John Seppala

About John

A lifetime at the keys

Born in Cleveland in 1961, John moved to Walnut Creek, California in 1966, where a childhood piano teacher, Edith Hamaker, set him on a lifelong course. By high school he was studying music theory at Diablo Valley College and playing piano in California’s All‑State Honor Jazz Band. A summer scholarship carried him to Berklee College of Music in Boston, where at nineteen he wrote and recorded an intricate fusion piece called “The Juice” with fellow students Rodney Smith and Dave Fields.

After a decade away, John came home to Walnut Creek and spent the rest of his life as a fixture of the Bay Area jazz scene — composer, arranger, piano teacher, and a constantly working musician, performing everywhere from neighborhood lounges to the Montreal Jazz Festival. He passed away on January 14, 2013, at fifty‑one. Everyone who ever shared a bandstand with him tells some version of the same story: two hundred gigs a year, decade after decade, and a joy at the piano that nothing ever dimmed.