almost any conceivable style with a little lead and practice time to prepare.
We have also performed In the area's finest restaurants: at the Riverhorse Cafe in Park City, The Christopher at the Peery Hotel, The Pine on 4500 So; we did a company Christmas party at Thanksgiving Point and we've also perfomed in Heber, Bountiful, and Ogden. John has performed as a solo jazz artist too many times to mention them all, as well as accompanying singers and dancers in the Salt Lake area for years. Recently he has done this for Children's Dance Theater, and the U of U modern Dance Department. He has performed at The Country Club, The Grand America, Little America, Northpoint Condominiums, The Spicy Lady in Heber, the Lion House, and at Snowbasin Ski Resort.
Thank for taking the time to find out about us, I hope to be hearing from you, or meeting you in the future!
Samye Cummings Wright
A special thanks to Kent Rigby from Midnight Records at 127 South Main Street in Salt Lake City for the hours of work he has given us to make this myspace page possible. Kent is awesome, and we really appreciate all of his hard work and professional advice and consideration.
John Wright says:
Since there is so much room here at the bottom I have decided to put in some autobiographical information for the benefit of my friends and fans. I was born in Summit, New Jersey on June 16th 1962. My first home was in Mountainside, New Jersey. When I was three we moved to Readington, New Jersey. I started piano lessons at an early age, and continued with my studies until in high school, which I went to from 1976-1980. After completing the 3rd grade our family moved to Hampton Falls, New Hampshire. I started 4th grade at Lincoln Akerman School. All this time I kept playing the piano, and I kept going to more and more advanced music. Finally I was playing Beethoven, Bach, and Rachmaninoff. But my most influential teacher came along when I was in about 6th grade and his name was Thomas Gallant. He had played with some of the biggest names in jazz like Sonny Stitt, and he taught me to play the Bill Evans tension chords that use 9ths and 13ths. At first I did not like the sound of them since it was something new, but after a while I grew to like the sound. Now it is the bread and butter of what I do. One of my biggest musical influences in high school was Barry Danielain. You can find out about him at
www.barrydanielian.com.
We used to play in the jazz band together at Winnacunnet High School in Hampton, New Hampshire from 1978-1980. We did some other gigs, like when we played in the White Mountains of New Hampshire for a gig and we didn't get home until 4am, and another time we played at the Oar House Restaurant in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Another time we played at the "Shell" at Hampton Beach. That is an outdoor venue right near the beach. Barry has gone on to fame and fortune as you can see if you go to his website. To continue with the autobiographical information, after a good experience playing with a very good high school jazz band that had Barry Danielian, and after taking lessons with Thomas Gallant all the way until I was about a senior in high school, and also going to music summer camp at University of New Hampshire two years in a row, I had a good foundation in jazz for starting at Brigham Young University. When I graduated from Winnacunnet High School in Hampton in 1980 I really only had one college that I wanted to go to and that was BYU. I went out to Provo, Utah, and I auditioned for the jazz band there. I was not accepted into the top band, but I was used to that because whenever I did not go to the top right away it just made me work harder. So I practiced a lot when I wasn't studying, and I improved while at BYU. After a year of BYU it was time to go on my mission.
