Saturday, August 29, 2020

Billy Hart (b. November 29, 1940): Legendary, iconic, and innovative musician, composer, arranger, ensemble leader, producer, and teacher



SOUND PROJECTIONS

 



AN ONLINE QUARTERLY MUSIC MAGAZINE

 



EDITOR:  KOFI NATAMBU

 



SUMMER, 2020

 

 

VOLUME NINE    NUMBER ONE

BRIAN BLADE


Featuring the Musics and Aesthetic Visions of:


SULLIVAN FORTNER
(August 8-14)

JOEL ROSS
(August 15-21)

HORACE TAPSCOTT
(August 22-28)

BILLY HART
(August 29-September 4)

MARC CARY
(September 5-11)

EDDIE HENDERSON
(September 12-18)

CECIL MCBEE
(September 19-25)

MAKAYA MCCRAVEN
(September 26-October 2)

FRANK MORGAN
(October 3-9)

RASHIED ALI
(October 10-16)

DON REDMAN
(October 17-23)

IDRIS MUHAMMAD
(October 24-30)

Billy Hart 

(b. November 29, 1940)

Artist Biography by


Enchance
An esteemed drummer and educator, Billy Hart is one the foremost jazz performers of his generation, capable of balancing propulsive swing with a nuanced sense for group dynamics and improvisational flow. Following his early years backing Shirley Horn and Jimmy Smith in the 1960s, Hart emerged at the forefront of the '70s fusion movement, playing with Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi band, as well as Miles Davis, McCoy Tyner, and others. Though Hart led few of his own sessions during the first two decades of his career, albums like 1977's Enchance and 1985's Oshumare found him balancing experimental elements with acoustic post-bop traditions. Along with performing, he has built a strong reputation as a mentor and teacher, having held positions at New England Conservatory and Western Michigan University. Nonetheless, he continues to tour and record, often leading his quartet as on 2014's One Is the Other and 2017's Find the Way. Born William "Billy" Hart in 1940 in Washington, D.C., Hart grew up in a creative, intellectually minded family with a father who worked as a mathematician. The family lived close to the local Spotlite Club, where he became aware of artists like Miles Davis, Lee Morgan, and Art Blakey. Both his parents were also huge music fans and introduced him to jazz including Duke Ellington and Jimmie Lunceford. Hart was also encouraged to play music by his paternal grandmother, a concert pianist who had the opportunity to accompany Marian Anderson. Similarly, his maternal grandmother knew tenor saxophonist Buck Hill and encouraged Hart's interest in bebop, buying him his first drum set. It was Hill who first hired a then 17-year-old Hart to play an extended gig with the Abart's club house band that also featured his classmates pianist Reuben Brown and bassist Butch Warren.

After high school Hart continued to play, balancing his jazz gigs with his mechanical engineering studies at Howard University; however, he left school early to tour with vocalist Shirley Horn. It was with Horn that Hart has said he developed most as a performer, gaining better sense of dynamics. It was also during this period in the early '60s that he took jobs playing at Charlie Byrd's Showboat Lounge backing rising Brazilian stars including Antônio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto, and Bola Sete. Hart made his recorded debut in the '60s playing with Hammond B-3 master Jimmy Smith's group. There were also notable sessions with Stan Getz, Eddie Harris, Herbie Hancock, and Pharoah Sanders, among others. 


