Dana Hall

Born in Brooklyn, New York, drummer Dana Hall has been an important musician on the international music scene since 1992. After completing his education in Aerospace Engineering at Iowa State University, he received his Bachelor of Music degree from William Paterson College in Wayne, New Jersey and, in 1999, his Masters degree in Composition and Arranging from DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. He is presently a distinguished Special Trustees Fellow pursuing his Doctorate in Ethnomusicology at the University of Chicago.

In the fall of 2004, Mr. Hall joined the faculty of the prestigious University of Illinois AT Urbana-Champaign as an Assistant Professor of Music.

The list of exceptional artists that Mr. Hall has performed, toured, and/or recorded with directly reflects the diverse and varied approaches of his music-making in the fields of jazz and popular music and includes Branford Marsalis, Ray Charles, Roy Hargrove, Joshua Redman, Horace Silver, Michael Brecker, Nicolas Payton, Kurt Elling, Benny Green, Frank Wess, Ken Peplowski, Wycliffe Gordon, Russell Malone, Frank Foster, George Coleman, Lin Holliday, Betty Carter, Jimmy Heath, Benny Golson, Bobby Hutcherson, Wallace Roney, Diana Krall, Harold Mabern, Renee Rosnes, Clark Terry, the Mingus Big Band, Steve Lacy, Muhal Richard Abrams, Jim Snidero, Eric Alexander, James Spaulding, Buster Williams, Gary Bartz, Dick Oatts, Melvin Rhyne, Ira Sullivan, David Murray, Bobby Broom, Lester Bowie, Slide Hampton, Charles Davis, David Hazeltine, Henry Butler, Shirley Scott, Sonny Fortune, Joe Williams, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Billy Harper, Patricia Barber, Brian Lynch, Rick Margitza, Tim Hagans, John Swana, Ralph Bowen, Orrin Evans, Bud Shank, Phil Woods, Von Freeman, Ron Bridgewater, Kenny Barron, Maria Schneider, Jackie McLean, Mulgrew Miller, Marcus Belgrave, Hamiet Blueitt, the Woody Herman Orchestra, Patricia Barber, Joe Henderson, Curtis Fuller, Charles McPherson, Oliver Lake, and Steve Wilson, among others. Additionally, Mr. Hall is both a member of the Terell Stafford Quintet and the Music Director of the Chicago Jazz Ensemble, as well as a former regular member of the prestigious Grammy-nominated Carnegie Hall Jazz Band under the musical and artistic direction of trumpeter, and Dizzy Gillespie protégé, Jon Faddis. Mr. Hall has also served as an extra in the percussion sections of the Des Moines and the Cedar Rapids Symphonies.

In addition to his active schedule as a full-time student and freelance musician with a number of jazz, popular, and world music ensembles, Professor Hall is also an active clinician and educator. He has served as a faculty member of the undergraduate college at the University of Chicago teaching courses in world music and was a member of the faculty at Columbia College Chicago, teaching a select number of private students. Mr. Hall is also a member of the Jazz at Lincoln Center Band Directors Academy faculty, under the musical and artistic directorship of Grammy and Pulitzer prize winner Wynton Marsalis, providing jazz fundamentals, advanced pedagogical techniques, mentoring, musical resources, and practical tools for high school and college band directors. Additionally, Mr. Hall recently completed a four-year association with the prestigious Ravinia Festival’s Jazz in the Schools Mentoring Program, where he, working in close association with band directors and other professional musicians in Chicago, educated Chicago Public School students on music fundamentals and their associated applications within jazz music. In the summer of 2000, Mr. Hall joined the faculty of the distinguished musicians and educators at the Merit School of Music, continuing his mission to assist in bringing quality education to music and arts students in the city of Chicago. Mr. Hall is also a member of the Jazz Institute of Chicago’s Artists Residency Program and the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz's Jazz In America Program, mentoring and teaching middle and high school students fundamentals in jazz, Latin, and popular musics. Mr. Hall also teaches students privately in studio on drums, percussion, and general music fundamentals, including theory and harmony.

Concurrent with his national and international recording and touring projects, Mr. Hall can also be regularly seen and heard in Chicago performing and recording with his own groups and as an in demand artist with the groups of others. Mr. Hall uses and endorses Yamaha Drums, Bosphorus Cymbals, and Pro-Mark Drumsticks.