Bill O'Connell is a jazz pianist, educator, and bandleader. He is most associated with Latin jazz and hard bop. He studied piano at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, but has mostly lived in NYC or Long Island. He teaches jazz piano at Mason Gross School for the Arts at the New Brunswick campus of Rutgers University, in New Jersey. He worked with Chet Baker and Sonny Rollins early on in his career. From 1982 to 2017 he has often collaborated and toured with Dave Valentin.