In 2000 pianist Hal Galper disbanded the trio he had been touring internationally with for a decade and spent the following six years “in the shed" studying, practicing and further developing his uniquely original style of playing.
The trio recordings Galper has released on Origin Records since 2007 represent a series of stunning modern jazz performances that have redefined him as a player and musical visionary. Hailed by JazzTimes as “the most complex, daring, exhilarating music of Galper's career," the CDs inspired Germany's Mannheimer Morgen to marvel at how the pianist “...excels in his highly dramatic improvisations as a soloist...plays wild capers [with] sudden flashes of brilliance tumbling over each other temperamentally [and] individual phrases [that] sparkle effortlessly away...."
Jazz fans in the New York metropolitan area will have an opportunity to preview Galper's latest trio CD -- “E Pluribus Unum" (Origin 82557 / Street Date - March 16, 2010) -- when he performs at Birdland at 8:30 and 11 p.m. on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 with his current band with bassist Jeff Johnson and drummer John Bishop dubbed “The New Hal Galper Trio" that appears on the new CD recorded “live" at the 2009 Earshot Jazz Festival in Seattle.
On “E Pluribus Unum" Galper once again re-imagines standards and adds his distinctive voice as a conceptual improviser in a set of episodic musical explorations while the band's spontaneity and intuitive interaction spans the lexicon of jazz history in cutting-edge, rubato-style group improvisations that emphasize spontaneity, shifting textures and intuitive interaction.
With over 90 recordings, including 30 as a leader, to his credit and 100 recorded and published original compositions, pianist, composer, publisher, educator and author and Hal Galper is best known for his work with Chet Baker, Connonball Adderley, John Scofield and the Phil Woods Quartet and Quintet (for which he shared a Grammy Award. The recordings he made as a leader during the 1970s with Michael and Randy Brecker are considered modern jazz classics.
Graduating from the Berklee College of Music at the height of the be-bop era, Galper's reputation grew steadily in the changing environment of jazz as he held down the piano chair in the Slide Hampton Quartet, the Stan Getz Quartet and many others bands and performed in a duo with Lee Konitz.
Listed in the National Encyclopedia of Jazz and he has received grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, The Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Foundation and The New School and is an internationally renowned educator currently on the faculty of the State University of New York-Purchase Conservatory and the New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music. In addition to being the recipient of a Distinguished Alumni Award from the Berklee College of Music, Galper's academic activities earned him multiple awards for outstanding Service to Jazz Education from the former International Association of Jazz Education.
Galper's technologically innovative interactive eBook “Forward Motion, From Bach To Bebop, A Corrective Approach To Jazz Phrasing" has received raves from students and professionals alike and he has had six theoretical and practical articles published in Down Beat. His scholarly article on the “Psychology of Stagefright," originally published in the Jazz Educators Journal, has been reprinted in four other publications. Fast becoming the last word on the subject, Gakper's book “The Touring Musician, A Small Business Approach to Booking Your Band on the Road" is currently reissued by Alfred Publishing.
The trio recordings Galper has released on Origin Records since 2007 represent a series of stunning modern jazz performances that have redefined him as a player and musical visionary. Hailed by JazzTimes as “the most complex, daring, exhilarating music of Galper's career," the CDs inspired Germany's Mannheimer Morgen to marvel at how the pianist “...excels in his highly dramatic improvisations as a soloist...plays wild capers [with] sudden flashes of brilliance tumbling over each other temperamentally [and] individual phrases [that] sparkle effortlessly away...."
Jazz fans in the New York metropolitan area will have an opportunity to preview Galper's latest trio CD -- “E Pluribus Unum" (Origin 82557 / Street Date - March 16, 2010) -- when he performs at Birdland at 8:30 and 11 p.m. on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 with his current band with bassist Jeff Johnson and drummer John Bishop dubbed “The New Hal Galper Trio" that appears on the new CD recorded “live" at the 2009 Earshot Jazz Festival in Seattle.
On “E Pluribus Unum" Galper once again re-imagines standards and adds his distinctive voice as a conceptual improviser in a set of episodic musical explorations while the band's spontaneity and intuitive interaction spans the lexicon of jazz history in cutting-edge, rubato-style group improvisations that emphasize spontaneity, shifting textures and intuitive interaction.
With over 90 recordings, including 30 as a leader, to his credit and 100 recorded and published original compositions, pianist, composer, publisher, educator and author and Hal Galper is best known for his work with Chet Baker, Connonball Adderley, John Scofield and the Phil Woods Quartet and Quintet (for which he shared a Grammy Award. The recordings he made as a leader during the 1970s with Michael and Randy Brecker are considered modern jazz classics.
Graduating from the Berklee College of Music at the height of the be-bop era, Galper's reputation grew steadily in the changing environment of jazz as he held down the piano chair in the Slide Hampton Quartet, the Stan Getz Quartet and many others bands and performed in a duo with Lee Konitz.
Listed in the National Encyclopedia of Jazz and he has received grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, The Lila Wallace-Readers Digest Foundation and The New School and is an internationally renowned educator currently on the faculty of the State University of New York-Purchase Conservatory and the New School of Jazz and Contemporary Music. In addition to being the recipient of a Distinguished Alumni Award from the Berklee College of Music, Galper's academic activities earned him multiple awards for outstanding Service to Jazz Education from the former International Association of Jazz Education.
Galper's technologically innovative interactive eBook “Forward Motion, From Bach To Bebop, A Corrective Approach To Jazz Phrasing" has received raves from students and professionals alike and he has had six theoretical and practical articles published in Down Beat. His scholarly article on the “Psychology of Stagefright," originally published in the Jazz Educators Journal, has been reprinted in four other publications. Fast becoming the last word on the subject, Gakper's book “The Touring Musician, A Small Business Approach to Booking Your Band on the Road" is currently reissued by Alfred Publishing.
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