Tammy Hall

Grammy™ award winning pianist, composer, arranger, lecturer and musical director Tammy L. Hall began playing the piano at age 4 and is still devoted to that instrument, Music and its calling. After attending Mills College (Oakland, CA), Hall’s career now spans more than four decades, with no end in sight. In pursuit of the creation and development and performance of Good Music, Tammy has worked with and accompanied numerous vocalists and instrumentalists, including: Etta Jones, Ernestine Anderson, Melba Moore, Darlene Love, Linda Tillery, Holly Near, Alive!, Barbara Dane, Loretta Devine, Kim Nalley, Ph.D., Tiffany Austin, Renée Wilson, Queen Esther Marrow, Rhiannon, Mary Wilson, Denise Perrier, and the vocal trio of Brown, Sturgis & Brown; saxophonists Houston Person and David “Fathead” Newman, Noah Howard, Kristen Strom, Tia Fuller, James Carter; guitarists Greg Skaff and Mimi Fox, Grammy award winning violinists Regina Carter, Laurie Anderson and Mads Tolling, “Harpist from the Hood” Destiny Muhammad, NEA Jazz Master and three-time Grammy award winning drummer Terri Lyne Carrington, Drummer/Bandleader Allison Miller and Bassist/ Bandleader Marcus Shelby, three-time Grammy award winning Bassist Ruth Davies and Dr. Angela Davis and most recently has begun a new collaboration with the sublime classical vocalist, Leberta Lorál. The Monterey Jazz Festival has just celebrated its 65th anniversary this year (2022) and for the first time in its history, presented a set devoted to Spiritual and Gospel music. Tammy directed (and conducted) the Morgan State and Texas Southern University Gospel Choirs, along with Bay Area and Monterey Bay Area artists Brown, Sturgis & Brown, Valerie Joi Fiddmont and Leberta Lorál. In 2021, Tammy was part of a team of musicians and songwriters in collaboration with Indian vocalist and composer, Falu Shah and their effort resulted in a Grammy™ win for Best Children’s Music Album: A Colorful World. 2021 was also the start of a current work in progress: Convergence, the story of an imagined meeting between musical giants Mary Lou Williams, Dorothy Donegan, Hazel Scott and Nina Simone, as well as an inaugural Artist-In-Residence honor conferred by the Healdsburg Jazz Festival and Marcus Shelby, Artistic Director. In early August of 2020, Tammy worked with the late Maestro Michael Morgan on his collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra on the podcast San Francisco Symphony Currents-Bay Area Blue Notes: Jazz As A State Of Mind. In 2019, Tammy was one of recipients of the Human Right’s Commission’s inaugural Pleasant-Leidesdorff Community Stalwart awards for her work in the community. In 2017, the Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle awarded Tammy the honor of Best Musical Direction for Blues Is A Woman, written by Pamela Rose. Other theatrical productions include Sister Act, produced by Theatre Rhinoceros (2017), Ella Fitzgerald: An American Story (Kim Nalley/Cinnabar Theater 2010); Bessie, Dinah and Denise (Denise Perrier 2005-2018), Black Odyssey (2017-Marcus Gardley/Linda Tillery- music director/Cal Shakes) and many other collaborative projects. Other highlights and venues of note include Carnegie Hall, Jazz At Lincoln Center, Sala Filarmonica (Trento, Italy), North Sea Jazz Festival, San Miguel De Allende Jazz Festival, Braine-Alleud (Jazz On The Farm), Brussels Jazz Club, Mary Lou Williams Jazz Festival at Kennedy Center; performances in Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Uruguay and Japan.