Tommy Muellner
Encyclopedia
Thomas Michael Muellner (born January 25, 1953 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American
Jazz
Pianist
that is Chicago-based. His father is John F. Muellner, born 1923 in Chicago, and was Tommy's first musical influence. In his father's heyday, he played accordion in a dance band all around town. On occasion he still plays organ for Senior Citizen functions. He also plays on his Hammond at home.
In later years, Tommy's musical influences were gleaned from the likes of Bill Evans
(who he spent part of an afternoon with once, and profoundly inspired him), Charlie Parker
, John Coltrane
, Miles Davis
, and Dexter Gordon
. He learned mostly from the great classic jazz recordings. He also learned a great deal from playing with master musicians like Ira Sullivan
, as well as other lesser known musicians he worked with at a younger age.
Tommy comes from a home enriched with good music. With a variety of musical instruments to choose from, he started playing some gigs at an early age. Although he has played drums, guitar, bass and organ, Tommy's natural preference was always the piano. Tommy grew up hearing many great jazz records, but the whole family especially loved the unique jazz piano artistry of Erroll Garner
. Tommy is forever indebted to Erroll for giving him the capacity to love the piano, and has focused on the jazz idiom for over three decades now. In his early twenties, Tom discovered Bill Evans "by osmosis," who in his evaluation has forever changed the way jazz piano is played. After that important discovery, he got deeper into the possibilities of jazz piano. "I realized when I finally heard the music, that jazz is more than music. It is great art, and a philosophy with spiritual ramifications," says Tom. His favorite pianists include Art Tatum
, Hank Jones
, Bud Powell
, Barry Harris
, McCoy Tyner
, Monty Alexander
, Keith Jarrett
, Chick Corea
, Herbie Hancock
, Steve Kuhn
, Denny Zeitlin
, Fred Hersch
and his close friend John Campbell
.
Muellner has become a highly respected local jazz pianist and composer. He also teaches jazz theory and harmony privately on a limited basis. Tom is a natural-born musician with a unique style and an uncanny understanding of harmonic movement, improvisation and musical interplay. He freelances with many top musicians and often plays piano for private occasions. Tom also headlines regularly at many prestigious jazz clubs. Neil Tesser, the nationally recognized jazz critic and writer, cites that Tommy is a "pianist and tunesmith of stellar magnitude." Tommy has received many plaudits and kudos from aficionados and statesmen throughout the jazz world, including this comment from Hammond jazz organ master Joey DeFrancesco
, "Tommy swings, grooves, is soulful, and in total command of his instrument, plus I love him, he's one of my favorites!"
Tommy has worked with many "world class" jazz stars such as Ira Sullivan
, Eddie Daniels
, Marvin Stamm
, Bobby Ojeda, John Fedchock
, Warren Kime, Mark Colby, Richie Cole
, Von Freeman
, Ron Dewar
, Michael S. Smith
, Isaac Redd Holt (of the Ramsey Lewis
Trio fame), Donny Osborne and the late Barrett Deems
of Louis Armstrong
fame, to name just a few. Tommy also works with many fine vocalists such as Arlene Bardelle, Hinda Hoffman, Spider Saloff and Catherine Whitney
.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
Pianist
Pianist
A pianist is a musician who plays the piano. A professional pianist can perform solo pieces, play with an ensemble or orchestra, or accompany one or more singers, solo instrumentalists, or other performers.-Choice of genres:...
that is Chicago-based. His father is John F. Muellner, born 1923 in Chicago, and was Tommy's first musical influence. In his father's heyday, he played accordion in a dance band all around town. On occasion he still plays organ for Senior Citizen functions. He also plays on his Hammond at home.
In later years, Tommy's musical influences were gleaned from the likes of Bill Evans
Bill Evans
William John Evans, known as Bill Evans was an American jazz pianist. His use of impressionist harmony, inventive interpretation of traditional jazz repertoire, and trademark rhythmically independent, "singing" melodic lines influenced a generation of pianists including: Chick Corea, Herbie...
(who he spent part of an afternoon with once, and profoundly inspired him), Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
, John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
, Miles Davis
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...
, and Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...
