Elliott, Daniel James

Daniel James Elliott is noted for his profound musical talent and quick wit. A thoughtful, hard-working, easygoing young man, he is excellent company

Early Life
Daniel was born 15 December 1987, the younger son of Kevin Jay Elliott and Deena Kay (Bryant) Elliott. Following the death of his maternal grandfather, James Hickman Bryant, Daniel was relocated to Kerrville, Texas. There, while his older brother, Geoffrey Bryce Elliott, was at school and his parents were working, Daniel was in the care of his maternal grandmother, Patricia Jean (Hardy) Bryant, along with his cousin, David Dean Rynearson. The two were close from the beginning and remained so.

Daniel early displayed a great musical talent. In his early childhood, he would often sing songs he had heard on the radio, accurately reproducing the intonation and timbre of such artists as Aretha Franklin while still strapped into a car booster seat. He also quickly demonstrated an innate aptitude for work on keyboards, and so he was early enrolled in piano lessons with Gaylene Ingram, a local piano elementray school music teacher and long-time piano instructor. Over the following years, Daniel would come to be Ingram's star pupil, performing in annual recitals and headlining the last combined recital of Ingram's students during his time with her.

When Daniel was five, he was enrolled in public school in the Kerrville Independent School District. During his years in the district, he was heavily invilved in the band program, repeatedly performing with inter-district honor bands. In his senior year of high school, he was awarded the Louis Armstrong Award for his persistently superior performance in the district's jazz ensembles.

His understanding of jazz, which was displayed on trombone no less than piano while he was enrolled in the Kerrville Independent School District band programs, was enhanced by his early association with the musicians of the Sentimental Journey Orchestra. Both his father and his great uncle, Edwin Dennis Hardy, were key members of the ensemble for a number of years, and Daniel attended a large number of the band's performances and rehearsals during that time. He also worked closely with several members of the ensemble in intermittent private study, honing his performance technique.

Undergraduate Work
Daniel graduated high school in May 2006 and moved on to undergraduate study at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) that August. He went funded by a Cailloux Scholarship, which covered four years of tuition and academic expenses, and was brought into the school as a member of the Honors College. Daniel completed coursework for his degree in music marketing in May 2011 and at that time began work on the internship that serves as a capstone experience for a Bachleor of Music degree in that concentration. He had not long before received the Jazz Band Service Award from the UTSA Department of Music in recognition of his years playing in and lobbying for the ensemble. His degree was formally conferred, cum laude, upon completion of the internship in August 2011; he had participated in the May 2011 commencement exercises.

Musical Career
Outside of his school performances, Daniel has for many years maintained an active performance schedule. Performing with such bands as the Off-Keys, Delfeo, the Twilites, Bill Smallwood's Lone Star Swing Orchestra, and [http://www.reverbnation.com/someonelikeyously#! Someone Like You,] he further refined his performance technique and developed a reputation as a skilled musician in the Texas Hill Country. As he has done so, he has continued to consult his uncle and long-time mentor, Edwin Dennis Hardy, building upon the latter's professional contacts to establish his own.

In September 2011, Daniel went on a multi-state tour with Holding Space. Based in San Marcos, Texas, the band bills itself as a "psychedelic jam-band that integrates numerous styles of music into one well balanced flow of sound and energy." The tour on which Daniel went with the band was initially scheduled to begin in San Marcos and to proceed through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Colorado, and Arkansas. It represented a major experience for Daniel and offered him a chance at supra-regional exposure. He was, unfortunately, unable to effectively capitalize on the chance, but he reports coming away from the experience having learned much about the life of a touring professional musician. The lesson will doubtless come in handy in later years.

Other Work
Daniel does not restrict himself to his music, having worked a number of odd and other jobs over the years. Among them was work with his parents on the staff of the Kerr County Market Association Maret Days. In that capacity, he oversaw a number of workers and made arrangements for musical performances to take place at the market. In addition, he was involved in administering the City of Kerrville's US Independence Day celebrations in 2010 and 2011. He is currently employed by Liberty Tax Service in Kerrville, using the skills he learned in his collegiate coursework to direct effect. He also took employment with the Hill Country Home Builders Association in mid-2012.