Chris Durbin started playing the piano at age 5. “My mom claims that she never had to tell me to practice”, he says. In his teen years, he explored the guitar, drums, flute, and for two weeks, alto saxophone. But piano would eventually come out on top as his favorite instrument. After high school, he spent a year in Bari, Italy, with his family, and attended the Bari Conservatory of Music. He will always remember the show he did there with a rock band at an all-girls high school gymnasium that was filled to the rafters with screaming females.

         Upon returning, he enrolled in his hometown university, the University Of Wisconsin, Madison, where he was trained in the jazz and classical idioms. It was here that he discovered jazz for the first time. “The first jazz record I bought was a Freddie Hubbard Blue Note release called Ready for Freddie”, he recalls. He quickly became hooked on jazz, and listened to little else during college. “I was a jazz snob back then”, he admits. Later moving to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1980, for it’s vibrant music scene, he branched out into Top-40 and R&B gigs to pay the bills. “The Bay Area has tons of great musicians, and that’s mostly why I moved here”, he reminisces.  “When I graduated from college, I knew I wanted to be on the West Coast, so I considered San Diego, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Portland, and Seattle. I had been to a jam session in Berkeley, CA where this trumpet guy was playing and sounded just like Miles Davis, and this saxophonist sounded just like John Coltrane, and I thought, that is where I want to be!”

         Chris has since played a variety of gigs as a working musician, including church services, jazz clubs, dance clubs, festivals, weddings, corporate parties, and solo jazz piano in restaurants and hotels.  He has performed in such noteworthy clubs as the Great American Music Hall, Slim’s, Bimbo’s, Yoshi’s, and the Catalyst in Santa Cruz.  

         As a songwriter, Chris has been influenced by everybody he has come into contact with. “My heroes are Lennon and McCartney, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Sting, Joni Mitchell, and Steely Dan, because of their large, consistently excellent song output”, he says, “but my own style is a fusion of my favorite ideas which I’ve picked up from lots of different styles of music. Everything has something to offer. As a professional musician, I’ve had to do a large variety of gigs, which I enjoy, and in preparing, I’ve learned things from each style and artist. Like Duke Ellington said, ‘There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.’”

         The classic rock that he grew up with left a lasting impression from a compositional point of view. “I like the raw energy of rock, with bombastic drums, and the sonic power of distortion guitar, among other things”, he says. “I went through two phases in high school. First, it was the hard stuff, like Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin. Then it was the lighter stuff, like Chicago, Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, The James Gang, Santana, and the so-called “art rock” bands: Jethro Tull, Yes, Genesis, and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.

         Through his jazz gigs, he became acquainted with the world of the Great American Songbook; the standards of the 30’s through the 60’s. “In some ways, the standards of Jerome Kern, the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Rodgers & Hart, etc., are the pinnacle of songwriting”, he enthuses. “Those songs had masterful lyrics, rich jazz chords, and great melodies. However, they weren’t performed with the powerful, hypnotic rhythms that blues and rock brought in later. I like all those elements in my songwriting, as well as in songs I listen to; a strong groove that makes you want to nod your head, meaningful lyrics, catchy melodies that you never get tired of, and evocative chords and chord progressions. When I write, though, I don’t consciously think of these elements- the songs just develop organically, from the seed of an idea. I could start with a riff, a chord progression, the title of a song, a melodic phrase, lyrics, a particular sound on my keyboard, sometimes even a snippet of a song I dreamed, or any combination of the above. I use whatever inspires me, and inspiration can come from many sources."

         "Speaking of inspiration, that’s one of the beauties of music, the euphoria I get from creating a song. Creating anything, not just a song, is wonderful, because you’ve produced something that’s a part of you, it’s a direct expression of who you are, it’s your baby. The process is fun and full of exploration, because you’re just writing whatever sounds good to you. Something wants to come out, and so you search for it- hopefully you get inspired and into the Zen mind- by that I mean the non-intellectual mind- and then you just use your ears to mess around with it and refine it. I consider myself lucky to be a musician, and to be doing what I love. Composing is so uplifting, and as far as performing, the bulk of the gigs I do I don’t really consider work. They’re fun! And I still like to practice!”