David Hazeltine

David Hazeltine (born October 27, 1958) is an American jazz pianist.

Today a major pianist in the New York and Japan scenes, David Hazeltine has been playing gigs since he was thirteen. He did not seriously consider going into music until right before college. Once he entered the jazz world he was encouraged by Chet Baker, who told him to go to New York. Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he studied music with local pianist Will Green, worked as the house pianist for national acts at the former Jazz Gallery, and helped to retool the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music's jazz program, Hazeltine has been living in New York for several decades. Although he returned to Milwaukee briefly because of domestic issues, he considered the town constraining and not a good place to make his career. He has played and recorded with Jon Hendricks, Louis Hayes, and One for All and done composing and arranging as well as teaching. Although he is a pianist he feels more influenced by saxophonists, particularly Charlie Parker.

Hazeltine, in the tradition of Parker, works within and across the constrains of bebop, and arcs toward the aesthetic of consonance rather than dissonance: reaching toward beauty in harmony, melody, rhythm and never straying too deeply from his roots. He is particularly influenced by Parker, Rollins, Bud Powell and early Miles Davis. Although seemingly hard-line about the tradition, Hazeltine has done an impressive amount of innovation and is an arranger and composer. Of particular note are his arrangements of pop tunes, which appear on most of his CDs. In fact, he is one of the few contemporary jazz musicians who continue the tradition of making contemporary tunes into "standards", particularly on his CD Modern Standards.

In February 2015, Hazeltine launched an online jazz piano reharmonization course in which he explains, from the keyboard, a series of principles and techniques used to reharmonize jazz standards. The course uses a sophisticated display technique, in which a moving score follows his hands as he plays.

Selected discography

• George Mraz & David Hazeltine Trio – Your Story
• The Classic Trio (Sharp Nine, 1996)
• The Classic Trio, Vol. 2 (Sharp Nine, 2001)
• Manhattan Autumn (Sharp Nine, 2003)
• Modern Standards (Sharp Nine, 2005)
• David Hazeltine – Manhattan (Chesky, 2006)
• Perambulation (Criss Cross, 2006)
• The Inspiration Suite (Sharp Nine, 1997)
• The David Hazeltine Trio – The Jobim Songbook in New York (Chesky, 2007)
• Sugar Hill: The Music of Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn with Javon Jackson and Tony Reedus
• Alice in Wonderland (Venus, 2009)
• The New Classic Trio (Sharp Nine, 2012)
• The David Hazeltine Trio – Impromptu (Chesky, 2013)
• For All We Know (Smoke Sessions, 2014)
• Billy Peterson and David Hazeltine – Next Door (Megabien Music, 2016)

References

• All about Jazz Profile
• One for All at AllMusic

External links

• Official site