Healdsburg Jazz presents a ‘Convergence’ of jazz legends
4.1.2021
Nina Simone, the inimitable vocalist and pianist often billed as the High Priestess of Soul, and Mary Lou Williams, the pianist, arranger and composer who spent most of her career in jazz’s vanguard, never had the chance to hang out in real life. But in her first major project as Healdsburg Jazz’s artist in residence, San Francisco pianist Tammy L. Hall rectified this historical lapse.
A jazz and poetry recital meets backstage drama, “Convergence” premiered on Wednesday, March 31, the last night of Women’s History Month. The hour-long video production, prerecorded but for the live-streamed introduction by Healdsburg Jazz Artistic Director Marcus Shelby and Oakland Public Conservatory Founding Director Angela Wellman,
effectively evoked Williams and Simone’s exceptional pianism and divergent personas, while showcasing the talents of the prodigious all-female cast.
“Convergence” is available to stream on Healdsburg Jazz’s website, along with nine other virtual events produced by the organization since the pandemic.
2 jazz greats from the past unite for Healdsburg Jazz performance by John Beck
3.28.2021
Pianist Tammy Hall has no idea if jazz legends Nina Simone and Mary Lou Williams ever met. But in her imagination, she sees them together.
She hasn’t seen photos of them side by side or heard recordings of them collaborating. But she envisions them together backstage in Paris, talking about how jazz is rooted in the blues, before they receive medals of honor and play a concert together for the first time.
It’s a vision she’s carried with her for two decades. So when Healdsburg Jazz Festival Artistic Director Marcus Shelby reached out to anoint her as the inaugural performer in the new artist in residence program, Hall knew exactly what she wanted to create.
Convergence: An Imagined Musical Conversation Between Nina Simone and Mary Lou Williams by Jazz Times
Ladies Sing the Blues
2.7.2020
“Ladies Sing the Blues” is an exploration of the women who made up the essence of the blues: Bessie Smith, Dinah Washington, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin. This evening will feature three ladies from three different generations who have made a substantial contribution to the legacy of the jazz-blues genre, Denise Perrier, Kim Nalley and Tiffany Austin.
Kim Nalley has been called “legendary” and a “San Francisco institution,” awarded “Most Influential African American in the Bay Area” in 2005 and “Best Jazz Group” in 2013. She won a nomination in Downbeat 2017 Critics Poll as a “Rising Star” and all of her albums have charted on JazzWeek. Her most recent album Blues People was widely praised by Downbeat, Jazz Journal and JazzTimes and chosen as top Ten Jazz Album of 2018 by NPR. Kim has performed at most of the world’s major jazz festivals including UmbriaJazz and Monterey Jazz and with artists such as Rhoda Scott, Terri Lynn Carrington, Angela Davis, Houston Person, James Williams, James Carter, Branford Marsalis and many more.
Tammy Hall’s soulful piano playing makes her an essential Bay Area accompanist by Andrew Gilbert
11.19.2018
It was well after midnight when Tammy Hall got home from a mid-July gig and decided to check her email before turning in for the night. Amid the usual mix of messages from friends and colleagues the San Francisco pianist spotted the name Laurie Anderson.
“I only know of one Laurie Anderson, so I opened the email and it said, ‘Hi Tammy, I really love your music. Would you consider playing with me?’ If you heard a scream that night, it was me,” Hall recalls.
Bay Area pianists a case study on how to play through a pandemic
Musicians used to accompanying others pivot to solo recitals
9.19.2018
San Francisco pianist Tammy Hall is among the several Bay Area players offering regular solo recitals during the pandemic.
Whether it’s June, August or November, daily life will start returning to pre-pandemic rhythms at some point in the not too distant future. We all long for a quick transition to normalcy, but in talking with numerous musicians I’ve been thinking about the ways in which more than a year of disruption, lockdown, and social distancing will leave an enduring mark on the music scene.
The Soul of Piano Jazz: SF Chronicle Feature On Tammy Hall
8.3.2009
“What stands out most is her compelling lyricism. With an uncluttered, telegraphic style marked by her classical training and deep roots in the Baptist church, Hall gracefully combines elegance and grit. ” –Andrew Gilbert
THE SOUL OF PIANO JAZZ
Jazz pianist Tammy Hall doesn’t look like a troublemaker, but she’s been known to instigate a brawl or two.
Over the past decade, she’s become one of the region’s most sought after accompanists, an essential collaborator with a glittering roster of top jazz, blues and cabaret vocalists such as Denise Perrier, Rhonda Benin, Linda Tillery, Frankye Kelly, Veronica Klaus, Connie Champaign and Debbie de Coudreaux. Hall’s resourceful piano work is in such demand that some singers end up scrapping over her services.