Sextant
By the late '60s, Hart's former Howard classmate saxophonist Marion Brown had introduced him to the music of drummers Sunny Murray and Rashied Ali. Their propulsive styles spurred his growing interest in experimental and avant-garde jazz. He further expanded his creative mindset in the 1970s working with Joe Zawinul, Wayne Shorter, and McCoy Tyner, the latter of which he spent two years playing with. He also continued his association with Hancock, appearing on such landmark funk and fusion albums as Sextant, Mwandishi, and Treasure Chest. His connection to Hancock also found him playing on Miles Davis' On the Corner and Big Fun. There were other fusion outings including appearing with fellow Hancock bandmate Eddie Henderson on 1973's Realization, 1975's Sunburst, and 1976's Heritage. He also joined his other Hancock alum Bennie Maupin for 1977's The Jewel in the Lotus, worked regularly with Stan Getz, and appeared on sessions with Pat Martino, Joanne Brackeen, and Hal Galper.
Rah
Hart was in his mid-thirties by the time he made his debut as leader with the expansive 1977 album Enchance on the A&M label. Joining him was a bevy of forward-thinking artists in Oliver Lake, Don Pullen, Dewey Redman, Marvin "Hannibal" Peterson, and Dave Holland. He then returned to his work with others throughout the late '70s and early '80s, appearing on albums with Pepper Adams, John McNeil, Don Friedman, Buster Williams, Duke Jordan, John Scofield, Terumasa Hino, and others. In 1985, he issued is own Oshumare on Gramavision, a far-reaching post-bop session that featured contributions by bassist Holland, violinist Didier Lockwood, guitarists Bill Frisell and Kevin Eubanks, as well as saxophonists Branford Marsalis and Steve Coleman, and percussionist Manolo Badrena. Hart put together a similarly impressive lineup for 1987's Rah, which found him reuniting with Mwandishi trumpeter Eddie Henderson, and working with saxophonist David Liebman, pianist Kenny Kirkland, guitarist Frisell, and others.
Amethyst
Along with his continued performance work, Hart (who lives in Montclair, New Jersey) moved into education in the '90s, teaching at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and joining the adjunct faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music and Western Michigan University. He also began giving private lessons through The New School and New York University, and made appearances at various clinics and jazz camps. More adventurous albums followed including 1993's Amethyst, and 1997's Oceans of Time. He also worked with Charles Lloyd, Tom Harrell, Joe Lovano, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, and more.
Quartet
In 2006, he issued Quartet, his debut with his group featuring saxophonist Mark Turner, pianist Ethan Iverson, and bassist Ben Street. A trio date, Route F, also arrived that same year, followed in 2009 by the Belgian concert album Live at the Cafe Damberd. Hart marked his 68th birthday in 2011 with the hard-driving acoustic post-bop session Sixty-Eight, featuring pianist Dan Tepfer, trumpeter Jason Palmer, alto saxophonist Logan Richardson, vibraphonist Michael Pinto, and bassist Chris Tordini. He also joined trumpeter Eddie Henderson, saxophonist Billy Harper, and other veteran players in the Cookers.
All Our Reasons
Two more quartet albums followed on ECM with 2012's All Our Reasons and 2014's One Is the Other. Also in 2014, he joined vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, saxophonist David Sanborn, and organist Joey DeFrancesco for Enjoy the View, which earned a Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Instrumental Album. A year later, Hart again paired with trumpeter Eddie Henderson for Infinite Spirit: Revisiting Music of the Mwandishi Band. The drummer was then featured with the German WDR Big Band for 2016's The Broader Picture, and he joined pianist Aaron Parks for 2017's Find the Way on ECM. In 2019, Hart collaborated with drummer and former student Eric Thielemans on Talking About the Weather.  

https://musicians.allaboutjazz.com/billyhart

Billy Hart Billy Hart





His first steady gigs of note were with Shirley Horn and Buck Hill. In the 1960’s he toured with Jimmy Smith, Wes Montgomery, Eddie Harris, and Pharoah Sanders. In 1970 he joined Herbie Hancock’s Sextet, and after that band broke up in 1973 he joined first McCoy Tyner (two years) and then Stan Getz (four). In the 1980’s Hart was a regular with many bands and leaders: Gerry Mulligan, Billy Harper, Clark Terry, The New York Jazz Quartet, the Jazztet, Mingus Dynasty and most extensively with Quest (with David Liebman, Ritchie Beirach, and Ron McClure). In the 1990’s Hart was a member of the Charles Lloyd, Joe Lovano, and Tom Harrell groups, and in 1999 he began performing with the Three Tenors (Liebman, Lovano, and Michael Brecker). He is on about 500 hundred records as a sideman.

Billy Hart's own records include: 

Enchance (1977, A&M Horizon) with Dewey Redman, Marvin “Hannibal” Peterson, Eddie Henderson, Oliver Lake, Don Pullen, Buster Williams, and Dave Holland
Such Great Friends (1983, Strata East) with Billy Harper, Stanley Cowell, and Reggie Workman.

Oshumare (1985, Gramavision) with Steve Coleman, Branford Marsalis, Didier Lockwood, Kenny Kirkland, Bill Frisell, Kevin Eubanks, Mark Grey, and Dave Holland

Great Friends (1986, Evidence) with Sonny Fortune, Billy Harper, Stanley Cowell, and Reggie Workman
Rah (1987, Gramavision) with Dave Liebman, Kenny Kirkland, Eddie Henderson, Ralph Moore, Kevin Eubanks, Bill Frisell, Mark Grey, Eddie Gomez, Buster Williams, and Caris Visentin

Amethyst (1993, Arabesque) with John Stubblefield, Mark Feldman, David Fiuczynski, David Kikoski, Marc Copland, and Santi Debriano

Oceans of Time (1996, Arabesque) with John Stubblefield, Chris Potter, Mark Feldman, David Fiuczynski, David Kikoski, and Santi Debriano

Since the early 1990’s Billy Hart has devoted a lot of time to teaching.