Please go to the best website in the world and it is
www.lds.org
Like all of the other young men in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints I had no idea where they would send me, and I got to go to Taiwan and speak Chinese every day. Chinese can be a hard language to learn if you think about it that way. Or it can be a fun language to learn if you just take it in very small steps and keep a good attitude about slow growth. I still have quite a few Chinese materials and I study them when I have time, particularly at the dance studio where I play. I lived in four cities when I was in Taiwan. I lived in Tainan first, which is a very old city that has a big gate that the Dutch explorers built there way back in the 1600s. After that moved south to Kaohsiung, which is a huge city in the south. To provide a nice contrast I next lived way up north Ching Hsui. This is a little town that had all of the contrast of a more country atmosphere, and I loved it there. The Church membership was very small in that town, as compared to the big congregation in Kaohsiung. Finally the last town I lived in was Hsiou Gang, and that was right by the airport in the south. At each town I lived in on my mission I met some wonderful people, and I have good memories from each place. As we went from door to door I got to see how many people live their lives, and it was really a world education. I also taught English classes because there are many people who do not want to join the LDS Church, but they are very eager to learn English, and it was one way that we could serve people. After my mission I returned home to BYU and went there for another year. That was when I first started to play for dance classes. I played for dance classes at BYU, and it has been a long source of income for me right until the present day which is July 24th 2008. By this time I had gone to BYU for two years. I was ready to try something new, so I went to electronics school now. One of my most influential professors at electronics school was Eugene Lindley. He had been an electronics tech on a submarine, and he had lots of interesting stories. Electronics school was hard, but one thing that made it fun was playing on the basketball team. I played in the final game of the season and made a three pointer. That was in Vermont. The way I trained was to shoot 500 or 1000 baskets, give or take some depending on how much time I had, with my dog Pippi. I would throw sticks and shoot baskets. That is when the Celtics were very good in 1985-1987, and they gave me plenty of inspiration. I even went down to Boston during the victory parade in 1986 and touched Kevin McHale's hand as he reached down from the truck to touch the fans. The training paid off because I made that three pointer in the last game of the season. I still love to shoot baskets by the hundreds, and I go to Gold's Gym by my house sometimes to do that. After I graduated from electronics school I worked for a year for Simplex Wire and Cable in Newington, New Hampshire. We tested TAT-8, which was the first undersea Atlantic fiber optic cable. That was an interesting job, and I worked the night shift. The reason I chose to work the night shift is so that I could go to church on Sunday morning. We were attending church at that time in the Odd Fellow's Hall in Hampton, New Hampshire. That is an interesting place, but unfortunately it burned to the ground. Now there is a nice chapel in Exeter, New Hampshire to go to. I remember bike trips to Exeter when I was growing up in Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, and when I rode my bike past that place it was just an open field, and I never would have imagined that it would someday be the stake center. After I worked for Simplex Wire and Cable I got married for the first time, and went with my new wife to BYU again for the third time. Once again I was taking math and engineering classes. Actually, the first two times I was doing some other things, but I always took math classes. My grandfather Jay Wright got a masters in physics, and I have always wanted to carry on the family tradition and be a math expert, and on top of that my father got a chemical engineering degree. This third time at BYU I did not even take one music class, because I was so focused on the engineering degree. But when my first wife became very weak due to the birth of my first son Samuel I decided that it was time to join the Air Force to get more economic power in life, and to help her with our new baby. I went to basic training and my assignment was to be a Korean Linguist. I went to Air Force Korean school in Monterey California, and after four months they decided I was not the type of talent they wanted for that job, so I was reassigned to Las Vegas at Nellis Air Force Base. My first day on the job I was on the roof of the Thunderbirds jet hangar fixing the roof. My days in the Air Force consisted of things like fixing locks, doing carpentry projects, fixing roofs, and doing concrete work. Since my job required motivation and concentration, it was here that I first became totally dedicated to reading the Book of Mormon at least a half hour a day. I found that if I did that my day went better, and I was motivated and excited to do my jobs, even if they could be dull or boring. I always remember my days in the Air Force if I think I am too busy to read the Book of Mormon. I was only on the base a few weeks when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and I found myself on a jet over to the Persian Gulf area. I continued my diligent study of the Book of Mormon, even in a house overcrowded with soldiers. One person I talked to a lot said to me "There's that damn book" but I don't care because I love to read it and it is a great conversation starter. One time in church I gave a talk, and I called it "The Secret To Happiness Is To Ask Yourself Who In The Book Of Mormon You Are Acting Like" and I still