b. Bruce David Barth, 7 September 1958, Pasadena, California, USA. Raised in New York in a musical family, Barth studied piano from the age of five. In this, he was encouraged by his mother, herself a classical pianist, and by the example of his guitarist brother. In his teens Barth listened to jazz and taught himself to play from recordings. At the New England Conservatory of Music in the early 80s, he studied with Jackie Byard and George Russell, in whose big band he played, and he also studied privately with Norman Simmons. Barth led his own small group for a while before attending the Berklee College Of Music in the mid-80s. Among early professional engagements he had in the late 80s and early 90s, were those with Nat Adderley, with whom he visited Japan, Vincent Herring, Stanley Turrentine and Terence Blanchard. A skilled bop and post-bop pianist with a delicate touch, Barth composes and has also been very active in education, teaching at Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York City.