He spends considerable time at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, but he is also adjunct faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music and Western Michigan University.

He also teaches private lessons through The New School and New York University, and often contributes to the Stokes Forest Music Camp and the Dworp Summer Jazz Clinic in Belgium.


Billy Hart plays Pearl Drums and Zildjian cymbals.


http://www.cruiseshipdrummer.com/2020/03/billy-hart-interview.html

Monday, March 2, 2020


Billy Hart interview


Photo by Anthony Porcar Cano















More Billy Hart. Michael Griener sent me this 1994 Modern Drummer interview by Ken Micallef, and it's excellent. It gives a much fuller picture of his musical intellect than I got to see in the clinic. This is high level player's philosophy.

Micallef says at the beginning, “Categorizing Hart's contribution is no easy task. Among the four hundred or so albums Hart has recorded— including his solo records— one hears a musician not so much in love with the drums as with the possibilities they hold for expression within the music.” I think that may be part of why I have been slow to get into his playing seriously— he doesn't project an overt drumming personality the same way as some other players. No one would ever dismiss him as being a stylist.

I'm going to excerpt the interview pretty heavily, because that's what this site is about: collecting important information about drumming. So thank you Ken and thank you Modern Drummer, without you this important contribution to the literature of drumming would not exist. Subscribe to MD and call up Ken and tell him thank you.
Anybody can be a great instrumentalist. It's simply a matter of technique. The difference is in musicianship. You can be a great instrumentalist, but there are very few musicians.

Coltrane once told me about Elvin, “No matter how tense the situation gets, Elvin never tightens up.” I learned what that means. You don't mind taking chances in certain situations because you have confidence that it will come out. Or you enjoy reaching for it even if it doesn't come out.



[Milford Graves and Sunny Murray] were like magic; they conjured up spirits and ghosts and rainbow. You could actually believe that these guys could make it rain and give you visions. It was psychedelic. Now the high comes from precision and technique

The point is that what makes a rhythm you play groove is not that you're approximating a record, but that the groove is correct from what was played centuries ago in Africa. It's a rhythmic significance that's built on this heavy intelligence. Over centuries of playing they've come up with something that is so correct that when you play it accurately, based on the history, people are going to respond euphorically. 



...the rhythmic reason for this is to make people feel good. On the highest level you actually heal people, both physically and psychologically. It makes people happy and it makes them move. That's the purpose of drumming in the first place. The dance. That's the point of anyone playing the drums.




Q: Where do those soaring buzz rolls that you play come from?   
A: Art Blakey, but he would always conclude it with a cymbal crash. Tony would do it with single strokes, but not conclude it, he'd leave it empty.

Girls are always slightly behind the beat, but in the pocket. Watch them snap their fingers to the beat. They're sitting on it. It's what Gadd and Chambers are masters at. How come that shit never slows down?



Joao Gilberto used to tell me: “Play like the wind, play like rain.” Miles said the same thing. “Start everything on 4 and don't finish nothin'.”

How you resolve something is the key. You resolve it, but don't conclude it in a logical way. Find something else hip to play. You're concluding it, but in a more abstract way. That's what all the geniuses did. 

Also see Ethan Iverson's interview with Hart

As leader

Collaborations

Billy Hart (right), Johnny Alegre (center), and bassist Ron McClure (left), recording Johnny Alegre 3 in New York City
With Quest
  • II (Storyville, 1987)
  • Midpoint – Quest III Live at the Montmartre Copenhagen Denmark (Storyville, 1987)
  • N.Y. Nites – Standards (PAN Music, 1988)
  • Natural Selection (Pathfinder/Core, 1988)
  • Of One Mind (CMP, 1990)
  • Re-Dial (Live in Hamburg) (Outnote, 2007)
  • Circular Dreaming (Enja, 2011)

