The Hank Hirsh Quintet: The Latest

The Wednesday night jam session is discontinued. After nearly two years it was revealed that jazz doesn't make money.
thanks to all the players and listeners that came out trying to support the music.
peace
hank and the band

Sony TV productions has used A Buck and Some Change in their hit series, Damages, starring Glen Close and other big names.
Follow the link below to check it out.
http://www.tv.com/damages/blame-the-victim/episode/1072991/summary.html?tag=ep_list;title;7

The Hank Hirsh Quintet is in the process of producing their second CD, entitled "Seekin' & Speakin". Most of the material has been tracked but work is still being done on the mix.
We feel pretty good about the project.
Vocals by friends of the band, Emi Satya Hirsh (of the distinguished family) and Jeanne Kennedy-Crosby, one of the bands most loyal fans and good friend are featured.
All new compositions and arrangements.
I can't wait, can you? Coming soon.

Local filmaker Cameron Beyl is using the Hank Hirsh composition "the Pearl" from the 2005 CD Around and Back.
The tune is presented here in its original form. It has since been rearranged and will appear on the soon-to-be-released CD "Seekin' & Speakin".

follow the link below to find out more about this film. The premier will be July 27th at the Hollywood Theater. See you there.

hank
http://www.myspace.com/burnsidemovie

Dreamcatcher Hell is a program about daredevil mountaineering (I think) and they have chosen to use our theme song, Blowin' in From Chicago, in some portion of their shows. As yet I haven't seen the show. If you know anything about it please tell me.
thanks
hank

This time Sam Hirsh was named best soloist at the Portland State Jazz Festival and competition for high-schools. The Grant High jazz band also won 1st place.

Sam Hirsh has received letters of acceptance to The Manhattan School of Music and The New School.
Financial arrangements are pending. This move may occur in the 2008 or 2009 school year.

Sammy boy wins best soloist at the 2007 Clackamas College jazz festival. CCC is offering him a two-year full scholarship. Sam says he is waiting to hear from the Manhattan School of Music, for which auditioned last week. Optimism prevails and Sam has his bags packed for the Big Apple

Linda Daiber, writer for the Jazz Society of Oregon interviews Hank Hirsh. March 2, 2007


LD 1. How and when did the KMHD Jazz Jam get started?
HH I think we started in April of 2006. The first evening featured the quintet. KMHD had a promotional idea whereby each DJ invited a few listener/guests to the opening night. The guests could meet the DJ, the band and in some cases the guests were musicians themselves, as were some of the DJ and administrators of KMHD. From that point on we have been there every Wednesday evening. We all hope it continues, but anything can happen in this business.
LD 2. What were your hopes when it began, and has it turned out the way you imagined?
HH Initially, from the business perspective I had hoped to get something going for the people at Jax. They seemed sincere about promoting jazz and becoming a part of the jazz scene in Portland. We began with a few rooftop sessions, which were quite nice in the warmer months, but there seems to be a city ordinance forbidding music after 10:00pm. This put us in a situation where we could play longer but we wouldn't be able to continue the rooftop sessions. We opted to play longer. If you want to see nature you take a hike on the weekend at Mt. Hood. If you want to play jazz you do it in a club, and that's where it stands now. Anyway, as nice as it was up there, I didn't like to have our session dependent on the weather. Eight months of the year Portland is the wrong place for that.

