Kata Kozma: My former student and genius

"Genius" is not a word I apply lightly.  It's a rare thing, and I know it when I see it.  Even as a Berklee professor teaching at a college where there is an abundant amount of extraordinary young creativity, I have only come across genius once among my many students.

I first encountered Kata Kozma in my Reading 2 lab at Berklee.  We got to talking about Diana Krall, Oscar Peterson, and jazz piano/singing in general, and I learned that she had an extensive background in classical piano.  What astonished me was her jazz piano playing ability--she could swing harder than any student I had ever heard, and had excellent technique and improvisatory skill.  She was extremely modest about this, and expressed her admiration of Diana Krall, who was her role model at the time.

I did not see Kata again for a couple of years.  When she was a senior, I was pleased to have her as a private lesson student.  Before this, I had heard that she was selected by a panel of famous jazz pianists (including Joanne Brackeen, who also had Kata as a student and has very high standards) to perform in a concert featuring young female jazz pianists at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.  I watched the video of the concert and I am not exaggerating when I say that she was by far the best of the performers.  I also listened to tracks she made of her own performances on both piano and vocals: she performs both standards and originals in a very original way

By the time she became my private student, I wasn't sure there was anything I could teach her.  Yet she insisted that she needed help in learning how to replicate open position jazz voicings with tensions, so we worked on that.  She and I made some informal recordings of us playing jazz piano duets and vocal duets which are amazing.   Also at this time (2010) Kata helped me revamp my website, designed new business cards, and took professional photos of me.  It was then that I discovered that Kata is not only a brilliant musician but also a painter and graphic designer, and a phenomenal photographer who could be a professional--she even made an aging and unphotogenic college professor look beautiful and glamorous! She and I share a love for Lady Gaga (at least as she was then) and I had a secret hope that with Kata's help I might become the Lady Gaga of jazz.  It hasn't happened yet, and I'm afraid the jazz world already has its over-the-top diva in Haromi. But you never know...

 Kata is a young woman who could excel in several different fields.  By the time she graduated, she was more interested in being behind the scenes (producing) than she was in performing.  I was a little disappointed because she was such an extraordinary jazz player/singer.  But I wanted her to follow her dream, and I believed she ought to be in New York.  I told her so, as did many other people, and at first she was not convinced, but now she realizes that New York is where talent like hers belongs.

I have been following Kata's career with interest on Facebook.  In a remarkably short time, she has established herself as a writer/producer with her own production company in New York and has created a jingle-writing collective.  She produced Sanura's first CD and is currently producing CDs for several up-and-coming neo soul artists. She is the hardest-working person I know.

There is no young musician I know who is more deserving of an artist's visa than Kata Kozma.  Someday the world will take notice of her and give her the acclaim she deserves.