As sideman

With Franco Ambrosetti
With Pepper Adams
With Kenny Barron
With Walter Bishop Jr.
With Paul Bley
With Hamiet Bluiett
With Joanne Brackeen
With Nick Brignola
With George Cables
With Catalyst
  • Perception (Muse, 1973)
  • Unity (Muse, 1974)
With Arnett Cobb
With Johnny Coles
With Larry Coryell
With Stanley Cowell
  • Setup (SteepleChase, 1994)
With Buck Clarke
With Albert Dailey
With Miles Davis
With Richard Davis
With Joey DeFrancesco
With Dave Douglas
With Ray Drummond
With Charles Earland
With Yelena Eckemoff
With Teddy Edwards
With Sonny Fortune
With Chico Freeman
With Hal Galper
With Carlos Garnett
With Stan Getz
With Dick Griffin
  • Now Is the Time (Trident, 1979)
  • The Eighth Wonder & More (Konnex, 1994)
With Herbie Hancock
With Billy Harper
With Eddie Harris
With Eddie Henderson
With Buck Hill
With Shirley Horn
With The Jazztet
With Duke Jordan
With Jimmy Knepper
With Lee Konitz
with Harold Land
With Andy LaVerne
With Azar Lawrence
With Charles Lloyd
With Joe Lovano
With Pat Martino
With Bennie Maupin
With Cecil McBee
With Mingus Dynasty
With Wes Montgomery
  • Live at Jorgies Jazz Club (VGM, 1961, issued later)
  • Live at Jorgies Jazz Club and More (VGM, 1961, 1968, issued later)
With Ralph Moore
With Frank Morgan
With James Mtume
  • Mtume Umoja Ensemble – Alkebu-Lan – Land of the Blacks (Live at The East) (Strata-East, 1972)
  • Rebirth Cycle (Third Street, 1974, issued in 1977)
With Tisziji Munoz
  • Heart Trance Revelation (Anami, 2014)
With James Newton
With Judy Niemack
  • Long As You're Living (Freelance, 1989)
  • Night and the Music (Freelance, 1994)
With Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen
  • Trio 1 (SteepleChase, 1977)
  • Trio 2 (SteepleChase, 1977)
  • Dancing on the Tables (SteepleChase, 1979)
  • Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen Quartet – Dancing on the Tables (SteepleChase, 1979)
With Hannibal Marvin Peterson
  • Hannibal Marvin Peterson, The Sunrise Orchestra – Children of the Fire (Sunrise, 1974)
  • Naima (Eastworld, 1978)
With Doug Raney
With Pharoah Sanders
With Iñaki Sandoval
  • Miracielos (Bebyne, 2011)
With Jarmo Savolainen
  • First Sight (Timeless, 1992)
  • True Image (A-Records, 1995)
With Zbigniew Seifert
  • Man of the Light (MPS, 1977)
With Wayne Shorter
With Jimmy Smith
With Idrees Sulieman
With Charles Sullivan
With Horace Tapscott
With Buddy Terry
With McCoy Tyner
With Warren Vaché
With Tom Varner
With Buster Williams
  • Pinnacle (Muse, 1975)
  • Crystal Reflections (Muse, 1976)
  • Heartbeat (Muse, 1979)
  • Dreams Come True (Buddah, 1980)
With Joe Zawinul
With others
  External links
THE MUSIC OF BILLY HART: AN EXTENSIVE VIDEO OVERVIEW, A CROSS SECTION OF RECORDINGS, MUSICAL ANALYSIS AND COMMENTARY, PLUS VARIOUS INTERVIEWS WITH BILLY HART:


Billy Hart - Enchance 1977 (FULL ALBUM)







Billy Hart Quartet - Live in het Bimhuis 7 mei 2016







Drummer Billy Hart is Jabali








Billy Hart Quartet featuring Joshua Redman








Billy Hart - Confirmation







Billy Hart / Ethan Iverson / Mark Turner / Ben Street






Billy Hart: All Our Reasons (Album EPK)







Billy Hart - Moment's Notice








Billy Hart Quartet w/ Mark Turner, Ben Street,







Billy Hart - Neon





Oberlin Conservatory Faculty Profile: Billy Hart








Jabali - Billy Hart







BILLY HART "LIVE STREAMING AT THE








Billy Hart - Irah








Jabali is Billy Hart







Billy Hart: All The Things You Are - Joe Henderson








Billy Hart on Pearl Drums








Billy Hart - Lorca








Billy Hart - Charvez







Billy Hart Plays






Billy Hart 4tet featuring Joshua Redman








Billy Hart: Trading with Kenny Werner and Ra