My hopes for the session were that we could create a congenial atmosphere for players and fans to come out and kick back. I think we have accomplished that. Play if you feel like it, sit and listen and drink if you don't. The fact that this venue is open to all ages makes it somewhat different than the typical bar. Some younger players come out, and in many cases they have to have their parents drive them. Mom and dad usually seem very supportive and enthusiastic. I love seeing the young kids get up and do this for the first time. It makes me know that the music I love is not an endangered art form.
LD 3. What does a "normal" jazz session look like?
HH Normal is a subjective term and all sessions seem kind of cyclical. Some nights there are 5 or 6 drummers, 3 or 4 bassists, a couple of vocalists a trumpeter or two. Saxophonists seem to be the predominant players. One night I think there were 6 trombones! In all my experience I had never seen so many bones on a session. It was a gas. Other nights I will stand as the lone horn player and only drummers come. There is no escape from that situation. We play and everyone is happy. Sometimes exhausted, but happy.
LD 4. Who is invited to participate?
HH Anyone who plays or owns an instrument is invited to participate. It's not as though the rhythm section is a live karaoke machine. I won't let them be mistreated. As I said, everyone is invited to participate, the question is will they be invited to continue or return. I am pretty open minded, but like the vaudeville shows, I possess the hook. "thanks very much. we have some wonderful parting gifts for you..."
LD 5. What are the benefits of sitting in on a jam session?
HH The benefit of sitting in for an aspiring young musician is immeasurable. You can practice at home all you like, but there is no substitute for standing up in front of a room full of people trying to sort it all out and make a sensible, musical, hip statement. Performing in front of an audience is something that comes naturally to some and not to others. First one must find out which one of those you are. As an experienced player you learn new tunes and new changes for old tunes, hear other players' take on what you just played. It is a beautiful thing to get up and connect with the rhythm section and/or play something nice with another horn player. Make a personal connection.
LD 5. Who is part of the house band?
HH My band is the house band. The nature of this gig requires that each player has a backup for unforeseen situations or just a night off to spend with wife or girlfriend. Jonas Oglesbee began the session as our drummer and left a few months ago for personal reasons. Kenny Johnson. a Portland mainstay with tons of experience and young Harry McKenzie, a brilliant, swinging junior at Grant High School (the drummer in Sam's trio) have filled in at times and both are familiar with our book. Presently Alan Tarpinian is our drummer. He has been with us for about three months now. He is a great player and wonderful human being. He is always smiling and his exuberance and positivity bring something special to the bandstand. We are just starting to know each other musically and personally. I feel it is going well. I look forward to making our next record with him.
We have two regular bassists.
Brendon Lamoreaux has been on the gig since its inception. He has worked very hard at his instrument and is getting better all of the time. He has great stamina and that is a requisite quality for a jam session bassist, especially on the nights when no other bassists show up to sit in. He is also a very good guy. He is also the bassist in my son's trio. He alternates with Patrick Harry, who is presently a student at PSU. He too is a fine bassist and sincere musician. I have known him only a short while, but I dig his work ethic and his commitment to the music. Dave Speranza also joins us when occasionally and he is my favorite bassist in Portland and a member of my recording band. He is a great young player who improves every second.
The core trio of our quintet is something precious to me. Trombonist Dave Bones is my good friend. We began playing together about 10 or 12 years ago and went our separate ways, then connected again about 4 years ago. Our feeling about the music is our common thread and we are also on the same page about life in general. I don't know a more straight-up honest man, musician or otherwise. He is a fine player and I have learned a lot from him. We get together every Monday and play. Sometimes it is just the two of us or, more often with Sam. Sometimes we don't even play much; just hang. His attention to detail keeps me in line. I have a lot of respect for Bones and when he suggests something I am all ears. I consider him the co-leader of the band.
My son, Sam is the third member of our core trio and the driving force in the band and, along with his sister Emi, the driving force in my life. Dave and my son Sam have a special relationship that has grown over the years as Sam has progressed. Bones has been instrumental in that progress. No pun intended. Sam is far beyond the level of musicianship of his peers. He has an innate sense of swing and is very creative. He loves the music and plans to make it his life. He has been listening/hearing it since before his birth.
Sam will be auditioning for some music schools out east in the very near future and I am sure he will be accepted. It will be very difficult for me to replace him. He is the real deal and proves it night after night. I used to get bugged about being upstaged by my 16, 17 and now 18 year-old son but I have gotten used to it. I am very proud of what Sam has become and have the greatest confidence in what he plans for his future. This interview is not sufficient time for me to expound about how I feel about Sam. I can only hope that he will let me sit in with him when he gets to the top, or at least put me on the guest list.
LD 6. What are some of your favorite stories about the jam?
HH There have been many amusing stories about the session. One of my favorite moments was when Cary Campbell, one of Portland's hippest, swinginest and most under-appreciated female vocalists sat in with us. There was another female vocalist, whose name escapes me at the moment, present at the time and she too was quite good and experienced. The two of them did a couple of duo things that rocked the joint. They were embracing and laughing. It reminded me of a famous picture of Bird and Dizzy hugging with a young John Coltrane in the background. It was the essence of what I (we) strive for. No egos involved, just the music. They didn't know each other before they sang together and probably haven't spoken since, but for that brief moment something extraordinary occurred. Another of my favorite moments was just recently when Cal Hudson, a great local tenor player and I were left to do an unaccompanied cadenza together on a ballad. He is a very sensitive player and we made some nice music. The number of good things that have happened has been far greater than the not-so-good ones or we wouldn't be still doing it.
LD 7. When did you first become exposed to jazz?
HH My dad had some jazz records around from the swing era. They were on 78's and have long since been lost. He was an opera singer and tried to make it in NY but did not succeed. I thank Joe Segal, a famous promoter of jazz in Chicago for making the music available to me as a young teenager. He had Sunday afternoon sessions at the North Park Hotel. I could go in and hear Gene Ammons, Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Lockjaw Davis, Kenny Dorham, Milt Jackson, Philly Joe Jones, Sonny Rollins, Randy Weston, Elvin Jones, Count Basie, James Moody, Barry Harris, Cannonball and Nat, Dexter, Griffin and many more that I can't think of right now. All the cats! I think the cost back in the 70's was $3.00. My mother had a record of Oscar Peterson's trio playing West Side Story and I didn't know what it was but liked it. I heard Larry Coryell once and searched out his first record (Lady Coryell). That record had Elvin Jones and Jimmy Garrison on it and it was a great side. After that I started looking for records with those two guys on it and stumbled onto John Coltrane. After that it was off to the races and I discovered Bird and that changed my life.
LD 8. Who are your greatest influences?
HH Bird, Gene Ammons, Hank Mobley, Johnny Griffin, Dexter Gordon, Cannonball Adderley, Jackie McLean, Phil Woods, John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Rollins, Clifford Jordan and many others too numerous to list here have been my influences on the saxophone. Oh, did I say Bird? :) Charles Mingus, Thelonious Monk, Horace Silver, Bud Powell, Cedar Walton, and Duke Ellington have had a lot of influence on my composition.
In my early years in Chicago local legends Tommy Ponce, a great multi-instrumentalist (saxophones and piano were his main instruments but he played trumpet, flute, drums and sang. He and Ira Sullivan grew up together and they were always good friends.) , and Lin Halliday, a great saxophonist were very encouraging to me. Tommy was the one who told me to quit my day gig and play. Both were good friends and taught me a lot about playing, not in an academic way, but in the spiritual way. Merle Boley was a wonderful trumpeter, with whom I had a quintet for many years in Chicago. He was a great friend and I loved him.
LD 9. What do you want people to take away from the jam sessions?
HH I hope that the listener walks out of the session feeling joy. It is the joy of hearing a musician express how he/she feels about the state of things. I hope that the younger players feel inspired to go home and learn the tunes that they didn't know that night, and come back next week and call them. I hope that the more experienced players feel satisfied that they got their notes and thoughts out. That they were able to say what they had in mind and that nobody got in their way that night. I hope that my band enjoys the gig and doesn't feel tortured. I want to feel that I am promoting the art form I love and connecting with people at some personal level. That is the most important part for me. The connection.
LD 10. What lies ahead in your musical future?
HH I have many new compositions to record and plan to do so as soon as I feel the band is comfortable playing them. I don't like us to read in the studio. I hope that will be happening in the next couple of months. I am sure it will be a nice record. I really like my most recent compositions and musicians that play them tell me they do too. There is an independent film maker who will be using some of my music in a new film and a few of my tunes have been used on an ABC TV series called Wildfire. I would like to have more of that sort of thing.
As I said, Sam will be going to be off to college in the fall I think and I will have to begin life after Sam. That will be one of the biggest life transitions that I have undertaken in some time. I am sure I can find a pianist, but not one that also rides home with me and hangs out in the kitchen after the gig talking about the events of the night or substitute chord changes. I plan to continue writing because that is the most important part of the whole thing to me. Some day I would like Sam to play my compositions on his own record. Hirsh plays Hirsh. Can you dig it? We will see.

