Jeff Haas

Promoting Peace through the Universal Language of Music
 

Growing up in Detroit in the '60s, composer and pianist Jeff Haas' home was a very musical one—albeit limited to the likes of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Jeff enjoyed playing and absorbing the classical stuff, but when he asked his dad about the Beatles and Jimi Hendrix and his father told him that rock 'n' roll would ruin the needle on the record player, Jeff went rogue. Soon after, he stumbled on a 1963 Motown revue at the Michigan State Fair, and then discovered a clandestine copy of Monk and Coltrane "Live at the Five Spot" under his sister’s mattress. He never looked back.

After logging untold hours at the piano and on stage, writing more than 150 original compositions, and hosting more than 1,000 community radio shows, Jeff created The New Jazz Archive: a radio series exploring jazz's often unrecognized place in American life. What better way, he thought, to open people’s hearts and minds to jazz than through compelling stories and colorful conversations that connect the music to everyday life in America? After all, the universal struggles and triumphs of the likes of Monk, Miles and Mingus parallel our own.

In addition to hosting and co-producing The New Jazz Archive, Jeff is a proud and very involved father of a tween, a keeper of two cats, and the founder of yet another world-saving passion: Building Bridges with Music.

Composer/pianist/bandleader Jeff Haas has over 100 compositions in his book of original music including 5 major commissions. Check out recordings by Haas & Friends and order your own sheet music (available for any instrumentation) on the Second Street Music section of the website.

Jeff performs in a variety of formats; solo, trio, quintet with trumpet legend Marcus Belgrave, tentet with Marcus and saxophone master George Benson and double quartet (jazz and string quartet) featuring the Phoenix Ensemble String Quartet. Jeff and his bandmates perform in concert venues, clubs & festivals, schools, colleges & universities, synagogues, temples, churches & community centers.

Haas & Friends also regularly conduct performance workshops in K-12 public schools. These engaging workshops use Jeff's original music as a springboard for interactive discussion about gaining more awareness and understanding of people from different cultures and backgrounds.