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Louis Hayes

Louis Hayes is an NEA Jazz Master For more than forty years, drummer Louis Hayes has been a catalyst for energetic, unrelenting swing in his self led bands, as well as in those whose respective leaders reads like an encyclopedia of straight ahead post-bop modern jazz. Hayes himself an authentic architect of post-bop swing, began his professional activities at the tender age of 18. He started with tenor saxophonist, flautist and oboist Yusef Lateef who like Hayes is a Detroit native (other jazz luminaries hailing from the "motor city" include the Jones brothers, Elvin, Hank and Thad, guitarist Kenny Burrell, pianist Tommy Flanagan and many others). After the stint with Lateef, Hayes went on to rhythmically propel groups led by pianist Horace Silver, legendary saxophonist Cannonball Adderley and pianist Oscar Peterson. These positions were augmented by countless recordings on the Blue Note, Prestige, Riverside and other labels with the likes of John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins, J.J. Johnson, Jackie McLean, Wes Montgomery, Cedar Walton, Dexter Gordon, Woody Shaw, George Benson, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson, McCoy Tyner and the list goes on.

For the last twenty-plus years, Louis has led or co-led some of the most uncompromisingly swinging groups in all of jazz. Each unit has displayed tight-knit harmonic cohesion and hard-driving consistency as part of its signature.

With so much activity in his past, Louis could easily rest comfortably on his laurels. But being a forward thinker and doer, Hayes operates "in the present!" His recent groups boasts some of the cream of jazz’ recent crop. Saxophonist Javon Jackson and Abraham Burton, young trumpet titan Riley Mullins and other stellar players are among current members of the Louis Hayes Quintet. Louis Hayes posses an embarrassment of riches. His story, still being told, contains a glorious past, a vibrant present and an ever promising future.

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Radio & Podcasts

Brian Ho, Louis Hayes, Markus Howell, Judith Owen and more

Read "Brian Ho, Louis Hayes, Markus Howell, Judith Owen and more" reviewed by Benjamin Boddie


Today's Music--Right Now!... Fantastic music by Brian Ho, Louis Hayes, Markus Howell, Ken Peplowski, Win Pongsakorn, Jeff Coffin, Lakecia Benjamin, Josh Lawrence, Clarence Penn, Alan Braufman, Seve Turre, Tim Lin, Tardo Hammer, Eric Alexander & Mike LeDonne, Matthew Whitaker, Bobby Broom, Neil Adler, Nancy Erickson Lamont, Judith Owen, John Lee and more. Playlist Brian Ho “Essence" from Bridges (Cellar Music Group) 00:00 Louis Hayes “Dewey Square" from Artform Revisited (Savant) 06:55 Zaccai Curtis “Someday My Prince Will Come" ...

Album Review

Sonny Stitt: Boppin’ in Baltimore Live at the Left Bank

Read "Boppin’ in Baltimore Live at the Left Bank" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro


L'11 novembre 1973 alla Famous Ballroom di Baltimora il quartetto di Sonny Stitt, fresco reduce dai fasti dei Giants of Jazz (Gillespie, Monk, Winding, Blakey, McKibbon) e certamente in stato di grazia (non aveva del resto ancora cinquant'anni pur essendo già un veterano, per qualcuno addirittura un sorpassato), tenne un concerto ricco di fuoco e invenzioni a getto continuo che oggi, grazie a Jazz Detective, trova posto in un doppio album (CD o LP) comprensivo di ampio libretto di accompagnamento ...

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Album Review

McCoy Tyner / Freddie Hubbard Quartet: Live At Fabrik

Read "Live At Fabrik" reviewed by Chris May


Warning! Highly Flammable Material! This superb album, recorded in Hamburg in 1986 and never previously released, ought to come with a caution, so incendiary is it. Strictly speaking, Live At Fabrik presents pianist McCoy Tyner's trio with bassist Avery Sharpe and drummer Louis Hayes and guest artist Freddie Hubbard on trumpet and flugelhorn. In actuality, Hubbard's power-packed presence transforms the unit into a co-led quartet, as the cover art acknowledges. The 2 x CD album is, in ...

