John Hadfield is an American jazz drummer, composer, and percussionist.
Hadfield was born and raised in Missouri. He studied music at University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the University of Missouri, Kansas City Conservatory, before moving to New York. He performs with a number of musicians and ensembles including Kinan Azmeh, Ron Blake, Petros Klampanis, Nguyên Lê, Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, Lenny Pickett, and Kenny Werner.
Born in Missouri, Hadfield began to play the drums as a child. [1] He studied music as an undergraduate student at University of Nevada, Las Vegas before earning a Master’s degree at the University of Missouri, Kansas City Conservatory. He then settled in New York [2] where he has been performing and composing for a variety of genres, in particular Jazz, world music, and classical and contemporary music. [3] Hadfield currently teaches at NYU’s Jazz studies department. [4]
Hadfield has performed with a number of musicians and ensembles around the world including Kinan Azmeh, [5] Ron Blake, [6] Rachel Eckroth, [7] Petros Kampanis, [8] Nguyên Lê, [9] Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble, [10] Lenny Pickett, [11] and Kenny Werner. [12] Hadfield was described by Modern Drummer magazine in 2016 as having “created hybrid drumkit/percussion setups that ingeniously serve[] the music . . . His skillful sound-weaving choices create the illusion of a seamless multi-percussion section.” [2]
Hadfield released four albums of his own compositions, Drum of Stories (2023) John Hadfield’s Paris Quartet (2022), The Eye of Gordon (2008), and Displaced (2010). [13] Paris Quartet, was hailed by one of the leading Belgian daily newspapers, Le Soir , as "very successful, the musicians are in perfect osmosis, the Rhodes developing its atmospheres, the sax its volutes, the percussion its rhythms, the base its counterpoints. Everything lands exactly at the right place. And the listener is happy." [14]
Hadfield has composed for many projects, including Heard by Others, a duo with Lenny Pickett, [15] For James, a collaboration with Ron Blake, [6] Believers, a trio with Brad Shepik and Sam Minaie, [16] the electronic group Earspeak with Boris Skalsky, [17] as well as the feature-length documentary After Spring. [18] In 2017, reviewing Petros Klampanis' Chroma, Downbeat wrote, "Drummer John Hadfield is an ideal purveyor of Klampanis’ vision. Using a hybrid kit of traditional drumkit pieces and mounted percussion, he spurs on the ensemble with sensitive, yet infectiously grooving layers." [19] In 2021, reviewing the Believers’ album, All About Jazz wrote, “Hadfield's contributions belong among the more rhythmically engaging cuts of the spectrum. First ostinato-based, then loudly improvised, "Seven Crotales" unveils groovy bass lines and spacey guitar work which is elaborated on again later, throughout "Nomadic Days.” [16] The same year, French Jazz website Citizen Jazz published a review of Hadfield’s single For James honoring James Baldwin, poetically noting that he “deployed a clever and joyful beat, . . . a dew of happiness.” [6]
Hadfield has also been heard playing drum and percussion on various TV shows and movies, including Saturday Night Live, P.O.V (TV Series documentary), The Light in Her Eyes, and Chuck Jones: Memories of Childhood.[ citation needed ] [20]
As a leader or collectives:
Appears on:
Milton Jackson, nicknamed "Bags", was an American jazz vibraphonist. He is especially remembered for his cool swinging solos as a member of the Modern Jazz Quartet and his penchant for collaborating with hard bop and post-bop players.
The Modern Jazz Quartet (MJQ) was a jazz combo established in 1952 that played music influenced by classical, cool jazz, blues and bebop. The Quartet consisted of John Lewis (piano), Milt Jackson (vibraphone), Percy Heath, and various drummers, most notably Kenny Clarke and Connie Kay. The group grew out of the rhythm section of Dizzy Gillespie's big band from 1946 to 1948, which consisted of Lewis, Jackson, and Clarke along with bassist Ray Brown. They recorded as the Milt Jackson Quartet in 1951 and Brown left the group, being replaced on bass by Heath. During the early-to-mid-1950s they became the Modern Jazz Quartet, Lewis became the group's musical director, and they made several recordings with Prestige Records, including the original versions of their two best-known compositions, Lewis's "Django" and Jackson's "Bags' Groove". Clarke left the group in 1955 and was replaced as drummer by Kay, and in 1956 they moved to Atlantic Records and made their first tour to Europe.
The World Saxophone Quartet was an American jazz ensemble founded in 1977, incorporating elements of free jazz, R&B, funk and South African jazz into their music.
James Stanley Hall was an American jazz guitarist, composer and arranger.
Susie Ibarra is an American contemporary composer and percussionist who has worked and recorded with jazz, classical, world, and indigenous musicians. One of SPIN's "100 Greatest Drummers of Alternative Music," she is known for her work as a performer in avant-garde, jazz, world, and new music. As a composer, Ibarra incorporates diverse styles and the influences of Philippine Kulintang, jazz, classical, poetry, musical theater, opera, and electronic music. Ibarra remains active as a composer, performer, educator, and documentary filmmaker in the U.S., Philippines, and internationally. She is interested and involved in works that blend folkloric and indigenous tradition with avant-garde. In 2004, Ibarra began field recording indigenous Philippine music, and in 2009 she co-founded Song of the Bird King, an organization focusing on the preservation of Indigenous music and ecology.
