Duke Jazz Talks, "Hall Overton: Out of the Shadows.”

Please join us for the final program in our series of Duke Jazz Talks, "Hall Overton: Out of the Shadows.” In partnership with the Jazz Loft Project, this evening program is devoted to exploring the monumental, behind-the-scenes influence of pianist, arranger, composer, and teacher Hall Overton.

Sam Stephenson, Director of the Jazz Loft Project, and pianist Ethan Iverson will moderate a lively discussion with composers Steve Reich and Carman Moore and conductor Joel Sachs about the life and work of Hall Overton and what it is like to perform his music today.

"Hall Overton: Out of the Shadows” will be held on Wednesday, April 14, 2010 at 6:00 p.m. in the Bruno Walter Auditorium at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, 111 Amsterdam Avenue @ 65th Street. The program is free and open to the public on a first-come, first-served basis. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. For more information, please call 212.870.1693 or visit nypl.org/lpaprograms



Hall Overton (1920-1972) was a pianist, composer, arranger, and Julliard Music School instructor and a fourth floor Jazz Loft resident from 1954 through 1972. Revered and beloved as an innovative teacher and arranger, at night and on weekends, Overton gave lessons to a range of folks such as heiress Doris Duke, Marian McPartland, seminal conductor Dennis Russell Davies, and composer Carman Moore. Jazz legends would stop by without an appointment and pick Overton’s brain and soul --friendship and camaraderie the medium of exchange. Hall Overton had a knack for finding and nurturing the unique qualities inside all of his students, rather than imprinting his methods on everyone. He worked with Charles Mingus, Oscar Pettiford, Teddy Charles, and Stan Getz, and forged a longstanding relationship with Thelonious Monk based on deep mutual respect. Minimalist groundbreaker Steve Reich studied with Overton in the loft once a week for two years in the late 1950s, an experience Reich calls pivotal to his career. As a composer, Overton’s intended magnum opus was an opera, Huckleberry Finn, which was conducted by his acclaimed student Dennis Russell Davies at Juilliard in 1971. In November 1972, Overton died of cirrhosis at age fifty-two.

The Duke Jazz Talks are part of the two-year Library for the Performing Arts’ project funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to present, document, and preserve jazz, contemporary dance, and theater performances and related oral histories.

The Jazz Loft Project Exhibition runs at The Library for the Performing Arts through May 22, 2010. For more information, visit http://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/jazz-loft-project

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