Larry Willis

The Larry Willis Trio featuring Billy Hart will perform at Smoke Jazz and Supper Club-Lounge on Friday, June 19th and Saturday, June 21st. Larry Willis has performed in a wide range of styles, including jazz fusion rock music, Bebop and Avant-Garde. Drummer and educator Billy Hart has performed with some of the most important jazz musicians, he was a member of Herbie Hancock's sextet from 1969-1973, and played with McCoy Tyner from 1973-1974 and Stan Getz from 1974-1977, in addition to extensive freelance playing (including recording with Miles Davis on 1972's On the Corner).

After his first year studying music theory at the Manhattan School of Music Larry Willis began performing regularly with Jackie McLean. After he graduated he made his first jazz recording, McLean's Right Now!, which featured two of Willis' compositions. His first recording of any type, however, was as a singer with the Music and Arts Chorale Ensemble, performing an opera by Aaron Copland under the direction of Leonard Bernstein. He decided to concentrate on jazz because of the difficulties African American musicians had in finding work in concert music. He is still recording and touring around the world.

Throughout his illustrious career he has performed with a wide range of musicians, including a stint of seven years as keyboardist for Blood, Sweat & Tears (beginning in 1972). His latest recording with Paul Murphy, Exposé , demonstrates the high energy fusion principals of Bebop and Avant-Garde Jazz. Their brilliant blending of Bebop and Avant garde jazz is astounding, creating extraordinary compositions that have been described as a ‘fantastic masterpiece of modern jazz’ leaving extraordinary representational images of vast dream state emotions.

Billy Hart © Andrea Canter

Currently Billy Hart is one of the most in-demand jazz drummers and teachers alive. Since the early 1990’s Billy Hart has devoted a lot of time to teaching. He spends considerable time at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, but he is also adjunct faculty at the New England Conservatory of Music and Western Michigan University. He also teaches private lessons through The New School and New York University, and often contributes to the Stokes Forest Music Camp and the Dworp Summer Jazz Clinic in Belgium.

Hart is on over 600 records as a sideman. His current group is a quartet with Mark Turner, Ethan Iverson, and Ben Street. He also is featured in a trio led by pianist Jean-Michel Pilc. An album of this band came out in August 2006 on the HighNote label.

Biographic info adapted from Wikipedia.org

Smoke is located at 2751 Broadway, Manhattan, www.smokejazz.com. Three sets each night at 8, 10 and 11:30 pm. Cover $30, (212) 864-6662.

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