Dean Earl, 1998 August 21
Pianist and longtime Berklee College of Music faculty member Dean Earl discusses his early musical training on piano and the start of his career gigging in New York City. He shares numerous stories from his lengthy career as a jazz pianist, particularly in Boston beginning in the 1930s. Earl discusses performing with the United States armed forces in the 1940s, the many musicians with whom he played and collaborated, and his experience as a student at Berklee (then Schillinger House) in the early 1950s. Earl also describes Berklee as it was when he began teaching in the Piano department in the early 1960s, as well as the Berklee Correspondence Course, which he taught for several years.
Pianist, arranger, and educator Everett G. “Dean” Earl (1910-2002) was born in Brooklyn, New York and began playing piano as a young boy. He toured with a vaudeville band in the 1930s, ultimately moving to Boston to accept an offer to work as the resident piano man at the Railway Club. Earl freelanced at Boston jazz clubs such as Little Harlem, Southland, and Alpini’s, for several years; completed a stint in the Army Air Corps Service Band during World War II; and then returned to Boston, where he became a regular at the Hi-Hat, the Saxony, and other clubs. In 1953 he enrolled at Schillinger House (soon to be Berklee School of Music and later Berklee College of Music) on the GI Bill, studying piano under Harry Smith. After graduating in 1956, he remained a mainstay of the Boston jazz scene, playing shows with Charlie Parker, Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Billie Holliday, Sonny Stitt, and Sarah Vaughn. Earl joined the Berklee faculty in the Piano department in 1961. In addition to regular courses and private instruction, Earl also taught Berklee’s Correspondence Course in modern harmony arranging, orchestration, and improvisation. One of the earliest Black faculty members at Berklee, Earl’s teaching career spanned forty years, up to his death in 2002.
