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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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Album Review

Ethan Philion: Meditations On Mingus

Read "Meditations On Mingus" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Questa rilettura del songbook mingusiano, conferma la potenza evocativa e l'attualità di quelle composizioni. La scelta da Ethan Philion ha privilegiato brani che testimoniamo l'impegno civile e politico del contrabbassista di Nogales e sono particolarmente d'attualità oggi. Il disco di apre con un brano dal titolo emblematico, “Once Upon A Time There Was A Holding Corporation Called Old America," che Charles Mingus non registrò mai in studio ma è presente nella registrazione live (a lungo introvabile) di At ...

7
Album Review

Scott Hesse Trio: Intention

Read "Intention" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Guitarist Scott Hesse self-released his debut album, Intuition, in 1998, but he has been criminally under-recorded since then. At least, that is the conclusion many will draw after listening to his superb trio disc, Intention, recorded live in Chicago in 2023. His most recent date as a leader since 2015's The Stillness of Motion (Origin Records), here he is partnered with bassist Clark Sommers and drummer Dana Hall, with an opportunity to showcase his formidable talents in a way sure ...

7
Album Review

Ethan Philion: Gnosis

Read "Gnosis" reviewed by John Chacona


When it comes to making memorable entrances, Ethan Philion is on a par with Seinfeld's Kramer. The jny: Chicago bassist burst into the scene with Meditations on Mingus (Sunnyside Records, 2022), an audacious debut recording on which he arranged familiar selections and deep cuts from the towering jazz bassist Charles Mingus. On Gnosis, the forces are smaller and perhaps so is the ambition of Philion's concept. Yet from the very first notes of “The Boot," which begins with a shriek ...

20
Album Review

Geof Bradfield Quintet: Quaver

Read "Quaver" reviewed by Jack Bowers


While tenor saxophonist Geof Bradfield's versatile Chicago-based quintet does not play “free jazz" on Quaver-- customary rhythmic and harmonic precepts underline every number--the music is explicitly adventurous and forward-looking, as Bradfield and his mates seize every chance to take flight within prescribed boundaries. All the compositions are Bradfield's, and they range from powerful to placid, none of which seems to faze any members of the group, three of whom --Bradfield, bassist Clark Sommers, drummer Dana Hall--have been ...

36
Album Review

Rodney Whitaker: Oasis: The Music of Gregg Hill

Read "Oasis: The Music of Gregg Hill" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Oasis is the third time around for bassist Rodney Whitaker and music written by fellow Michigander Gregg Hill, following Common Ground (Origin 82780) and Outrospection (Origin 82819). Personnel is the same as on Common Ground (Terell Stafford, trumpet; Tim Warfield, saxophone; Bruce Barth, piano; Dana Hall, drums; Rockelle Fortin, vocals) with Hall and Fortin returning from Outrospection (on which Fortin is listed as Rockelle Whitaker). Hill's compositions are for the most part firmly grounded in customary post-bop ...

27
Album Review

Darren Johnston: Life in Time

Read "Life in Time" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Brooklyn-based trumpeter Darren Johnston traveled to Chicago in May 2021 to record Life in Time with three of his favorite musicians: saxophonist Geof Bradfield, bassist Clark Sommers and drummer Dana Hall who form their own working trio in the Windy City. The generally charming studio date encompasses ten original compositions, six by Johnston, four by Bradfield. Technically and musically, the foursome is splendid. What is missing—and it takes a tune or two to sink in—is the welcome ...

4
Album Review

The Adam Larson Trio: With Love, From Chicago

Read "With Love, From Chicago" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


The experience begins with the cover art, an old school black-and-white photo of Kansas City-based saxophonist Adam Larson with his hair swooped up in something of a modest 1950s pompadour, like an early Sun Records artist--Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley--sitting in the studio with his ax laid out in front of him. Except Larson's ax is not the guitar; it is the saxophone in the photo's foreground. And the Presley pompadour? It really isn't one; a ball cap pushed back on ...

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Recording

Recent Listening: Dana Hall

Recent 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 Chicagoan—debuting here as a leader—manages to amalgamate his virtuosity so that he melds into the flow of the soloists' improvisations. That places him in ...

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Radio

The Jazz Session #168: Dana Hall

The Jazz Session #168: Dana Hall

Source: Michael Ricci


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Award / Grant

Drummer/Composer Dana Hall Named an Outstanding "Chicagoan of the Year" by the Chicago Tribune

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, ...

171

Recording

Drummer/Composer Dana Hall Debuts with "Into the Light" on Origin Records, Nov. 17

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 ...

Primary Instrument

Drums

Location

Chicago

Willing to teach

Advanced only

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Old Souls

Calligram Records
2024

buy

Fishin' Again: A...

OA2 Records
2023

buy

Quaver

Calligram Records
2023

buy

Four Windows

Self Produced
2023

buy

Gnosis

Sunnyside Records
2023

buy

Intention

Calligram Records
2023

buy

Some of the Things You Are

From: Four Windows
By Dana Hall

Fishin' Again

From: Fishin' Again: A Tribute to...
By Dana Hall

Betty's Tune

From: Oasis: The Music of Gregg Hill
By Dana Hall

Little Gold Fish

From: Life in Time
By Dana Hall

Into the Light

From: Into The Light
By Dana Hall

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