Valerie Capers born 24 May 1935

Capers was born in New York City to a musical family that introduced her to classical and jazz music. Her father was a professional jazz pianist who was friends with Fats Waller, and her brother Bobby later played tenor sax and flute with Mongo Santamaria’s Afro-Cuban band.

Capers has been blind since the age of six, when an illness deprived her of her sight. Her early schooling took place at the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind, where she studied classical piano with Elizabeth Thode who also taught Capers to read Braille music notation. Capers had to learn all of her pieces by memorizing them in Braille before playing them. With Thorpe’s encouragement, Capers continued to study at the Juilliard School of Music, where she obtained her bachelor’s and master’s degrees. She was the first blind graduate of the Juilliard School.

Upon graduating from Julliard in 1960, Capers was encouraged by her brother Bobby to study jazz. Bobby was also an impetus for Capers to start composing, as he asked her to compose pieces for his band. Capers took time off from playing classical music in the early 1960s in order to learn jazz and was soon working with Mongo Santamaria. Capers formed her own trio and in 1966 recorded her first jazz album, Portrait in Soul. In 1967 she released a single with her bother Bobby on the Atlantic label “West 4th Street”. 16 years later, she would finally cut her second date (a self-produced effort for the tiny KM Arts label), and it would be another 13 years before her Columbia set.

Capers found it difficult to find teaching jobs in the 1960s because many institutions were unwilling to hire a blind person. She eventually was hired at the Bronx Neighbourhood Music School and the Brooklyn School of Music. From 1968-1975 she worked at the Manhattan School of Music, where she was an advisor to blind students and developed a jazz curriculum. Capers was the chair of the Bronx Community College music department from 1987-1995.

Following her brother Bobby’s death in 1974, Capers composed the two hour Christmas cantata Sing About Love, which adheres to no particular genre but incorporates elements from jazz, gospel, blues, and classical. Other significant works by Capers include Song of the Seasons, a song cycle largely composed in the classical idiom, and Sojourner, an “operatorio” (a combination of opera and oratorio, term coined by Capers) about the life of Sojourner Truth.

Capers has appeared with her trio and ensemble at colleges, universities, jazz festivals, clubs, and concert halls throughout the country as well as internationally, including the Chautauqua Institution and Dizzy’s Coca-Cola Club (Jazz at Lincoln Center). She has also participated in the Monterey Jazz Festival.