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 include
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, Malachi Thompson, 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, Roscoe Mitchell, George Lewis, 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. For the past
eleven years, Mr. Hall has been a member of the Terell Stafford Quintet,
and formerly served as a permanent member of The Carnegie Hall Jazz
Band under the musical and artistic direction of Jon Faddis,
participating in performances internationally and at Carnegie Hall. Mr.
Hall has also served as an extra in the percussion sections of the Des
Moines and the Cedar Rapids Symphonies.
In November 2009, Mr. Hall celebrated the release of his debut
recording as a leader, Into the Light. Immediately upon its release,
Into The Light was the most added and highest debuting new CD on the
mainstream and college jazz charts and within a month was #8 on the
JazzWeek Top-50 and #3 on the College Music Journal Top-40 Jazz charts.
It also landed on the Best of 2009 lists of many major newspapers and
magazines nationwide, including the Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press,
and others. At the conclusion of 2009, Mr. Hall was recognized by the
Chicago Tribune as a 2009 Chicagoan of the Year, acknowledging his
outstanding achievements in the arts.
From June 2011 through June 2012, Mr. Hall served as the Artistic
Director of the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, a position he held concurrently
with his previous position as Music Director of the ensemble. In this
role, Mr. Hall curated the ensembles series of concerts, which included
hosting artists as varied and diverse as Miguel Zenon, Sonia Sanchez,
Etienne Charles, and MeShell Ndegeocello.
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
served a four-year residency with the prestigious Ravinia Festivals
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.
Concurrent with his national and international recording and touring
projects, Mr. Hall can also be regularly seen and heard in Chicago and
its surrounding area performing and recording with his own
groups including his quartet, spring, an ensemble featuring two
multi-instrumentalist woodwinds, acoustic bass, and his own drums and
cymbals and as an in demand artist with the groups of others. Mr. Hall uses and endorses Yamaha Drums, Zildjian Cymbals, Vic Firth Drumsticks and Remo Drumheads.
Learn more on the Jazz Studies Studio Page