David Hazeltine Trio

david hazeltine TRIO Willie Ruff

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

january 16, 2014 With George Mraz, bass Billy Drummond, drums Thursday at 8 pm Morse Recital Hall in Sprague Memorial Hall

Robert Blocker, Dean

DAVID HAZELTINE TRIO David Hazeltine David Hazeltine is one of a handful of young pianists who has successfully forged his own distinctive style and musical voice out of the accumulated greatness and weight of a modern piano tradition. His influences extend from Art Tatum and Bud Powell to such great living masters as Buddy Montgomery, Barry Harris, and Cedar Walton.

David made his professional debut at age thirteen in Milwaukee, and later worked extensively in and around Chicago and Minneapolis. In Milwaukee, David served as house pianist at the famed Milwaukee Jazz Gallery, working with such greats as Charles McPherson, Eddie Harris, Sonny Stitt, Pepper Adams, and Chet Baker. It was Baker who encouraged David to make his mark in New York City.

Since moving to New York City in 1992, David has made a name for himself as a “musician’s musician.” In addition to his working trio, David is in constant demand as a sideman.

Recent credits include work with Freddie Hubbard, James Moody, the Faddis-HamptonHeath Sextet, Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, Louis Hayes Quintet, and Marlena Shaw, for whom he serves as pianist, arranger, and musical director. Recently, David was spotlighted on Marian McPartland’s “Piano Jazz” radio program. David is also a member of the band One For All. David’s debut CD as a leader, Four Flights Up (featuring Slide Hampton), released in 1996 on the Sharp Nine Label, received high praise from critics and musicians alike. Since then,

he has recorded seven more CDs for Sharp Nine, the latest being The Inspiration Suite.

David has also recorded six CDs for the Criss Cross label, the most recent being Blues Quarters Volume 2. In Japan, David’s six piano trio releases for the Venus label have won him a large and growing following. In addition to David’s twenty-three dates as a leader, his recorded work as a featured sideman reflects his status as one of the first-call pianists in New York.

As a dedicated teacher, Hazeltine’s career reflects his intense commitment to the advancement of jazz culture and awareness. In Milwaukee, he was co-founder and director of the Jazz School, and Department Chairman at the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music. Recently, he served as Associate Professor at Berklee College Of Music. Currently, David is on the piano faculty at S.U.N.Y. Purchase.

Perhaps David best sums up his feelings about his art and his career: “... the development of the body of music we call jazz is one of the marvels of the 20th century. To contribute to that tradition is all I want to do.”

In 1968 George Mraz came to Boston on a scholarship to the Berklee School of Music.

In the winter of 1969 he got a call from Dizzy Gillespie to join his group in New York. After a few weeks with Gillespie, George went on the road with Oscar Peterson for about two years.

Following that he worked with the Thad Jones/ Mel Lewis Orchestra for the next six years. In the late seventies George worked with Stan Getz, New York Jazz Quartet, Zoot Sims, Bill Evans, John Abercrombie, and for over ten years with Tommy Flanagan.

Mraz also has led his own quartet with pianist Richie Beirach, drummer Billy Hart, and tenor Rich Perry. His albums as a leader include Catching Up on ALFA Records Jazz; My Foolish Heart, Bottom Lines, Duke’s Place, and Morava, all on Milestone Records; and Moravian Gems and Unison on Cube-Metier. Other releases include George Mraz Quartet Jazz at Prague Castle on Multisonic (2012) and the upcoming George Mraz and David Hazeltine CD Your Story on Cube-Metier.

Billy Drummond George Mraz A native of the Czech Republic, George Mraz was born in 1944. He began his musical studies on violin at age seven and started playing jazz in high school on alto saxophone. He attended the Prague Conservatory, studying the double bass and graduating in 1966.

After finishing his studies, George went to Munich and played clubs and concerts throughout Germany and Middle Europe with Benny Bailey, Carmel Jones, Leo Wright, Mal Waldron, Hampton Hawes, Jan Hammer, and others.

Drummer Billy Drummond first came to international prominence when he joined the bands of the legendary Horace Silver and, later, J.J. Johnson and Sonny Rollins, with whom he spent three formative years. Now one of the busiest players of his generation, he can be heard on nearly 300 albums, including three critically acclaimed recordings as a band leader, one of which — cult hit Dubai (Criss Cross) — was named Number 1 Best Jazz CD that year by the New York Times. He currently leads his own band in New York, Freedom of Ideas.

Born in Newport News, Virginia, Drummond grew up listening to his father’s extensive jazz

record collection. Encouraged by his father, also a drummer and saxophonist, he was given his first drum at the age of four and was playing in local bands by the time he was eight.

After graduating from Shenandoah Conservatory of Music, where he studied classical percussion for two years before switching to jazz, Drummond moved to New York at the behest of Al Foster in 1988. He was almost immediately recruited to the young band Out of the Blue (OTB), recording Spiral Staircase for Blue Note Records, before becoming a member of Horace Silver’s Sextet.

Since then, Drummond’s highly musical, versatile, and powerful playing has been called upon in the studio and on the bandstand by the jazz world’s elite, including Joe Henderson, Bobby Hutcherson, Carla Bley, Marty Ehrlich, and international artists Tommy Smith (Scotland), Franco Ambrosetti (Switzerland), Karin Krog (Norway), Barney Wilen (France), Sadao Wantanabe (Japan), Yakov Okun (Russia), Toots Thielmans (Belgium), and Tony Lakatos (Hungary), among others.

Drummond, while maintaining a busy touring schedule, is also a highly respected educator.

He is currently Professor of Jazz Drums at the Juilliard School of Music and New York University and gives private lessons and workshops around the world.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Piano Studio Recital

Renaissance Polyphony

january 21 Morse Recital Hall | Tuesday | 8 pm Featuring students of Hung-Kuan Chen.

Free Admission

january 25 Yale Schola Cantorum St. Mary’s Church | Saturday | 8 pm Music from the Old World and the New World by Cardoso, De Padilla, Franco, Salazar, and more. David Hill, conductor.

Free Admission

Beethoven and Tchaikovsky january 24 Yale Philharmonia Woolsey Hall | Friday | 8 pm Shinik Hahm, conductor; Peter Frankl, piano.

Debussy: Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun; Beethoven: Piano Concerto in No. 4 in G major; Tchaikovsky: Symphony in B minor, “Pathétique.”

Free Admission

Wendy Sharp and Friends january 26 Faculty Artist Series Morse Recital Hall | Sunday | 4 pm Music by Leó Weiner, Bartók, and Brahms.

With Marka Gustavsson, viola; Mimi Hwang, cello; and Melvin Chen, piano.

Free Admission

Benjamin Verdery, guitar january 25 Faculty Artist Series Morse Recital Hall | Saturday | 8 pm Music by Bach, de Falla, and Yale composers: Ingram Marshall, and Hannah Lash.

With Rie Schmidt, flute.

Free Admission

Guitar Extravaganza february 22 Special Events All Day | Sprague Hall & Sudler Recital Hall For the full schedule, visit: music.yale.edu/concerts/guitar-extravaganza

Concert Programs & Box Office: Krista Johnson, Carol Jackson Communications: Dana Astmann, Monica Ong Reed, Austin Kase Operations: Tara Deming, Chris Melillo Piano Curators: Brian Daley, William Harold Recording Studio: Eugene Kimball WSHU 91.1fm is the media sponsor of the Ellington Jazz Series at the Yale School of Music.

P.O. Box 208246, New Haven, CT · 203 432-4158

music.yale.edu

Robert Blocker, Dean