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Album Review

Louis Hayes: Crisis

Read "Crisis" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Louis Hayes--who has been a force in jazz drumming for more than sixty years, anchoring legendary groups led by Horace Silver, Cannonball Adderley, Oscar Peterson, John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins, among others--has assembled a quintet of New York City's finest for Crisis, wherein he pays musical tribute to some of his jazz colleagues, past and present, including Freddie Hubbard, Joe Farrell, Lee Morgan, Bobby Hutcherson and two members of his working unit, vibraphonist Steve Nelson and bassist Dezron Douglas.

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Reassessing

Dial "S" for Sonny

Read "Dial "S" for Sonny" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Pianist Sonny Clark was culturally marginalized in much the same way as his contemporary Elmo Hope—both heroin-addicted jazz musicians in the 1950s: at the time, and romantically, a cliche. Both pianists have been sorely lumped into the “Bud Powell school of bop piano" which superficially may seem accurate until one considers the evolutionary continuum of jazz piano that places both Clark and Hope conceptually and stylistically beyond Powell. Clark was born in Georgia and raised outside of jny: ...

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Album Review

Dexter Gordon: Tokyo 1975

Read "Tokyo 1975" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


Though in many regards a standard, none-too-frenetic quartet setting, Dexter Gordon Quartet Tokyo 1975 is still as grand a starting point for Elemental Music's inaugural launch of previously unreleased jazz performances as can be. Gordon found himself exuberantly liberated from the antiquated (and sadly all too present) prejudices of America during his fourteen-year expatriation to Europe from 1962 to '76. Working and living primarily in Paris and Copenhagen, Gordon gigged and recorded with visiting friends and fellow expats ...

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Album Review

Dexter Gordon Quartet: Tokyo 1975

Read "Tokyo 1975" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey


Elemental Music is a record label that can be uttered in the same breath with Omnivore Records and Resonance Records. These labels can be credited with significant additions to the universal jazz catalog. Near recent examples of unreleased performances put out by Elemental Music include: Art Pepper Live At Fat Tuesday's (2015) and Red Garland's Swingin' On The Korner: Live At Keystone Korner (2015), as well as Jimmy Giuffre: New York Concerts (2014). Elemental Music has since found ...

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Recording

Louis Hayes: Exactly Right

Louis Hayes: Exactly Right

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

What do John Coltrane's Lover, Grant Green's Gooden's Corner, Joe Henderson's The Kicker, The Artistry of Freddie Hubbard, Bennie Green's Back on the Scene and Wes Montgomery's Movin' Along have in common? Louis Hayes was on drums. Today, Louis is one of the last men drumming from jazz's galloping hard-bop era. Best of all, the 85-year-old artist hasn't lost an ounce of energy or style. As evidenced by his latest album, Exactly Right! (Savant), Louis not only is at the ...

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Event

2023 NEA Jazz Masters Honored At Free Events

2023 NEA Jazz Masters Honored At Free Events

Source: Silky Sullivan

In honor of the 2023 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Jazz Masters—Regina Carter, Kenny Garrett, Louis Hayes, and Sue Mingus—the NEA is collaborating with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on a series of free events March 30-April 1 that will give audiences opportunities to experience the honorees’ music, stories, and knowledge. These events mark the culmination of the 40th anniversary of the NEA Jazz Masters, which since 1982 has awarded more than 160 fellowships to ...

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Recording

Louis Hayes: Crisis

Louis Hayes: Crisis

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Drummer Louis Hayes's first recording session was in 1956, on Horace Silver's Six Pieces of Silver (Blue Note). If that's all he had on his resume, you'd feel compelled to buy his new album, Crisis (Savant). But there was more, much more. From there, he weaved through jazz like a long vital thread traveling through a gorgeous suit. He appeared on dozens of the classic albums in the 1950s and beyond. In the 1950s and beyond, Louis recorded extensively with ...

