Hayes
Greenfield producer, composer, saxophonist, filmmaker, bandleader, and educator
has been active on the New York City jazz scene since the late '70s. As sideman,
he has built enduring associations with such notable artists as Jaki Byard,
Rashied, Ali, Paul Bley, Barry Altschul, and Richie Havens. As bandleader, Hayes
has recorded and produced a number of critically acclaimed CDs and played throughout
the U.S. and Canada, headlining in such popular New York City clubs as the Blue
Note, Birdland, the Knitting Factory, and CBGB's. European tours have taken
him and his bands to the Aalen Jazz Festival in Germany, Brighton Jazz Festival
in the U.K., the Albi, Coutances, Bordeaux, Amiens, Hyeres, and Avignon Jazz
Festivals in France, and the Aarhus Jazz Festival in Denmark. Critic Stanley
Crouch calls Hayes Greenfield, "one of the musicians whose grasp of the
jazz fundamentals makes him a trooper dedicated to the continuation of the music
as an art."
In 1997, Hayes founded Jazz-A-Ma-Tazz, his live, interactive show for
young people that introduces jazz in a fun, unique, and participatory way. While
Hayes and his band jazz up familiar songs, young people are encouraged to join
in through call-and-response, scatting, singing, interpretive sound, movement,
conducting, and tap dance. Says Hayes, "What I am trying to do with Jazz-A-Ma-Tazz
is to show kids how much fun they can have with jazz. To stretch their ears
and minds to the magic and joys of improvisation in a way that enables kids
to embrace this beautiful music and make it their own. When I get done with
them they leave chanting, singing and knowing that jazz is alive and well and
not old fogy music." Jazz-A-Ma-Tazz plays internationally in a
variety of venues, including festivals, performing arts centers, schools, community
events, and museums.
Hayes' jazz CD for children, also entitled Jazz-A-Ma-Tazz, features
vocalists Richie Havens and Miles Griffith and was produced by the artist Roy
Lichtenstein and his wife Dorothy. This CD was honored with the Oppenheim Toy
Portfolio Gold Award, Child Magazine's Best of the Year
Award, the Publishers Weekly Listen Up award, the Parents'
Choice Foundation Silver Honor Award, and the American Library Association
Notable Children's Recording Award.
As educator, from 1993 to 2000, Hayes ran the music department at The Door,
an enrichment center for inner-city youth in New York City. He developed the
music component for an entrepreneurial program funded by The Gap, designed the
recording/rehearsal studio and MIDI workstation production facility, taught
music, and produced The Door's first CD of young people's music. For several
of those years, Hayes also mentored young men at Friends of Island Academy,
an organization providing services to those making the transition from incarceration
back to the community.
Hayes' residencies include teaching jazz improvisation on both coasts to both
elementary and high school students, designing and teaching an intensive recorder
program for 5th graders, and helping to develop a Literacy Through Jazz curriculum
for the New Jersey Chamber Society that is currently being taught in New Jersey
private and public schools.
As a film composer, Hayes has scored more than 60 films, documentaries, commercials,
and TV specials, many of which have received awards, including the prestigious
Emmy. In 2002, Hayes scored the feature documentary, American Rebuilds:
A Year at Ground Zero, which aired on PBS as part of its 9/11 memorial
programming. Berlin Metamorphoses, another feature documentary, premiered
in Berlin at the 2002 World Congress of History Producers. Other notable subjects
for which Hayes has composed scores include films on the Berlin Airlift; Russia
facing the future in the new millennium; luminary figures such as General George
Marshall; artists Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Stella, and James Rosenquist; architect
Philip Johnson; poet laureate Billy Collins; and photographers Elliot Porter
and Jan Groover.
A filmmaker, as well, Hayes Greenfield has produced two award-winning short
films: For the Children, a film/music video, and Friends of the
Children. Both films examine problems facing American youth in today's
society and investigate ways that caring adults and community programs have
helped shape young people's lives in positive and productive ways.
In 2006 Hayes was recognized by New York University who honored him with the
SCPS/GSP 2005 Marc Crawford Jazz Educators Award (previous recipients include
Clark Terry, Benny Golson, Kenny Barron, Al Grey, Barry Harris, John Hicks,
Dwite Mitchell, Willie Ruff, and Steve Wilson). He was also awarded a grant
from Chamber Music of America for their 2006-07 Residency Partnership Program.
Hayes Greenfield is both a Yamaha and Vandoren performing artist, and proudly
plays a Yamaha Custom Z alto saxophone, and Vandoren mouthpieces and reeds on
all his horns.
To read more about Hayes Greenfield please visit: www.hayesgreenfield.com
