A Rhythm Section Workshop with Ari Hoenig featuring Tom Ollendorf

Born on November 13, 1973 in Philadelphia, Ari Hoenig, was exposed at an early age to a variety of musical experiences. His father is a conductor and classical singer, his mother a violinist and pianist. Accordingly, at 4 years of age, Ari began studying the violin and piano. He began playing drums at age twelve, and by age fourteen he was honing his skills with other young jazz musicians at Philly clubs such as Ortlieb’s JazzHaus.

Ari attended the prestigious University of North Texas for three years, where he studied with Ed Soph while playing with the “One O’Clock” Lab Band. Wanting to be closer to New York City, in 1995 Ari transferred to William Patterson College in northern New Jersey. He soon found himself playing for legendary Philadelphia organist Shirley Scott and working regularly in New York City.

Shortly thereafter, Ari moved into Brooklyn and found himself playing extensively with a variety of groups, including Jean Michel Pilc Trio, Kenny Werner Trio, Chris Potter Underground, Kurt Rosenwinkel Group, Joshua Redman Elastic band, Jazz Mandolin Project and bands led by Wayne Krantz, Mike Stern, Richard Bona and Pat Martino. He has also shared the stage with such artists as Herbie Hancock, Ivan Linz, Wynton Marsalis, Toots Thielemans, Dave Holland, Joe Lovano, and Gerry Mulligan, although he got kicked off the stage by security shortly thereafter.

Both of Ari’s self-produced solo drum CDs, “Time Travels” (2000) and “The Life Of A Day” (2002), document his exploratory nature and they represent an ambitious tribute to the melodic possibilities of the drum set. Today, Ari continues to build on the concepts of these two records by playing largely improvised solo concerts using a simple four piece drum kit without help from extraneous percussion instruments.

The Ari Hoenig Quartet was formed at the end of 2002 while playing every Monday night at the New York Village jazz club Fat Cat. The band featured Jacques Schwarz-Bart on tenor sax, Jean Michel Pilc on piano, and Matt Penman on bass. They released two records on the Smalls Records label: “The Painter” (2004) and the DVD “Kinetic Hues” (2005)

In 2006 Ari signed a multi record deal with Dreyfus Records and released his first record for them called “Inversations” (2006) which features the trio of Jean Michel Pilc and Johannes Weidenmueller. “Bert’s Playground” (2008), Ari’s second record for Dreyfus, features Ari’s Punk Bop Band joined by Chris Potter. Highlights of this record include Chris’s solo on Moments Notice and Ari jumping around in red pants on the cover. Jonathan Kreisberg, Matt Penman, Will Vinson, Gilad Hekselman and Orlando le Fleming also represent on this one.

The next record project was for “Smalls Live”, a record label set up in 2009 to document some of the music being performed at the “Smalls Jazz Club” in New York where Ari has had a residency since 2003. Ari chose his Punk Bop Band to make this live record “Punk Bop Live at Smalls (2010)”. The Punk Bop Band features Will Vinson on alto, Jonathan Kreisberg on guitar and fellow Jazz Mandolin Project alumni, Danton Boller on bass. Tigran Hamasyan is a special guest on 4 tracks as well.

Ari’s Quartet with Tigran Hamasyan, Gilad Hekselman, Orlando le Fleming and Chris Tordini released “Lines of Oppression” (2011) on the Naïve label. This record represents a culmination of Ari’s bandleading, composing and accounting skills.

In 2013 Ari and his Quartet won the prestigious BMW Welt (World) award in Munich, an international competition for best band led by a drummer.

In 2016, Ari Released The Pauper and the Magician on AH-HA Records. It features the quintet of Shai Maestro on piano, Gilad Hekselman on guitar, Tivon Pennicott on Sax and Orlando Le Fleming on bass. On this record, Ari explores the link between story telling and jazz by creating a soundtrack to the improvised and sometimes twisted stories he tells his two small children.

In 2018, Ari released a standards record called NY Standard (a tribute to playing standards in New York and in 2019 Conners Days (his first trio record) which features his current trio of Nitai Hershkovits and Or Bareket. Both of these are on the Fresh Sound label. Both of these records have received the highest possible acclaim including glowing endorsements from his grandmother.

In the summer of 2020 Ari was confirmed to record an album of his compositions with a full big band sponsored by University of Wyoming. The compositions have been arranged by Ben Markley. This project will pushed and done sometime in 2021.

Besides the quintet, Ari leads 2 other groups which play his original music. Ari Hoenig Nonet and Trio. The Nonet performs Ari’s original compositions arranged by Noam Wiesenberg and features various high caliber players in the New York area. The trio is with Gilad Hekselman and Orlando le Fleming and has toured extensively in Europe, Japan and South America.

Ari also co-leads a variety of projects. Pilc, Moutin, Hoenig (the three headed monster) released Threedom in 2011 on the Motema label. He has had various projects with partner Gael Horellou including the jazz electronica project “Nasty Factorz” with a self titled record released in 2016 and Live with the quartet released in 2019. Ari has also co-led various duo’s with Chris Potter, Edmar Casteneda, JD Walter or Dan Weiss.

As an educator, Ari teaches privately and is on faculty at New York University and the New School for Social Research in New York. He gives clinics and lectures at music schools and universities worldwide, and writes a regular educational column for Modern Drummer magazine.

We hope you'll join us for this exclusive Zoom Rhythm Section Workshop with Ari Hoenig featuring the wonderful UK based guitarist, Tom Ollendorf.