TV viewers are used to seeing actor Lance Reddick in such gritty roles as the glaring Lt. Cedric Daniels on HBO’s hit series The Wire or the solemn agent Phillip Broyles on Fox’s Fringe. Now Reddick hopes his luck with popular shows will follow him into the music world.

Recently, the TV cop released his first album Contemplations and Remembrances, a jazz-inspired collection featuring his skills at the piano. It was an project he’d worked on for a number of years. Reedick, 41, studied at the prestigious Eastman School of Music during his younger years. “I went to conservatory,” he told the Associated Press. “When I grew up I thought I was going to be a classical composer, and then I left music school because I was in denial because I wanted to be a rock star. I started acting after a few years of struggling.”

As an actor, Reddick’s breakthrough role came on HBO’s ground-breaking prison series Oz playing undercover officer Desmond Mobay in 2000.