Mary Louise Knutson
PIANO
Mary Louise tours regularly with trumpeter Doc Severinsen, former bandleader for the Tonight Show starring Johnny Carson. Off-tour she can be heard regularly in the Twin Cities with her group, the Mary Louise Knutson Trio, with vocalists Connie Evingson and Debbie Duncan, and with a variety of instrumental groups including the JazzMN Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra. She has performed with such jazz greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Bobby McFerrin, Dianne Reeves, Randy Brecker, Mike Stern, Nicholas Payton, Slide Hampton, and many more. Knutson’s latest jazz trio CD, In the Bubble, made Jazz Week’s Top 10 and stayed in the Top 50 for 19 consecutive weeks. Her debut jazz trio CD, Call Me When You Get There, charted in Jazz Week’s Top 50 and earned Knutson the award for Top New Jazz Instrumentalist in 2001. In 2005, she was a Finalist in the Kennedy Center’s Women in Jazz Pianist Competition, and in 2006, Knutson was a Minnesota Music Awards nominee for both Jazz Artist of the Year and Pianist of the Year.