Updated: June 29, 2023
Born: September 31, 1954
Vibraphonist, Composer Jay Hoggard’s music has touched the hearts and souls of listeners around Planet Earth for 40 years. Jay Hoggard has long ranked with the greatest vibraphone innovators. Jay’s music is positive, spiritual, uplifting, and happy. He masterfully draws on traditional and contemporary musical vocabulary to develop new directions for the vibraphone. Jay seamlessly blends jazz and gospel roots with African marimba rhythms. His performance repertoire represents the three B’s of the jazz tradition (Blues, Bop, Ballads) with original innovations. Born in Washington, DC, Jay Hoggard was raised in Mt. Vernon, New York in a religious family.His father was a Bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion denomination. At age 15, Jay began playing the vibraphone. "One night I had a dream that I was playing the vibes. I asked my father to rent me a set and from the first moment, I knew that this was what I was supposed to do." Jay majored in the renown World Music program at Wesleyan University . He toured Europe and played at Carnegie Hall during his freshman year. In his junior year, he traveled to Tanzania to study East African marimba music. Jay graduated from Wesleyan in 1976 and returned to New York City in 1977 to be proclaimed a young lion of the vibraphone. Jay Hoggard has recorded 22 CD’s as a leader and over 50 as a collaborator. His newest CD, released in 2016 on the JHVM label, is HARLEM HIEROGLYPHS. This two disc recording features Gary Bartz saxophones, James Weidman piano,organ, Nat Adderley,Jr piano,organ, Belden Bullock bass, and Yoron Israel drums. Noted jazz writer Owen McNally recently declared in his Jazz Corridor column for WNPR.org : “ Hoggard has created a triumphant jazz album, a dramatic showcase for his diverse composing skills… While the standards get royal treatment, Hoggard’s originals are the album’s crown jewels. Among these are the celebratory rent party special, "Harlem Jazzbirds Swingin’ and Swayin’"; "Sonic Hieroglyphs," an ode to jazz’s sophisticated sonic semiotics, signs and symbols expressing the sweet and bittersweet mysteries of life, and Disposable Consumption, landscaped with brilliant corners and a mysterious motif of sharp consciousness morphing in and out of an edgy, subconscious dream state… Throughout, there’s the underlying theme of the hieroglyphs of jazz, the music’s uniquely creative, emblematic lexicon, alive with nuance and layers of symbolic meaning. Hoggard’s striking gallery of sonic portraits reflects many inspirations, both artistic and personal, that nourish his imagination…Harlem Hieroglyphs is alive with open-ended potential, perhaps even as the foreshadowing of a historical and culturally-oriented musical theater work graced with evocative narrative pieces resonating with cultural relevance.
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Jay Hoggard: Raise Your Spirit Consciousness
by La-Faithia White
American jazz vibraphonist and composer Jay Hoggard is raising the spiritual consciousness with songs such as Holy Spirit Consciousness," Peace To You My Children," Worship God in Spirit" and Truth and Love" on Raise Your Spirit Consciousness Raise Your Spirit Consciousness has eight original compositions from Hoggard as well as recreations of original classics by Wayne Shorter, Duke Ellington, Stevie Wonder, and Thad Jones. Hoggard has played with Milt Jackson, Lionel Hampton, and Tito Puente, other vibraphonists throughout ...
read moreJay Hoggard: The Right Place
by Joel Roberts
Vibraphonist Jay Hoggard has appeared with everyone from Cecil Taylor to Luther Vandross in an eclectic career that's included forays into avant-garde, mainstream and pop jazz. His new release comfortably combines elements of all of the above while adding a healthy dose of his passion for Afro-Caribbean music. The Right Place , which Hoggard dedicates to his parents, is a mostly upbeat affair filled with simple, accessible melodies backed by more intricate Latin and African rhythms. Hoggard, ...
read moreHarlem Hieroglyphs - A Jazz, Blues, And Ballads Concert With The Jay Hoggard Quartet On Saturday, November 19 At Fieldston School Student-Faculty Lounge (Bronx, NY)
Source:
Bronx Arts
Jay Hoggard and his quartet will perform ballads, bop, and blues, and music that blends jazz and gospel roots with African Marimba rhythms on Saturday, November 19 at 8:00pm at Fieldston School Student-Faculty Lounge, 3901 Fieldston Road in the Riverdale section of the Bronx. Music for the concert, written by Hoggard, is on his newest two-disk CD, Harlem Hieroglyphs, and includes 11 tunes such as: Harlem Jazzbirds," Swingin’ and Swayin’," Let Me Make It Clear," Piety and Redemption, Disposable Consumption," ...
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New Haven Jazz Festival, August 13: Jay Hoggard, Tina Fabrique, Ed Fast & More!
Source:
Carolyn McClair Public Relations
All Great Jazz Is Local at the 2011 New Haven Jazz Festival August 13, 4:30-9:00 pm, New Haven Green 28th Annual Festival features Jay Hoggard, Tina Fabrique, Ed Fast & Conga Bop, Jonathan Barber and Ryan Sands NEW HAVENOne of the area's largest and longest-running outdoor jazz celebrations, the New Haven Jazz Festival, takes over the New Haven Green on Saturday, August 13, from 4:30-9:00 pm. With a rich history of bringing jazz lovers together to enjoy good company and ...
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Berklee's Percussion Week '03 April 2 - 5 To Feature Visiting Vibist Jay Hoggard
Source:
All About Jazz
Saturday's annual Percussive Arts Society Day includes Pendulum Percussion Duo, plus Mike Mangini and Hypercane
BOSTON -- Berklee College of Music's Percussion Department presents its annual Percussion Week" from Wednesday, April 2 through Saturday, April 5, 2003. All events are open to the public. This year's vibraphone-heavy schedule includes one of the premier voices on vibes Jay Hoggard, plus a concert by four faculty vibists, Four by Four: A Tribute to Lionel Hampton, Red Norvo, Milt Jackson, and Cal Tjader." ...
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JHVM LABEL RELEASES FIVE JAY HOGGARD RECORDINGS! by Scott Yanow A very significant vibraphonist for for over 30 years, Jay Hoggard has long ranked with the greatest innovators of his instrument including Lionel Hampton, Red Norvo, Milt Jackson, Terry Gibbs, Bobby Hutcherson, Gary Burton, Khan Jamal and Walt Dickerson, as well as his contemporaries Steve Nelson, Joe Locke, and Stefon Harris. The release of five of his CDs, including SOULAR POWER and SOLO FROM TWO SIDES, gives listeners an opportunity to experience some of the many sides of this vital musician, and they document the vibraphonist's musical language during the first ten years of the 21st century
Freddie Hubbard
trumpetBobby Hutcherson
vibraphoneHal Galper
pianoRahsaan Roland Kirk
woodwindsAlice Coltrane
pianoMongo Santamaria
percussionStanley Turrentine
saxophone, tenorGreg Osby
saxophoneKhan Jamal
vibraphoneSam Rivers
saxophone, tenorTania Maria
pianoEric Kloss
woodwindsHamiet Bluiett
saxophone, baritoneMary Halvorson
guitarYosuke Yamashita
pianoLiberty Ellman
guitarArtists who share similar musical characteristics to Jay Hoggard.