Sam Hirsh won recognition yesterday at the Skyview Jazz Festival/Competition.
Sam, the first chair pianist in the Grant High School jazz ensemble, was featured on melodica. For his outstanding performance he won Best Rhythm Section Soloist.

ABC Family Channel buys two cuts from the quintet's 2005 release Around & Back (Samba Omocha and Taeko's Tune) to be used on their program Wildfire. The episode, #2013 aired originally in April 2006.
As Hirsh considers himself a better writer than a player (he is also an excellent player) this is a very proud, joyous and significant moment for Hirsh and his band. Best of luck to this sincere musician and his players. After nearly thirty years on the scene he is getting some well deserved recognition.
- Extended Chord Magazine (Aug 17, 2006)

The talented pianist, Sam Hirsh and his trio consisting of Brendon Lamoreaux on bass and Harry McKenzie on drums has recorded a very hip CD entitled A Room with A View.
The sides were recorded at the home of some very gracious friends (who may prefer to remain anonymous) of the band who had previously hosted parties at which Sam was performing with the Hank Hirsh Quintet.
Don't be fooled by the fact that this was recorded in someone's living room though. The piano is beautiful, the recording equipment and engineering were top notch and the acoustics of the room are perfect for recording, not to mention the view. Hence the title of the album.
KMHD radio DJ Matt Warford has praised young Sam and his playing in the liner notes as well as on the air.
Sam is a very hip young man with a lot of music on his mind. He is only a senior in high-school now and has eyes to head east next year to one of several music schools that he is applying.
A Room With A View will be available through this website by mid December 2006.
Catch this group live if you can. Hip beyond his years, Sam is the real deal.