“We all fight over Tammy,” jazz singer Kim Nalley says. “She’s put so much soul into every note she plays. And now it’s worse than ever, since she’s started doing her own thing.”
Hall recently stepped into the spotlight with “Blue Divine” (Elfenworks), her debut recording as a leader, featuring nine well-crafted originals and a ravishing version of Jobim’s “Se Todos Fossem Iguais a Voce.” She celebrates the album’s release on Thursday at Jazz at Pearl’s, where she’ll be joined by bassist Marcus Shelby, drummer Kent Bryson and percussionist Michaelle Goerlitz, who also play on the CD. Hall’s quartet is also featured June 9 at the Berkeley Public Library’s Re-New Orleans Jazz Festival.
After so many years of blending in with other artists as a side musician, Hall seems to have had little trouble finding her own voice. What stands out most on “Blue Divine” is her compelling lyricism. With an uncluttered, telegraphic style marked by her classical training and deep roots in the Baptist church, Hall gracefully combines elegance and grit.
“I think the experience I had accompanying so many wonderful vocalists really helped me to develop as a better instrumentalist,” Hall says between sets at Pearl’s. “Accompanying isn’t difficult, because I had the experience growing up in the church, backing choirs and soloists. But putting out my own record with nine original pieces is really scary. The music is personal anyway, but to have your own compositions out there feels quite exposed.”
Hall needn’t worry. With her vibrant mix of blues, Latin grooves and exquisite ballads, “Blue Divine” effectively showcases her empathetic sensibility as a player, composer and arranger. She’s also well represented on several recent releases, including the self-named debut CD by trumpeter Ellen Seeling’s hard-swinging Montclair Women’s Big Band, and Nalley’s rollicking tribute to Nina Simone, “She Put a Spell on Me” (CE Jazz & Blues).
Both as a vocalist and the owner of Jazz at Pearl’s, Nalley has played a key role in spreading the word about Hall’s talent. As one of Pearl’s house pianists, Hall has worked with a succession of sax greats, including Mel Martin, David “Fathead” Newman and Houston Person, who described her as “one mighty soulful lady.” After her performance at Pearl’s on Thursday, Hall reunites with Person for his three-night run at the North Beach club starting Friday. And on May 29, Hall holds down the piano chair when Perrier records a live album at Pearl’s, with Person as a special guest.
Perrier, a Bay Area musician equally authoritative belting the blues or interpreting American Songbook standards, has worked closely with Hall for more than a decade, including a three-year run in the ’90s at Bentley’s (now Perry’s) in the Park Galleria Hotel in San Francisco.
“Tammy is a very sensitive and passionate player,” Perrier says. “As a vocalist, one of the things I like best is that she’s a true accompanist. She never gets in the way of your phrasing, which is why she’s so popular. She can absorb all of a singer’s feelings, and she plays very individually with each of us. Some of us do the same songs, but she listens to you and interprets your delivery. She’s been in the background for so long, it’s good that people are starting to take notice.”
Born and raised in Dallas, Hall got her start as a performer playing in the Mount Moriah Missionary Baptist Church. Her mother, an aspiring concert pianist, died when Hall was 1, and her father, who she never knew, played the clubs on Saturday night and church on Sunday morning.
“I seem to be carrying on that legacy,” Hall says, noting that she’s co-minister of music at the Inner Light Ministry in Soquel.
Raised by both sets of grandparents, she was introduced to jazz by her paternal grandfather, a math professor and film buff who ran a projectionist club where he often screened shorts featuring jazz stars such as Louis Armstrong and Dorothy Donegan. By age 8, Hall was studying classical music, while soaking up the sounds around her, absorbing influences such as Stevie Wonder, Ahmad Jamal, Hank Jones, Cedar Walton, Joe Sample and Oscar Peterson. She won a scholarship to the elite Hockaday School, where she took informal jazz lessons from a sympathetic music teacher.
In 1979, Hall moved to Oakland to attend Mills College on a scholarship, but after two years she left the program, looking to gain experience on the Bay Area jazz scene. She attracted some attention in the mid-’80s with the all-female fusion band Beyond Definitions, but decided to try her luck in Belgium in 1987, settling in Brussels and working the European festival circuit. When she returned to the Bay Area in 1989, she was far more seasoned, and before long won a reputation as an ace accompanist. For 15 years she maintained a hectic schedule, holding down a day job as a law office bookkeeper while playing three or four nights a week. But since 2004 she’s been devoting herself to music full time.
“It’s been a real roller coaster, but I wouldn’t give it up for anything,” Hall says. “That’s all I want to do. I want you to hear my music and feel good, or just feel, period.”