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Performance / Tour

Hayes Cannonball Legacy At The Seasons

Hayes Cannonball Legacy At The Seasons

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

The Seasons performance hall in Yakima, Washington, kicked off its new jazz series last night with drummer Louis Hayes and his Cannonball Adderley Legacy band. The Hayes quintet is dedicated to interpreting the music of Cannonball Adderley (1928-1975) and his cornetist brother Nat (1931-2000). Alto saxophonist Vincent Herring, trumpeter Jeremy Pelt and pianist Rick Germanson have been with Hayes for years. At The Seasons, the young Seattle bassist Michael Glynn joined on short notice, demonstrating an understanding of the repertoire ...

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Recording

Louis Hayes Jazz Communicators - Lou's Ideas (American Showplace, 2010)

Louis Hayes Jazz Communicators - Lou's Ideas (American Showplace, 2010)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland

Drummer Louis Hayes has one of the strongest hard-bop pedigrees in the music, with lengthy stints in the Cannonball Adderley and Horace Silver bands during the 1950's and 60's before striking out to form his own groups. Recently he has been leading the successful Cannonball Legacy Band in addition to his own group which is featured on this album with a nice group of modern mainstream players: Mulgrew Miller on piano, Steve Nelson on vibraphone, Abraham Burton on saxophone and ...

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Interview

Interview: Louis Hayes (Part 2)

Interview: Louis Hayes (Part 2)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

The more you listen to recordings by the Horace Silver Quintet in the 1950s, the more you realize that the group had two drummers: Silver's funky, rhythmic left hand on piano and Louis Hayes' sticks. As they played together, Silver and Hayes tended to feed off each other. Both kept time, but each tried to throw the other off with a double-time beat here, a cymbal shot there. Silver and Hayes together established an incredible groove, offering up a surging ...

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Interview

Interview: Louis Hayes (Part 1)

Interview: Louis Hayes (Part 1)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

During the hard bop era of the 1950s and early 1960s, the Horace Silver Quintet was the most sublime expression of the movement. While Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers and the Clifford Brown-Max Roach Quintet certainly were spectacular ensembles, what both groups lacked was Silver's spirited writing, arranging and verve. From the summer of 1956 until late 1959, when he was lured away by Cannonball Adderley, Louis Hayes was the quintet's drummer. [Photo by Lena Adasheva] Though not technically ...

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Performance / Tour

Louis Hayes; Jammin' On The Hudson on August 15th

Louis Hayes; Jammin' On The Hudson on August 15th

Source: Brownstone Entertainment Complex, LLC

Riverbank State Park, in association with Brownstone Entertainment Complex, LLC, for our sixth consecutive year are pleased to present: “Jammin' On The Hudson." 'Jammin'; The Summer Concert Series for the 'serious' Jazz Lover! What could be more inviting than listening to the sounds of great Jazz Artists, cast out over The Hudson River, at sunset, for Free?! On Sunday August 15th we present a percussionist who is somewhat of a jazz icon. A Drummers' Drummer who began his career at ...

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Festival

Newark Museum Launches Jazz in the Garden Festival

Newark Museum Launches Jazz in the Garden Festival

Source: Michael Ricci

The Newark Museum's Jazz in the Garden series, one of the nation's longest running jazz festivals, debuts its 45th consecutive year with The Louis Hayes Quintet on Thursday, July 1, in the Alice Ransom Dreyfuss Memorial Garden. The 2010 Jazz in the Garden concerts are presented on five consecutive Thursdays, rain or shine, from 12:15 p.m. to 1:45 p.m., July 1 to July 29. The Newark Museum is at 49 Washington St. in Newark. Call 973-596-6550 or visit NewarkMuseum.org. Throughout ...

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

The Great Jazz Piano...

Contemporary Records
2024

buy

Boppin’ in...

Jazz Detective
2023

buy

Exactly Right

Savant Records
2023

buy

Live At Fabrik

Jazzline Classics
2022

buy

On A Clear Day: Live...

Mack Avenue Records
2022

buy

Crisis

Savant Records
2021

buy

Videos

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