Bob Florence

Biography

Bob Florence (1932–2008) was a gifted jazz pianist, composer, and arranger whose big band projects married sophistication with infectious swing. He crafted lush charts for talented soloists and won acclaim for albums that celebrated both traditional and modern jazz idioms.

Florence also nurtured the next generation of players, offering mentorship to aspiring musicians and sharing his encyclopedic knowledge of orchestration so that his enthusiasm for the music could continue to bloom through others.