Jeff Bova

Jeff Bova (born Jeffrey Bova in 1953) is an American musician. He has been active in the music industry since the mid-1970s, contributing to recordings by significant mainstream artists like Celine Dion, Michael Jackson, Blondie, Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker, Cyndi Lauper, Bill Laswell and Herbie Hancock, Bernard Edwards and Tony Thompson, Meat Loaf, Robert Palmer, Missing Persons, Iggy Pop, Iron Maiden, Billy Joel, and the Sisters of Mercy among others.

Early life Born in Washington D.C., he grew up in Old Greenwich, Connecticut. Being the son of a professional trumpet player, he took the instrument up for himself during elementary school and continued with it at the Berklee College of Music and the Manhattan School of Music. Although he also had arranging and composition lessons by trumpet legend Maury Deutsch, he would choose to specialize in keyboards instead. After leaving college he participated in a Connecticut-based jazz fusion band called "Flying Island" and later on he moved back to New York to find a place into the R&B group Change (from 1982 to 1984).

Career 1980s In 1983, and after having worked with Nona Hendryx, he met avant-garde bassist and record producer Bill Laswell, who was set to produce Herbie Hancock's Future Shock (the first part of the latter's "techno-funk" trilogy). The tour in support of that album found Bova on Hancock's live band, as he was proficient in the ARP Chroma (a much-heard instrument on Future Shock). He would work with him for the next five years, contributing to the recordings of the final part of the trilogy (Perfect Machine), while he also programmed and composed tracks for several of the soundtracks Hancock has been working on, including that of the Sean Penn film Colours. Soon after, he started working on numerous projects that were held in the Power Station and eventually obtained a room of his own there (courtesy of the studio's owners Tony Bongiovi and Bob Walters). In 1987, fellow Power Station "resident", bassist Bernard Edwards (of Chic), formed the rock-funk supergroup Distance, with Bova on keyboards, Tony Thompson (also of Chic) on drums, future Bad Company member Robert Hart on lead vocals and Eddie Martinez on guitars. They released only one album, Under the One Sky (1989) on Reprise Records, which failed to chart.

1990s During the 1990s, Bova achieved great commercial success as a producer of Celine Dion's Grammy Award-winning album Falling into You. He also played Hammond organ and synthesizers with Meat Loaf on Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell. "Back Into Hell", an instrumental track on Bat Out of Hell II, was arranged and performed entirely by him, while "Fiesta De Las Almas Perdidas", a short song also written by Bova, was featured on Meat Loaf's 1995 album Welcome to the Neighborhood.

Partial discography Partial Jeff Bova's discography, as a keyboardist, composer, arranger and producer: Visions – Bunky Green (Vanguard, 1978) Riptide - Robert Palmer, 1985 Starpeace - Yoko Ono, 1985 True Colors - Cyndi Lauper, 1986 Eat 'Em and Smile - David Lee Roth, 1986 The Bridge - Billy Joel, 1986 Color in Your Life - Missing Persons, 1986 Hearts In Motion - Air Supply, 1986 Floodland - The Sisters of Mercy, 1987 Perfect Machine - Herbie Hancock, 1988 Instinct - Iggy Pop, 1988 Ooh Yeah! - Hall & Oates, 1988 Original Sin - Pandora's Box, 1989 A Night to Remember - Cyndi Lauper, 1989 Jody Watley - Jody Watley, 1989 Under the One Sky - Distance, 1989 Journeyman - Eric Clapton, 1989 Stranger in This Town - Richie Sambora, 1991 Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell - Meat Loaf, 1993 Blink of an Eye - Michael McDonald, 1993 HIStory - Michael Jackson, 1995 Welcome to the Neighborhood - Meat Loaf, 1995 Falling into You - Celine Dion, 1996 Stories Told & Untold - Bad Company, 1996 In Deep - Tina Arena, 1997 Brave New World - Iron Maiden, 2000 Talk to Me - Joe McIntyre, 2006 Bag of Bones - Europe, 2012 Opus - Jane Badler, 2014 The Book of Souls - Iron Maiden, 2015 Gracia - Mari Hamada, 2018 Soar - Mari Hamada, 2023