Greg Hatza – Jazz Organist & Pianist

Greg Hatza: Jazz Organist & Pianist of Melodic Intersect

Greg Hatza is a Baltimore jazz organist and pianist and a core member of Melodic Intersect, playing piano and Hammond organ alongside tabla player Enayet Hossain and sitarist Hidayat Khan. A Hammond B-3 player who learned from Jimmy Smith, he has also studied Indian classical music for more than two decades.

From Reading to Baltimore

Born in Reading, Pennsylvania, Greg was picking out blues and boogie-woogie on the piano at about four and started lessons soon after. As a teenager he fell for the Hammond B-3 through records by Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff, Ray Charles and Johnny “Hammond” Smith, and at 16 he played his first professional gig on it, with the Frankie Scott Trio. Baltimore Colts great and jazz fan Lenny Moore then asked him to play at the club he was opening in Baltimore. Moore became his manager, Baltimore became his home, and in the late 1960s, with guitarist Eric Gale and drummer Grady Tate, Greg recorded two albums for Coral Records, The Wizardry of Greg Hatza and Organized Jazz. At Moore’s club he met his mentor Jimmy Smith and jammed with Kenny Burrell, Groove Holmes, Philly Joe Jones, Roland Kirk, Les McCann, James Moody and Sonny Stitt.

Moon August & The Greg Hatza ORGANization

When electric keyboards took over in the 1970s, Greg moved with them. His fusion band Moon August was named the top jazz group at the first Jazz Quest at the 1983 Eubie Blake Festival, and in 1999 Baltimore named the band its “Cultural Ambassadors” for the 20th anniversary of the Kawasaki–Baltimore sister-city exchange in Japan. In 1994 Joey DeFrancesco told him the Hammond B-3 was coming back. Greg formed The Greg Hatza ORGANization and recorded The Greg Hatza ORGANization (1995), In My Pocket (1996) and Snake Eyes (1998) for Palmetto Records, followed by To a New Place (2001). With the Rev. Dred Scott he also leads Jazz in the Sanctuary, playing jazz-gospel concerts around the region.

Teacher & Composer

Greg holds a bachelor’s degree in jazz composition from the Peabody Conservatory (1971) and a master’s from Towson State University (1977), where he taught jazz, piano, composition, improvisation and music theory from 1976 to 1995, and toured St. Petersburg, Russia, with the Towson Jazz Faculty Quartet. He has also studied the erhu, the Chinese two-string fiddle, with Shanghai musician Liang Shan Tang.

A Student of Ustad Hamid Hossain

In 1974 Greg began studying tabla, and later sitar, with Ustad Hamid Hossain, Enayet Hossain’s father. He was Hamid’s student and close friend for more than twenty years, toured the United States, India and Bangladesh with him playing ragas on the piano, and in the 1980s the two led a fusion group together. In 1986 Greg won first place on tabla at the All Indian Music Competition at UMBC. Read more about his instrument in Indian fusion in Hammond Organ Meets Tabla.

Hand-Talk, Talking Hands & Hands Entwined: The Duo Albums with Enayet Hossain

Greg has known Enayet since Enayet was a child, and Enayet was playing music with him by his early teens. When the pandemic lockdown left no other musicians available, the two, who both live in Baltimore, kept recording together. The result was three duo albums: Hand-Talk (2021), Talking Hands (2022) and Hands Entwined (2023).

Where the band’s albums bring in a rotating cast of guests, the duo records are deliberately minimal: piano and tabla at the center, constant interplay between the two, and a wider range of styles than the band usually covers. All three were recorded live at Enayet’s studio in Baltimore. The piano and tabla were played together, mostly in a single take, with other instrument sounds layered afterwards. Greg plays the piano parts on a Yamaha keyboard and uses a ROLI for the other sounds.

Talking Hands was launched with a CD release concert at An die Musik in Baltimore in February 2023 and was reviewed by six outlets, including JazzWeekly and JazzJournal. Hands Entwined was submitted for the 66th GRAMMY Awards in Best Global Music Album and Best Global Performance.

Today

Greg is Choir and Music Director at St. Gregory the Great Church in Baltimore, and he is on the Maryland State Arts Council’s touring roster, as is Enayet Hossain.

Greg Hatza | Jazz Organist & Pianist of Melodic Intersect