Nurturing future players
Working with younger musicians is a lifelong passion for Hazeltine, whose teaching credits include SUNY Purchase and Berklee College of Music.
“I’ve been teaching for the last 50 years,” he said. “It’s a significant part of my life. It’s very important to me to not only pay it forward and keep the music going by doing this but also to help people pursue something they love. Music has always treated me well and I’ve had such a great love for it. If I can help other people have that feeling, that’s great.”
In addition to in-person sessions, Hazeltine has embraced virtual teaching.
“One offshoot of the pandemic that could be viewed as a positive is the idea of people getting more used to Zoom lessons,” he said. “People are more comfortable with it so now I’m teaching people all over the world. I like doing that and I’ve had great success with it.”
In addition to one-on-one lessons, Hazeltine offers a variety of teaching videos online.
“One is with a company called My Music Master Class,” he said. “They have a lot of courses. I’ve done different sections on playing piano, composition and arranging. There’s also another site I designed with a friend of mine called Jazz Piano Mastery, which is for pianists who want to learn how to take a standard and play it like a jazz guy would.”
Credit: CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Credit: CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Stage and studio
Teaching is only part of Hazeltine’s regular schedule, which includes performing and recording with different projects.
“We just played Dizzy’s (in New York City) with the John Faddis Big Band,” Hazeltine said. “We played ‘Gillespiana,’ a fantastic suite written for Dizzy by Lalo Schifrin. It was Dizzy’s 105th birthday and that’s what they were celebrating. John and I have performed that many times throughout the last 20 or 25 years but never with a big band and that’s how it was originally written so that was pretty exciting. (I’m) also recording with Xavier Helmier, a great European drummer and producer.”
Hazeltine, embracing the expanding post-COVID opportunities to work, recently recorded an album with the project One For All.
“That’s kind of a co-op band with me, Eric Alexander, Joe Farsnsworth, Peter Washington, Joe Rotondi and Steve Davis,” Hazeltine said. “We played four nights at Club Smoke, here in New York. Then we went into the studio the day after and recorded. I’ve been doing a lot of writing. Things are exciting and busy for a change. Post-pandemic, it feels really good to be crazy busy.”
International relations
In October, Hazeltine did a residency at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland. In early December, the pianist will be recording a new trio album with Peter Washington and Joe Farnsworth.
“That’s for Criss Cross Records, a great jazz label in the Netherlands,” Hazeltine said. “The owner, Gerry Teekens, passed away a couple of years ago, just before the pandemic hit. It looked like they were done but his son decided to take it up. He’s a successful businessman in some other business, but he’s recreating this project in memory of his father so we’re doing that on December 1 as a trio.”
During the early days of lockdown, Hazeltine entered a new licensing deal with European company, G2. “Connections Home,” the most recent EP in this arrangement, was released in August.
“They contacted me to see if I’d be interested in creating my own recordings,” he said. “Then, I’d license them to them and they would get them placed on Spotify, YouTube and those kinds of platforms. So, I did that starting in 2021 and I now have two EPs that are getting a lot of play. For a jazz artist like myself, we record for a label and it’s usually a one-off.
“They pay you to do the recording and the only money you see after that is if you’ve written songs and you get royalty money,” Hazeltine continued. “But when you own it, like these two EPs I put out, I collect some of the money. The jazz world is just catching up to the rest of the world.”
Contact this contributing writer at 937-287-6139 or e-mail at donthrasher100@gmail.com.
HOW TO GO
Who: University of Dayton’s ArtsLIVE presents the David Hazeltine Trio
Where: University of Dayton, Sears Recital Hall, Jesse Philips Humanities Center, 300 College Park, Dayton
When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 9
Cost: Free for UD students, $18 general admission, $15 seniors 60 and older and UD alumni, $10 UD employees and retirees, $5 youth and students younger than 21
More info: 937-229-2545 or udayton.edu
Artist info: www.davidhazeltine.com
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