Graham Connah

Bay area keyboard player Graham Connah has been recording since the late 80's, but traces his musical beginnings to being a Santana fanatic in 1970. After attending an experimental high school in Baltimore, Connah caught many great jazz presentations (Mingus. Sun Ra, Roland Kirk and Clifford Jordan, among others) through the Left Bank Jazz Society while studying music theory with Dr. Asher Zlotnik. He moved to Santa Cruz in 1980, and began composing and collaborating with local musicians, including Ben Goldberg, Elliott Kavee, Trevor Dunn, Rob Sudduth and Kenny Wollesen. He began releasing albums in the mid 90's on Rastascan as well as his own Sour Note and Evander labels. In 2003, he began "delinquent high school combo coaching: emphasis on surf music, Persian carpet selection, finger snapping, hookah combustion, interspecies mating, strategic vagrancy", clearly a teaching position. In order to assure maximum confusion, Connah changed his name to Ted Brinkley in 2004. ~ Sean Westergaard, All Music Guide