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Dana Hall
Born in Brooklyn, New York, drummer Dana Hall has been an important musician on the international music scene since 1992. After completing his education in aerospace engineering at Iowa State University, he received his Bachelor of Music degree from William Paterson College in Wayne, New Jersey and, in 1999, his Masters degree in composition and arranging from DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. He is presently a distinguished Special Trustees Fellow completing his Doctorate in ethnomusicology at the University of Chicago.
In the fall of 2004, Mr. Hall joined the faculty of the prestigious University of Illinois AT Urbana- Champaign as an Assistant Professor of Music.
The list of exceptional artists that Mr. Hall has performed, toured, and/or recorded with directly reflects the diverse and varied approaches of his music-making in the fields of jazz and popular music and includes Branford Marsalis, Ray Charles, Roy Hargrove, Joshua Redman, Horace Silver, Michael Brecker, Nicolas Payton, Kurt Elling, Benny Green, Frank Wess, Ken Peplowski, Wycliffe Gordon, Russell Malone, Frank Foster, George Coleman, Lin Holliday, Betty Carter, Jimmy Heath, Benny Golson, Bobby Hutcherson, Wallace Roney, Diana Krall, Harold Mabern, Renee Rosnes, Clark Terry, the Mingus Big Band, Steve Lacy, Muhal Richard Abrams, Jim Snidero, Eric Alexander, James Spaulding, Buster Williams, Gary Bartz, Dick Oatts, Melvin Rhyne, Ira Sullivan, David Murray, Bobby Broom, Lester Bowie, Slide Hampton, Charles Davis, James Moody, David Hazeltine, Henry Butler, Shirley Scott, Sonny Fortune, Joe Williams, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Billy Harper, Patricia Barber, Brian Lynch, Rick Margitza, Tim Hagans, John Swana, Ralph Bowen, Orrin Evans, Bud Shank, Phil Woods, Von Freeman, Ron Bridgewater, Kenny Barron, Maria Schneider, Jackie McLean, Mulgrew Miller, Marcus Belgrave, Hamiet Blueitt, the Woody Herman Orchestra, Patricia Barber, Joe Henderson, Curtis Fuller, Charles McPherson, Oliver Lake, and Steve Wilson, among others. Additionally, Mr. Hall is both a member of the Terell Stafford Quintet and the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, and formerly a regular member of the prestigious Grammy-nominated Carnegie Hall Jazz Band under the musical and artistic direction of trumpeter, and Dizzy Gillespie protégé, Jon Faddis. Mr. Hall has also served as an extra in the percussion sections of the Des Moines and the Cedar Rapids Symphonies.
In addition to his active schedule as a full-time student and freelance musician with a number of jazz, popular, and world music ensembles, Professor Hall is also an active clinician and educator. He has served as a faculty member of the undergraduate college at the University of Chicago teaching courses in world music and was a member of the faculty at Columbia College Chicago, teaching a select number of private students. Mr. Hall is also a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Band Directors Academy and Essentially Ellington faculty, under the musical and artistic directorship of Grammy and Pulitzer prize winner Wynton Marsalis, providing jazz fundamentals, advanced pedagogical techniques, mentoring, musical resources, and practical tools for high school and college band directors. Additionally, Mr. Hall recently completed a four-year association with the prestigious Ravinia Festival’s Jazz in the Schools Mentoring Program, where he, working in close association with band directors and other professional musicians in Chicago, educated Chicago Public School students on music fundamentals and their associated applications within jazz music. In the summer of 2000, Mr. Hall joined the faculty of the distinguished musicians and educators at the Merit School of Music, continuing his mission to assist in bringing quality education to music and arts students in the city of Chicago. Mr. Hall is also a member of the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz’s Jazz in America Program and the Jazz Institute of Chicago’s Artists Residency Program. In each, Mr. Hall teaches and mentors middle and high school students in the fundamentals of jazz, Latin, and popular musics. Mr. Hall also teaches students privately in studio on drums, percussion, and general music fundamentals, including theory and harmony.
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Continue ReadingEthan Philion: Meditations On Mingus
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Continue ReadingRecent Listening: Dana Hall
Source:
Rifftides by Doug Ramsey
Dana Hall, Into The Light (Origin). Drummers who flaunt their technique can be enemies of music when their busyness becomes the center-ring distraction in a band. Dana Hall is a busy drummer, but in his case that's a compliment. He accompanies with waves of rhythmic patterns surging and swelling behind, under and around soloists. This 40-year-old Chicagoandebuting here as a leadermanages to amalgamate his virtuosity so that he melds into the flow of the soloists' improvisations. That places him in ...
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Drummer/Composer Dana Hall Named an Outstanding "Chicagoan of the Year" by the Chicago Tribune
Source:
Terri Hinte Publicity
The Chicago Tribune yesterday announced its outstanding Chicagoans of the Year, recognizing their achievements in ten arts and culture fields. Dana Hall, the drummer, composer, and educator, was the top Jazz Chicagoan, and the only professional musician selected. The complete list of honorees, who were chosen by the Tribune's entertainment writers, includes: Movies: Vivian Teng, Managing Director, Chicago International Film Festival Literature: Reginald Gibbons, poet/essayist/translator, English professor at Northwestern U. Jazz: Dana Hall, drummer/composer, music director of Chicago Jazz Ensemble, ...
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Drummer/Composer Dana Hall Debuts with "Into the Light" on Origin Records, Nov. 17
Source:
Terri Hinte Publicity
Chicago-based drummer and composer Dana Hall has been in demand as a sideman for nearly two decades, working with major names in jazz such as Joe Henderson, Branford Marsalis, Maria Schneider, Benny Golson, the Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, and Kenny Barron. He's also an educator, the musical director of the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, and--since 2006--leader of an all-star quintet featuring trumpeter Terell Stafford, saxophonist Tim Warfield Jr., pianist Bruce Barth, and bassist Rodney Whitaker. On his outstanding CD debut as ...
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Primary Instrument
Drums
Location
Chicago
Willing to teach
Advanced only
Photos
Music
Night and Day
From: Julia DanielleBy Dana Hall
Some of the Things You Are
From: Four WindowsBy Dana Hall
Fishin' Again
From: Fishin' Again: A Tribute to...By Dana Hall
Betty's Tune
From: Oasis: The Music of Gregg HillBy Dana Hall
Little Gold Fish
From: Life in TimeBy Dana Hall
Into the Light
From: Into The LightBy Dana Hall