Extended Chord Magazine

I recently joined a band called the Jazz Express. All good players and a swinging book.
I am looking forward to making some good music with these people.
I will let you know when and where to catch us.

The Hank Hirsh Quintet, featuring, along with Hirsh on saxophones is Dave Bones on trombone, Dave Speranza on bass, young Harry McKenzie (subbing for Chris) on drums and the phenomenal young star Sam Hirsh on piano.

This has been a significant summer for Sam Hirsh. He has played lots of gigs, made lots of friends and earned quite a bit of money doing what he loves.
The latter is the part that is so significant. He has now realized that he loves the music.
His impassioned playing gives the listener an idea of just how intensely that fire burns.
Among his most recent steps up the ladder of the jazz world were a performance at the Mt. Hood Jazz Festival, where Sam received a standing ovation for his feature with the all-star high-school big band, and a performance for the Leroy Vinnegar Institute, which featured three local teens, which included Sam's trio. World renowned pianist Darrell Grant was in attendance and was moved by Sam's performance. Sam hopes to begin study with Darrell as a result of that meeting.
As stated earlier, this is no longer a hobby for Sam. He has hopes of attending the New England Conservatory in Fall of 2007.
We hope everything works out as he plans, and that good things happen to him. This kid is for real and we hope to hear much more from him.

Extended Chord Magazine

ABC TV Family Channel has purchased rights to use two Hank Hirsh compositions on their weekly series, entitled Wildfire. The episode, #2013 aired in April 2006. The tunes selected were Taeko's Tune and Samba Omocha.
This is a joyous and significant milestone in a career spanning more than thirty years of writing and playing the music.
Many thanks to Rumblefish, Inc.

The Hank Hirsh Quintet has been chosen to host the all-ages jazz jam session at JAX Bar. The session is every Wednesday evening from 7-10 pm.
We are all lookiing forward to the warmer months when JAX will open up the rooftop area. This will be an extra hip place to play.
Come out and swing with us.
NO COVER. NO ATTITUDE.
ALL AGES AND LEVELS WELCOME.
Swing you there. Peace

Yesterday at the Willamette University Jazz Festival the Grant High-School jazz band took first place. In addition to that honor, pianist Sam Hirsh was named best jazz soloist in the competition. Sam said, "all of those awards are great, but the high point of this day, and possibly my life was that I got to play with the great Jimmy Heath. I have received the transmission of jazz history from one of the few remaining greats. Jimmy Heath liked my playing. Can you imagine? Jimmy Heath liked my playing." Hirsh was in a daze of disbelief. They played On Green Dolphin Street together as a duo, and then later in the evening, when the winning Grant band played, Jimmy sat in on the band's arrangement of I Mean You.
Sam's dad Hank, a fine saxophonist smiled upon hearing all of this. He said, "Looks like I might need to start looking for another pianist. This kid has had a taste and I can see that he is ready to move on. I had better start practicing if I want to entice him to stay around."
Sam is a junior at Grant and is planning to attend college on the east coast at a yet to be determined school. Any school will be happy to have him. He is the real deal in a youthful form. Keep on swingin' Sammy. Congratulations to you and the Grant band.

Extended Chord Magazine

Six Perfections Music
presents
The Hank Hirsh Quintet
Tasteful Jazz
for
Any Occasion

You have indicated by your decision to engage The Hank Hirsh Quintet that you are a person of taste and quality.

We are much pleased and honored to be working with you. We want your event to go smoothly and to that end, we would like ask you to assist us.

Answering a few questions will help us to provide you with the music and mood that you desire.
(copy & paste your answers here to an email, then send them to: samuemi1@netzero.com)

1. What sort of event is this?


2. What is the age range of the group for whom we will perform?


3. Is there particular material that you would like us to play?


4. Will there be dancing?


5. Will we be performing as guests are eating?


6. Will an acoustic piano in good working order be provided? If not, will there be electricity for our instruments?


7. Will a PA system be provided?


8. Will the band members be allowed eat, drink and socialize with guests?

9. Are you familiar with the type of music we play?


10.Do you know that we make every attempt to play our music within that genre?


We look forward to hearing from you, and anticipate a very swinging affair.
Thanks.

The Hank Hirsh Quintet recently recorded an original lullaby entitled Awake in a Dream. The side was recorded at Rumblefish Studios on 10.9.05.
The music will be used by a San Francisco children's clothing manufacturer for a promotion campaign.