Leonard White III is an American jazz fusion drummer who was a member of the band Return to Forever led by Chick Corea in the 1970s. White has been called "one of the founding fathers of jazz fusion".
William Harris Stewart is an American jazz drummer.
Michael Zilber is a Canadian composer and musician. Zilber was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He moved to Boston, Massachusetts in his late teens and to New York City in his early twenties. He has performed and/or recorded with Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, Dave Liebman, Miroslav Vitous, Bob Berg, Dave Douglas, Rachel Z, and Narada Michael Walden, among many others.
Lenny Pickett is an American saxophonist and musical director of the Saturday Night Live band. From 1973 to 1981 he was a member of the band Tower of Power. Pickett has worked extensively as a session musician for a wide range of performers and genres.
Ron McClure is an American jazz bassist.
Kinan Azmeh, is a Syrian clarinet player and composer of contemporary classical music based in New York City. Performing with orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the West–Eastern Divan Orchestra, or the Syrian Symphony Orchestra, he has played as a soloist of classical works as well as of contemporary compositions.
The University of California Jazz Ensembles, also known as the UC Jazz Ensembles, UC Jazz, or UCJE, is the student jazz organization founded in 1967 on the University of California, Berkeley, campus. Founded in 1967, it comprises one or more big bands, numerous jazz combos, a vocal jazz ensemble, an alumni big band, and instructional classes. With a mission statement to foster a community for the performance, study, and promotion of jazz at U.C. Berkeley, its Wednesday Night big band provides free concerts every Thursday noon on Lower Sproul Plaza, its various units perform throughout the San Francisco Bay Area including area high schools, travel to collegiate jazz festivals, and perform overseas, and for many years it sponsored the annual Pacific Coast Jazz Festival. It also provides master classes by its instructors and clinics by prominent guest artists. It has nurtured numerous musicians who have become professional jazz musicians and educators. UC Jazz Ensembles is one of three groups, with the Cal (marching) Band and UC Choral Ensembles, forming Student Musical Activities (SMA), a department within Cal Performances on the U.C. Berkeley campus. Its members are primarily U.C. Berkeley undergraduate and graduate students, representing many academic disciplines.
Dima Orsho is a Syrian-American mezzosoprano singer and composer. She studied first at the Damascus Higher Institute for Music and later at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Since 2003, she has been a member of the Syrian Hewar ensemble, alongside Kinan Azmeh, Issam Rafea and others. In July 2022, Orsho sang and played the role of the prisoner Fatma in the premiere of Bushra El-Turk's multi-media opera Woman at Point Zero at the Aix-en-Provence Festival in France.
Tony Overwater is a Dutch jazz bassist and composer of jazz and improvisational music. In 2002 he received the Boy Edgar Award, the most important jazz award in The Netherlands. Presently, Overwater is mainly active in a crossover of jazz, Arab and early music.
Thaddeus Gustav Dixon, also known as The Music Man, is an American record producer, songwriter, and music director. He co-produced and co-wrote Meghan Trainor's 2015 single "Better When I'm Dancin'," which she performed for The Peanuts Movie soundtrack. The song received platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Céline Bonacina is a French saxophonist and composer. She plays soprano, alto and baritone saxophone.
Rachel Eckroth is a Grammy nominated American singer-songwriter and keyboardist from Phoenix, Arizona. She is currently the keyboardist for alternative musician St. Vincent and singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright after being the keyboardist for jazz trumpeter Chris Botti, singer-songwriter KT Tunstall, and The Meredith Vieira Show. Her album The Garden was released by Rainy Days Records in 2021 and was nominated for the 64th Annual Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Instrumental Album.
Michael Eckroth is an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer from Phoenix, Arizona, particularly known for his work in Latin jazz. He was a member of jazz-rock guitarist John Scofield's New Quartet from 2010-2012. Currently, he is the co-writer, arranger, and pianist for Cuban and American mambo big band Orquesta Akokán, whose self-titled debut album from Daptone Records was nominated in the 61st Annual Grammy Awards.
Issam Rafea, also written Essam Rafea, is a Syrian musician, music director and composer, noted for his compositions and performances on the Arabic oud, as former director of the Syrian National Orchestra for Arabic Music and for his collaboration with jazz and world music bands. Since 2013, Rafea has lived in Chicago, touring in the US as well as internationally.
Jesse Alexander Fischer is a pianist, keyboardist, composer, and producer. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. His playing draws on aspects of jazz, R&B, electronic music, and hip-hop, and incorporates both his Jewish heritage and the influences of the African diaspora. He’s been a recipient of multiple grants from South Arts Jazz Tour, and received the ASCAP Plus Award three times.
{{cite news}}: External link in |work=