really believe that. Well, because my first wife was weak I was able to come home early from the First Gulf War in 1990, and we really enjoyed that place because we lived right down the road from the Las Vegas Temple. We also enjoyed the buffets and sights of Las Vegas. I am happy to report that I never gambled even 25 cents when I was in Las Vegas. It is possible to do, and I was there three years. I just knew that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is against gambling, and I didn't want to do it. Sometimes my fellow soldiers in the Air Force would ask me to play cards with them, and I would say "An orthodox Mormon doesn't play cards" and I could save all of that time that would have been spent at the card table. While I was in Las Vegas our second son Matthew was born. Now we were a small family with two boys. I was given a pacemaker in the Air Force, so I went to go live in Salt Lake City. I have lived in Salt Lake City since 1993. When I was in Salt Lake City I took classes at the University of Utah and at the Salt Lake Community College. I also took some music classes at the U of U. So now my education accomplishments were an associates degree in electronics that allowed me to work at the fiber optics company and to get more money for a salary in the Air Force, and also I had some engineering, music, and computer classes done at the U of U, BYU, and SLCC. We had two girls born to our family in Salt Lake City, so now we were a family of four children. I worked a year testing concrete because I did not feel good about spending huge amounts of time studying due to my first wife's weak condition. Finally in 2001 she went to go live by her mother, and I remarried to Samye Cummings. Many of you have had Cummings Chocolates, and she is from the family that makes those. By this time I had formed two bands called Nevertheless and Cerulean Blue, and I had released several CDs, some done professionally with artwork too. My first CD was called "Eternal Journey of Love" and it was about 45 minutes long and pure improvisation like the Koln Concert by Keith Jarrett. My second CD was called "Highly Favored" and it was also an improvisation, but this time I worked with a drummer who also improvised with me. My third CD was called "First Things First" and it was a jazz trio with drums and bass. Notice that each CD added one more instrument. After that I did some CDs with bands, singers, and two more solo CDs, but the artwork has not been done on them, except for another CD called "Hopeful Day" which is a collection of 17 original songs that I wrote. So, one day these will all be collector's items, but now they are out of print until public demand calls for them. I just noticed that I have some more space here for biographical information, so I will tell about some random things I have done in my life. I have hiked a few high mountains. I went on a 50 mile hike with the boy scouts and we climbed a lot of the high mountains in the White Mountains including Mt. Washington. That was an interesting memory to have. Another mountain I have climbed is Mt. Timpanogus in Utah. I climbed that in the fall of 1980 when I went to BYU. My son Samuel just climbed Mt. Olympus here in Utah. I have looked at that many times but never climbed it. To me, mountains are like goals. Some of the goals I have for my life are first of all to learn some more math and music. I have a book of 1191 calculus problems I have been meaning to do for many years. I just started taking guitar lessons and that will definitely be a mountain to climb. The reason I want to take guitar lessons is that I could teach guitar along with all of my piano students, and also I have some guitar music around the house that would be fun to work on. Some other personal goals I have are to learn jazz piano better. Even though I have reached the level where I can do a lot of gigs there is a much deeper level to learn it where I become more aware of what the masters are doing like Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, McCoy Tyner, and Keith Jarrett, as well as Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Horace Silver, and others. Another goal I have is to learn more about my geneology. I have a lot of my pedigree charts done due to some hard work by relatives and others, but there is a lot more to do. I am a triple great grandson of Brigham Young, and that is my most famous ancestor. But I want to spend a lot of effort in this area to completely put the family together on paper. These are a list of my fathers and grandfathers if you want to know if you are related to me. I am John Wright, born in 1962 in Summit, New Jersey. My father David William Wright was born 1933 in Salt Lake City. My grandfather Jay William Wright was born in Salt Lake City too. His father James Wardrop Wright comes next, and that is followed by Abraham Reister Wright Jr., who was one of Brigham Young's carpenters on the Salt Lake Temple. His father was Abraham Reister Wright Sr., and he was the first Wright to be buried in the City Cemetary in Salt Lake City. I have been to all of these graves in the City Cemetary in Salt Lake City. Before that you have to go back to Philadelphia and Maryland, and then you go to England. The father of Abraham Reister Wright Sr. was William Emory Wright from New Baltimore, Maryland. So that is and example of some of the geneology that I have at my reach. That is only one line, and I could tell a lot about some of the other lines like the Lewis Family that came out in handcarts with the Bunker Handcart Company, and even though they were coal miners in Wales they became farmers in Bountiful, Utah. I just love geneology and family history, and I just can't get enough of it. I have another goal to write an autobiography, and I need to really get going on that. So life is full of goals that we set, and some we reach and others we do not reach, but we have to have goals all the same.