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Hailey Niswanger

Hailey Niswanger (pronounced "NICE-wonger")--entering her sophomore year at the Berklee College of Music in Boston where she is studying jazz performance on a full scholarship in the fall of 2009--has an impressive list of accomplishments that reach far beyond the borders of her home in Oregon and well beyond her 19 years. Born February 12, 1990 in Houston, Texas, she has already shared the stage with DeeDee Bridgewater, George Duke, George Garzone, Red Holloway, Terell Stafford, Phil Woods, James Moody, Steve Nelson, Christian McBride, McCoy Tyner, Maceo Parker, Wynton Marsalis, Mark Whitfield and other jazz greats and leads her own quartet that has performed at the Portland Jazz Festival, Jimmy Mak’s Jazz Club, Mt. Hood Jazz Festival and other jazz venues around Portland. With the June 2009 release of her recording debut as a leader--the self-produced and self-released CD Confeddie--Hailey is poised to “break out” nationally through U.S. jazz radio promotion and publicity campaigns.

Although she also plays soprano sax, clarinet and flute, Hailey showcases solely her alto sax skills on Confeddie which features a rhythm section composed of fellow Berklee students Michael Palma on piano, Greg Chaplin on bass and Mark Whitfield Jr. on drums. She has delivered an authoritative straight-ahead recording featuring a level of instrumental virtuosity that belies her age on arrangements of modern jazz classics by Thelonious Monk, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter, Kenny Dorham and Benny Golson. Hailey also penned the title track whose name is a combination of “confetti,” to convey the festive feeling that permeates the album, and the first name of legendary saxophonist Eddie Harris in whose style it was written.

Hailey hit the road running in May 2009 after completing her first year at Berklee in anticipation of the release of Confeddie. That month she was a featured artist at the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. (she won the festival’s saxophone competition in 2008) and represented the Berklee College of Music in the Downbeat Invitational at the Tri-C Jazz Festival in Cleveland, Ohio. Highlights of Hailey’s activities in previous years include: touring with the Next Generation Jazz Orchestra which included performances at the North Sea Jazz Festival in The Netherlands and on the main stage of the 51st Monterey Jazz Festival (2008); playing with the Gibson/Baldwin GRAMMY Jazz Ensemble in Hollywood and the Jazz Band of America in Indianapolis (2008 & 2007); performing with the Pacific Crest Jazz Orchestra and Combo at the IAJE conference in New York City and at pre-festival events for the 50th Anniversary Monterey Jazz Festival and attending the Vail Jazz Workshop under the direction of John and Jeff Clayton where she performed on the main stage of the Vail Jazz Festival with Taylor Eigsti who later invited her to appear with him at Jazz Alley in Seattle (2007); and receiving scholarships to attend the Berklee College of Music Summer Jazz Workshop under the direction of Terri Lyne Carrington (2006 & 2007).

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5
Album Review

Mauricio Morales: Luna

Read "Luna" reviewed by Peter J. Hoetjes


When viewed retrospectively, a musician's first release is often more telling of where they have been than of where they are going. There is always time to allow talent to develop; to discover inter-genre interests and to network and collaborate with like-minded artists. But there is a certain immediacy to a debut recording. An artist taking one shot to pour all that they have and all that they feel into one cathartic outburst of creativity. With Luna, bassist Mauricio Morales' ...

8
Album Review

Letizia Gambi: Blue Monday

Read "Blue Monday" reviewed by James Nadal


As the world continues to shrink--musically speaking of course--the melding of American jazz with Mediterranean melody is another spin cycle that makes appreciation of this evolving art form so interesting. With high expectations, Neapolitan vocalist Letizia Gambi, which hails from a theatrical family, and has extensive jazz education, releases Blue Monday, an exuberant and ambitious production that takes jazz on a romantic Italian holiday. After a collaboration with drummer extraordinaire Lenny White in 2009 led to “Introducing Letizia ...

3
Album Review

Hailey Niswanger: PDX Soul

Read "PDX Soul" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


Saxophonist Hailey Niswanger's third release is a stylistic departure from her previous bop based two. Dedicated to versatile Portland based keyboardist Janice Scroggins, who passed away shortly after the recording, the engaging PDX Soul primarily channels an old school funk energy and a retro R&B charm. Scroggins and her rhythm section lay down an electrified backdrop against which Niswanger blows her alto and her soprano with fiery abandon. Trombonist Stan Bock's buttery growl opens “Say What," a tune ...

396
Album Review

Hailey Niswanger: Confeddie

Read "Confeddie" reviewed by Joshua Weiner


To look at Confeddie, the new self-produced record by Hailey Niswanger with an artfully posed black-and-white photo of the doe-eyed, comely saxophonist on the cover, the thought that may come to mind is “Great, another Candy Dulfer." Never judge a CD by its cover, to paraphrase some wise man (or, more likely, wise woman) lost to the mists of time. Barely 20 years old and currently attending the Berklee College of Music on a full scholarship, Niswanger and fellow students ...

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35

Recording

Saxophonist Hailey Niswanger's 2nd CD, "The Keeper," Due For April 24 Release

Saxophonist Hailey Niswanger's 2nd CD, "The Keeper," Due For April 24 Release

Source: Terri Hinte Publicity

Hailey Niswanger created an indelible impression in the jazz world with the release of her 2009 debut, Confeddie. Then 19, the saxophonist was even the subject of an enthusiastic Wall Street Journal profile by veteran jazz critic Nat Hentoff. The headline read: “This Teenager Has Got It.” Now 22, freshly graduated from the Berklee College of Music and newly residing in New York City, the alto and soprano saxophone dynamo is preparing to release her second CD, The Keeper (Calmit ...

104

Performance / Tour

Portland Sax Phenom Plays Boxley's in North Bend

Portland Sax Phenom Plays Boxley's in North Bend

Source: Seattle Jazz Scene

Twenty-one-year-old saxophone phenom and Portland native Hailey Niswanger, who won the Mary Lou Williams Women in Jazz Festival saxophone competition three years ago, brings her quartet Monday to Boxley's, the lively North Bend restaurant and showcase for Seattle's Pony Boy Records. A stone swinger, Niswanger plays alto with a burly, broad tone and a trace of the cry reminiscent of John Coltrane's tenor saxophone sound and gets around the horn with the alacrity and sophistication of a veteran. Niswanger, whose ...

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Music Industry

Saxophonist Hailey Niswanger Tapped for Alto Chair in Either/Orchestra - Berklee Sophomore Also on NPR's Jazzset Starting 10/01

Saxophonist Hailey Niswanger Tapped for Alto Chair in Either/Orchestra - Berklee Sophomore Also on NPR's Jazzset Starting 10/01

Source: MFA - Mitchell Feldman Associates

(Boston, MA - September 28, 2009) Saxophonist Hailey Niswanger (pronounced NICE-wonger), a 19-year-old sophomore studying jazz performance at the Berklee College of Music in Boston on a full scholarship, has been selected as the new alto saxophonist in the Either/Orchestra, saxophonist Russ Gershon, the founder and music director of the Cambridge, MA-based band announced today. Miss Niswanger is the first woman to become a full-time member of the ensemble (as opposed to appearing as a guest vocalist or substitute instrumentalist) ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Luna

Outside in Music
2021

buy

Blue Monday

RP Production
2016

buy

PDX Soul

Self Produced
2015

buy

Confeddie

Self Produced
2010

buy

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