. He learned mostly from the great classic jazz recordings. He also learned a great deal from playing with master musicians like Ira Sullivan
Ira Sullivan
Ira Sullivan is a bop jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist, flautist, saxophonist and composer born in Washington, D.C.. An active musician since the 1950s, he may be best known for his extensive work with Red Rodney and Lin Halliday among others....
, as well as other lesser known musicians he worked with at a younger age.
Tommy comes from a home enriched with good music. With a variety of musical instruments to choose from, he started playing some gigs at an early age. Although he has played drums, guitar, bass and organ, Tommy's natural preference was always the piano. Tommy grew up hearing many great jazz records, but the whole family especially loved the unique jazz piano artistry of Erroll Garner
Erroll Garner
Erroll Louis Garner was an American jazz pianist and composer known for his swing playing and ballads. His best-known composition, the ballad "Misty", has become a jazz standard...
. Tommy is forever indebted to Erroll for giving him the capacity to love the piano, and has focused on the jazz idiom for over three decades now. In his early twenties, Tom discovered Bill Evans "by osmosis," who in his evaluation has forever changed the way jazz piano is played. After that important discovery, he got deeper into the possibilities of jazz piano. "I realized when I finally heard the music, that jazz is more than music. It is great art, and a philosophy with spiritual ramifications," says Tom. His favorite pianists include Art Tatum
Art Tatum
Arthur "Art" Tatum, Jr. was an American jazz pianist and virtuoso who played with phenomenal facility despite being nearly blind.Tatum is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest jazz pianists of all time...
, Hank Jones
Hank Jones
Henry "Hank" Jones was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, arranger, and composer. Critics and musicians described Jones as eloquent, lyrical, and impeccable. In 1989, The National Endowment for the Arts honored him with the NEA Jazz Masters Award...
, Bud Powell
Bud Powell
Earl Rudolph "Bud" Powell was an American Jazz pianist. Powell has been described as one of "the two most significant pianists of the style of modern jazz that came to be known as bop", the other being his friend and contemporary Thelonious Monk...
, Barry Harris
Barry Harris
Barry Doyle Harris is an American bebop jazz pianist and educator.-Biography:Harris left Detroit for New York City in 1960...
, McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner
McCoy Tyner is a jazz pianist from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, known for his work with the John Coltrane Quartet and a long solo career.-Early life:...
, Monty Alexander
Monty Alexander
Monty Alexander is a jazz pianist and melodica player. His playing has a strong Caribbean influence and swinging feeling, but he has also been influenced by Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, Wynton Kelly, and Ahmad Jamal.-Biography:Alexander discovered the piano at the age of 4, taking classical music...
, Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett
Keith Jarrett is an American pianist and composer who performs both jazz and classical music.Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey, moving on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s he has enjoyed a great deal of success in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music; as...
, Chick Corea
Chick Corea
Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever...
, Herbie Hancock
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...
, Steve Kuhn
Steve Kuhn
Steve Kuhn is an American jazz pianist, composer and trio leader.-Biography:He began studying piano at the age of five and studied under Boston piano teacher Margaret Chaloff, mother of jazz baritone saxophonist Serge Chaloff, who taught him the "Russian style" of piano playing. At an early age he...
, Denny Zeitlin
Denny Zeitlin
Denny Zeitlin is an American jazz pianist and composer, and a clinical professor of psychiatry at University of California, San Francisco...
, Fred Hersch
Fred Hersch
Fred Hersch is a contemporary American jazz pianist who has become a consistent and highly demanded performer on the international jazz scene....
and his close friend John Campbell
John Campbell (jazz pianist)
John Campbell is a jazz pianist born July 7, 1955 in Bloomington, Illinois. He studied piano privately as a youth, then attended University High School and, briefly, Illinois State University in Normal, Illinois before moving to Chicago in the mid 70s, then to New York in the...
.
Muellner has become a highly respected local jazz pianist and composer. He also teaches jazz theory and harmony privately on a limited basis. Tom is a natural-born musician with a unique style and an uncanny understanding of harmonic movement, improvisation and musical interplay. He freelances with many top musicians and often plays piano for private occasions. Tom also headlines regularly at many prestigious jazz clubs. Neil Tesser, the nationally recognized jazz critic and writer, cites that Tommy is a "pianist and tunesmith of stellar magnitude." Tommy has received many plaudits and kudos from aficionados and statesmen throughout the jazz world, including this comment from Hammond jazz organ master Joey DeFrancesco
Joey DeFrancesco
Joey DeFrancesco is an American jazz organist, trumpeter, and vocalist. Down Beat's Critics and Readers Poll selected him as the top jazz organist every year since 2003.DeFrancesco was born in Springfield, Pennsylvania...
