Bradley Joseph - Biography

Biography

Bradley Joseph was born in 1965 and raised in Willmar, Minnesota, graduating from Willmar Senior High School in 1983. He learned how to play piano from a how-to piano book he found in the piano bench. One morning his father taught him how to play a boogie-woogie blues tune and by nightfall he could play the entire piece. He started playing classical piano at age eight, taking lessons for a year and a half but was self-taught thereafter. While in junior high, he took a concert field trip where he saw Buddy Rich perform. He recalls, "I sat in the first row and when Buddy's sax player stood up to take his first solo something just clicked — the world closed in around me. I felt the power of music and knew that it was something special, a gift to be shared." Joseph played piano for the jazz band and choir in high school, and trombone through high school and college. When he picked up the horn, he got a whole new perspective on music, gaining insight into all the different timbres available, which was invaluable to him when he started working with orchestras. The first band he was in was a wedding dance band which allowed him to gain experience in every different style of music from polkas to rock and roll to jazz classics. After attending Moorhead State University as a music major, he led some of his own bands around the area that toured Midwest nightclubs. He played sax and guitar in some of these earlier bands but left them to concentrate on just the piano/keyboards. Later, he started performing with guitarist Dugan McNeill, whose U2-like group was signed to Polygram. McNeill and Yanni had once played together in the technopop band Chameleon in the late 70s and early 80s.