Award-winning pianist, keyboardist, and composer James Carney is a fearless improviser with a reputation for an original, polystylistic approach to making music - a philosophy that respects and explores both tradition and the avant-garde.

Recording as a leader for prestige labels including Sunnyside, Clean Feed, Jacaranda, and Songlines, James Carney regularly fronts bands featuring some of the finest musicians working today including Ravi Coltrane, Tony Malaby, Chris Lightcap, Mark Ferber, Josh Roseman, Oscar Noriega, Stephanie Richards, Michael Attias, Dezron Douglas, Tom Rainey, Alex Cline, Nels Cline, Tyshawn Sorey, Ralph Alessi, Todd Sickafoose, Kris Davis, Ches Smith, and many others.

Carney’s Ways and Means (Songlines), a long-form composition and virtual film score, was commissioned by Chamber Music America and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Other commissions have come from the California Arts Council, The Extension Ensemble brass quintet, and the Syracuse International Film Festival.

James Carney won the Thelonious Monk International Composers Award, a California Arts Council fellowship in composition, and two American Composers Forum Subito Grants. He received “Best Jazz Artist” honors at the LA Weekly Music Awards, and he was on the roster of the California Arts Council Touring Program for 6 years. Carney has been a visiting artist at The Eastman School of Music, New York University, Cal State Los Angeles, the University of Nevada at Reno, Ithaca College, Williams College, Saddleback College, California Institute of the Arts and the University of Missouri at St. Louis. Carney has toured in venues across the United States and Europe.