, "Tommy swings, grooves, is soulful, and in total command of his instrument, plus I love him, he's one of my favorites!"
Tommy has worked with many "world class" jazz stars such as Ira Sullivan
Ira Sullivan
Ira Sullivan is a bop jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist, flautist, saxophonist and composer born in Washington, D.C.. An active musician since the 1950s, he may be best known for his extensive work with Red Rodney and Lin Halliday among others....
, Eddie Daniels
Eddie Daniels
Eddie Daniels is an American musician. Though he is best known as a jazz clarinet player, he has also played alto and tenor saxophones, as well as classical music on the clarinet....
, Marvin Stamm
Marvin Stamm
Marvin Stamm is an American bebop trumpeter.Stamm began on trumpet at age 12. He first attended college at, then known as, Memphis State University and then attended college at North Texas State University where he was a member of the world renowned One O'Clock Lab Band...
, Bobby Ojeda, John Fedchock
John Fedchock
John Fedchock is an American jazz trombonist, bandleader, and arranger.Fedchock studied at Ohio State University and the Eastman School of Music. He worked for several years in the Woody Herman Orchestra in the 1980s, and was particularly noted for his arrangements during this time...
, Warren Kime, Mark Colby, Richie Cole
Richie Cole (musician)
Richie Cole is a jazz alto saxophonist composer and arranger born in Trenton, New Jersey, U.S. and is a graduate of Ewing High School, Ewing New Jersey....
, Von Freeman
Von Freeman
Earle Lavon Freeman Sr. is an American hard bop jazz tenor saxophonist. He is the father of jazz saxophonist Chico Freeman.-Biography:...
, Ron Dewar
Ron Dewar
Ron Dewar is a jazz tenor saxophone player in the Chicago area. He has toured and recorded with many well-known musicians, including Elvis Presley, Clark Terry, Sarah Vaughan, and Louis Bellson. In the 1970s, Dewar was the leader of the traditional jazz band The Memphis Nighthawks...
, Michael S. Smith
Michael S. Smith
Michael Scott Smith was an American jazz drummer and percussionist.-Career:Based in the Washington D.C...
, Isaac Redd Holt (of the Ramsey Lewis
Ramsey Lewis
Ramsey Emmanuel Lewis, Jr. is an American jazz composer, pianist and radio personality. Ramsey Lewis has recorded over 80 albums and has received seven gold records and three Grammy Awards so far in his career.-Biography:...
Trio fame), Donny Osborne and the late Barrett Deems
Barrett Deems
Barrett Deems was an American swing music jazz drummer born in Springfield, Illinois, probably best known for his work with jazz musicians Jimmy Dorsey, Louis Armstrong , Red Norvo, and Muggsy Spanier.Deems died of pneumonia in Chicago, in September 1998, at the age...
of Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
fame, to name just a few. Tommy also works with many fine vocalists such as Arlene Bardelle, Hinda Hoffman, Spider Saloff and Catherine Whitney
Catherine Whitney
Catherine Jane Whitney is an American Jazz Singer that is Chicago-based and is not only a vocalist, but composer and lyricist as well. She sings in the "vo-cool" style similar to that of Anita O'Day and Peggy Lee. She is published by Second Floor Music in New York...
.
Selected recordings
- Audio CD Title:"It's All About Time" / Release Date:February 14, 1998 / Label:Denwa / Manufacturer:RCA Victor Europe
External links
- http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/musician.php?id=14769
- http://www.denwarecords.com/jazz/artists_jazz_bio_muellner.html
- http://www.chicagojazz.com/musician.php?artist=tommu&muid=154
- http://www.chicagojazzentertainment.com/musicians.htm
- http://www.youtube.com/tommymuellner
- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000006NAV%3ftag=mp3lyrics-20%26link_code=xm2%26camp=2025%26dev-t=D1CHLK05RUF5UA