Early Life
Childs began piano lessons when he was six. At the age of 16, he started attending the Community School of the Performing Arts, a prestigious music program sponsored by the University of Southern California (USC). After having studied theory there with Marienne Uszler and piano with John Weisenfluh, he attended USC (1975–79), earning a bachelor of music degree in composition, under the tutelage of Robert Linn.
Childs was playing professionally as a teenager and he made his recording debut in 1977 with the J. J. Johnson Quintet during a tour of Japan that is documented as the Yokohama Concert. He gained significant attention during his six-years (1978–84) playing with trumpeter Freddie Hubbard’s group. While influenced early on in his playing by Herbie Hancock, Keith Emerson, and Chick Corea and in his composing by Paul Hindemith, Maurice Ravel, and Igor Stravinsky, Childs nevertheless had an original conception of his own from near the start, developing his own voice as both a pianist and a composer in jazz and classical music genres.
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