Tim Hagans

Tim Hagans

Tim Hagans (born August 19, 1954) is a jazz trumpet player, arranger and composer. He has been nominated for three Grammy Awards: for Best Instrumental Composition for "Box of Cannoli" on The Avatar Sessions (Fuzzy Music 2010); for Best Contemporary Jazz CD for Animation*Imagination (Blue Note 1999); and again for Best Contemporary Jazz CD for Re-Animation (Blue Note 2000).

Hagans grew up in Dayton, Ohio. His early inspirations included Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, and Thad Jones, to whom he dedicated For the Music Suite, a 40-minute piece for jazz orchestra composed on a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1974, Hagans joined the Stan Kenton band.,^[1] with whom he played until 1977, when he toured with Woody Herman. He then left for Europe, where he lived in Malmö, Sweden, a hotbed of the European jazz scene. While in Europe, he toured extensively and played with Dexter Gordon, Kenny Drew, Horace Parlan, and Thad Jones. His first recorded composition, "I Hope This Time Isn't the Last," appears on Thad Jones Live at Slukefter (Metronome, 1980). In 1987, Hagans moved to New York City. He has performed with Maria Schneider, Yellowjackets, Steps, Secret Society, and Gary Peacock. Hagans has worked extensively with producer and saxophonist Bob Belden on a variety of recordings and live performances, including their ongoing Animation/Imagination project.^[2] Festivals at which he has performed include the Mount Fuji Festival in Japan, the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Berlin Jazz Tage, and the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland.

Hagans has taught master classes at universities both here and abroad. He taught at the University of Cincinnati from 1982 to 1984, and at Berklee College of Music from 1984 to 1987.^[1] From 1996 to 2010, Hagans was Artistic Director and Composer-in-Residence for the Norrbotten Big Band located in Luleå, Sweden. The Norrbotten is a 17-piece jazz orchestra for whom Hagans wrote and arranged original compositions with guest artists including Randy Brecker, Joe Lovano, Dave Liebman, Peter Erskine, and Rufus Reid, an enterprise culminating in the Grammy nominated The Avatar Sessions: The Music of Tim Hagans, for which the Norbotten Big Band traveled to New York. His compositions are featured on numerous recordings with the Norrbotten Big Band, including Future North (Doubletime Records, 1998), Future Miles (Act Records, 2002), and Worth the Wait (Fuzzy Music, 2007). Hagans has been commissioned by several other European jazz orchestras, including the NDR Big Band in Hamburg, UMO in Helsinki, and he was Composer-in-Residence at the Jazz Baltica Festival in 2000. In 2008, Hagans was awarded the ASCAP/IAJE Established Composer Award, and in 2009 he was commissioned by the Barents Composers Orchestra to write a piece for strings, woodwinds, and percussion: Daytonality, a piece based on improvisational melodic language.

Hagans is the subject of the feature documentary Boogaloo Road, directed by Runar Enberg and Marianne Soderberg. He is a featured soloist on Howard Shore's soundtrack for the feature film The Score starring Marlon Brando, Edward Norton, and Robert De Niro.

Tim Hagans at Birdland

Tim Hagans is a recording artist for Palmetto Records, where his latest CD is The Moon Is Waiting (Palmetto 2011). He currently performs, tours, and records with the Tim Hagans Quartet: Tim Hagans, trumpet; Viv Juris, guitar; Rufus Reid, bass, and Jukkis Uotila, drums. The quartet is featured on The Moon Is Waiting.

Following his interest in exploring theatrical venues for innovative jazz, Hagans is Composer-in-Residence with the Michele Brangwen Dance Ensemble, a dance company located in Houston, Texas and in New York City. The company's focus on working exclusively with live original music and incorporating musicians into the stage imagery has been a source of inspiration for Hagans. In January 2012, his composition Outside My Window was performed with the MBDE at Dance Theatre of Harlem. Hagans also performs with author-actor Peter Josyph in duets consisting of haiku texts and freely improvised trumpet, including Josyph's the way of the trumpet, a haiku novel written for and dedicated to Hagans.

In June 2012, Hagans was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki.

Albums

As leader

• From the Neck Down (1983)
• No Words (1993)
• Audible Architecture (1994)
• Hub Songs, the Music of Freddie Hubbard (1997)
• Animation - Imagination (1999)
• Re-Animation: Live in Montreal (1999)
• Between the Lines (SteepleChase, 2000) with Marc Copland
• Beautiful Lily (2006)
• Alone Together (2008)
• The Avatar Sessions (2010)
• The Moon is Waiting (2011)

As sideman

With Joe Lovano

• Universal Language (Blue Note, 1992)
• 52nd Street Themes (Blue Note, 2000)

References

External links

• Trumpet Jazz
• Tim Hagans' website