Sam Yahel

One of the more distinctive voices among a new breed of Hammond B-3/piano players on the jazz scene, Sam Yahel has earned the top spot in Down Beat’s annual International Critics Poll as a Talent Deserving Of Recognition for the past four consecutive years. Since moving to New York in 1990, Yahel has worked with a string of notable jazz artists including tenor saxophonists Joshua Redman and Eric Alexander, former James Brown sideman and alto sax great Maceo Parker, guitarists Peter Bernstein and Bill Frisell, trumpeters Ryan Kisor and Jim Rotondi as well as having played on Norah Jones’ Grammy-winning Come Away With Me. But it has been as a solo artist in his own right that Yahel has made his most personal statements as both composer and player.  

“I’ve always considered myself a much more natural organ player than a natural piano player,” he says. “I consider myself a very good piano player but I have to work hard at it. I studied piano as a kid and I started studying classical piano when I graduated from the New School. At one point I did the Thelonious Monk piano competition and I continue to play gigs as a leader on piano locally in New York. And it varies from night to night. “One night I might feel like I’m playing the piano well, another night the instrument is kicking my butt.” Yahel’s new Posi -Tone release “Hometown” marks Yahel’s return to his original instrument

For more information on Sam Yahel go to: www.samyahel.com