ELEW Performance | Eric Lewis | TEDxCoconutGrove

ELEW gave a thunderous performance of Rockjazz including interpretations of The Doors’ “People Are Strange” and Nirvana’s “Nevermind.”

A modern day pop artist and musical revolutionary, piano iconoclast ELEW is making a substantial impression on the music world with a thunderous new style of playing: an inspired melding of ragtime, rock and pop that he calls Rockjazz. ELEW has toured the world, recorded, and performed continuously with Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, Elvin Jones, Roy Hargrove, and Cassandra Wilson, among others. He won the 1999 Thelonious Monk International Piano Competition, his mesmerizing piano theatrics even then hinting at the new musical paradigm he would one day create. Now, in the jazz tradition of interpreting popular tunes of the day, much like Art Tatum and John Coltrane, ELEW has turned to rock, combining a guitarist's approach to the piano with an explosively physical style of playing that would be at home in any arena. Filmaker Bobby Kennedy III just finished filming a documentary feature about the pianist. Performed at TED2009.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx