Art Lillard

Art Lillard is a musician with many gifts. In each of his musical roles - drummer, composer, arranger, bandleader, and educator - he shares with us his unique and refreshing contribution to our musical culture.

The bands described below have performed at nightclubs, church auditoriums, and dance venues, as well as at various public libraries and senior residences in the greater New York City area.

Art Lillard has been leading his own jazz big band, Art Lillard's Heavenly Big Band, since 1987, playing in many New York area nightclubs and concert spaces. In 1995 he produced “First Flight,” a recording of this sixteen-piece band with vocals, featuring ten of his own compositions. The band’s first compact disc recording, “Reasons to be Thankful,” another vibrant compilation of originals, was released on the Summit Records label in 2006. “Certain Relationships,” a collection of standards and originals, was released on Summit in 2015. Sound clips can be found here: Certain Relationships and here: Reasons to be Thankful . Videos are here: Art Lillard's Heavenly Big Band. The band's repertoire features a variety of styles, including bebop, Latin jazz, blues, and numbers which defy category altogether. Whatever the style, the music swings. The Heavenly Band enjoys a special relationship with Brooklyn’s Spoke the Hub Dancing, regularly providing live dance music for its community events.

Art also leads the Blue Heaven swing sextet, a small band with the big band sound. In 1998 it was featured as the swing band for the CBS television soap opera, "Guiding Light," which was broadcast worldwide. The band performed original compositions on two episodes of the program. Blue Heaven has remained very active during the intervening years. Wherever they perform, Blue Heaven is enthusiastically received by listening audiences and swing dancers alike. This band has two recent releases on Soul Kid Jazz Records. You can hear them in full here: Eternal Swing and here: Deep Art. You can also find performance videos here: Art Lillard & Blue Heaven.

Art Lillard's On Time Band can be hired as a trio or a quartet. Performances by this swinging combo feature great ensemble playing along with inspired soloing. The band’s offerings include music from traditional swing and jazz as well as American popular standards and Latin styles. The On Time Band has produced a recording, It’s Time, on the Summit Records label. Promotional material and audio files are here: https://artlillard.com/art-lillard-s-on-time-band. Videos can be found here: Art Lillard's On Time Band. In addition to performing at various music venues, this band has played for such luminaries as Barbara Walters and Larry King, as well as New York City Mayors Ed Koch and Michael Bloomberg, New York State Governor George Pataki, U.S. Congressmember Hakeem Jeffries, and U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer. Clips from the band's Summit Records release can be heard here: It's Time.

The Art Lillard Duo consists of Art on drums, plus a guitarist or pianist. The duo draws its influence from traditional swing and jazz as well as more contemporary popular music. Their repertoire includes the songs of Richard Rodgers, Duke Ellington, Antonio Carlos Jobim, and many others. Here are some videos: Art Lillard Duo.

Art and fellow composer Michael Jefry Stevens have released several ensemble recordings on the Artists Recording Collective. These cds can be found on Bandcamp: Forgotten Wish; Living Green World Blues; Original Music for Septet.

A professional drummer since 1970, Art has had a rich performing career, leading and co-leading various jazz ensembles, and as a sideman in groups of various musical genres, including jazz, country & western, cabaret, rock, and show music. He has recorded with swing/blues band Groovalaya (“Groovalaya '92”), with vocalist Cleve Douglass (“Duke Ellington Boulevard”), and with flutist Jan Leder (“Passage to Freedom” on Monad Records and “Nonchalant” on A-Records). He performed at the Greenwich Village jazz Festival in 1983 with the Amy Duncan Trio (at the Blue Note), at Finland's Pori Jazz Festival in 1993 with the New York All-Stars, and at the Hunter Mountain Festival with Slicker, a country & western group, in 1993, '94 and '95. During the 1990's he also played at the Hudson Riverfest in Yonkers with his Heavenly Big Band, with the Dixieland band the 9th Street Stompers, and several times with the Jan Leder Quartet.

Art's theater background includes productions by the Amas Repertory Theater under the leadership of the late Rosetta Lenoire and several decades with the Theater for the New City. In 1992 and '94 Art toured Europe with the Broadway show “Ain't Misbehavin'”, including performances at the Umbria Jazz Festival in Italy and the Pori Festival in Finland, and in 1995, '96, '98, 2008, and 2010 he toured Europe and South America with an original production of “Phantom of the Opera.”

Art has written hundreds of compositions in a wide range of musical genres. Regularly commissioned by performers, producers and other composers to arrange music for vocalists and instrumental groups, his works have been recorded on compact disc by vibraphonist Gust Tsilis (“Sequestered Days” on Enja Records), vocalist Larry Browne (“Larry Browne Sings Swing Bean”), saxophonist Claire Daly (“Heaven Help Us All” on Daly Bread Records), flutist Jan Leder (as noted above), the band Groovalaya (as noted above), and the jazz group led by Pere Soto and David Valdez (“Oasis” on Diatic Records). Lillard also wrote and scored the soundtrack for a film, “The Wannabees.” Some of his compositions can be heard on episodes of the MTV productions, “Jackass” and “Cat House,” and of HBO’s “True Blood,” as well as in the 2014 movie, “Teacher of the Year,” and an online commercial for Mercedes Benz.

Over the years Art has played professionally with such notables as Ron Affif, Harry Allen, David Ambrosio, Ray Anderson, Jeff Andrews, William Ash, Roy Ayers, Billy Bang, Roni Ben-Hur, Karl Berger, Tom Bergeron, Steve Bloom, Steve Blum, Paul Bollenback, Marty Bound, Joanne Brackeen, Don Braden, Ben Brown, Cameron Brown, Brenda Buffalino, Bud Burridge, Jaki Byard, Tony Castellano, Thomas Chapin, Sarah Jane Cion, Gilly Coggins, Joe Cohn, Junior Cook, Jay Corree, Bill Crow, Adrian Cunningham, Bob Cunningham, Claire Daly, Café DaSilva, Kenny Davern, Jon Davis, Santi Debriano, Buddy DeFranco, Rick Dellaratta and Jazz for Peace, Stacy Dillard, John diMartino, Joe Diorio, Jerry Dodgion, Dave Douglas, Billy Drewes, Dominique Eade, Essiet Essiet, Mark Feldman, Bobby Forrester, Joel Forrester, Champian Fulton, Ray Gallon, Keith Ganz, Hilary Gardner, George Garzone, Steve Gaskin, Hilliard Green, Kelly Green, Drew Gress, Miles Griffith, Eric Gunnison, Mary Cleere Haran, Ratzo B. Harris, John Hart, Michael Hashim, Freddie Hendrix, John Hicks, Patience Higgins, Jimmy Hill, Greg Hopkins, Jazzmeia Horn, Paul Horn, Dick Hyman, Ron Jackson, Jack Jeffers, Gary Kelly, Dave Kikoski, Frank Kimbrough, Nancy King, Mark Ledford, Mike Longo, John Marshall, Cecil McBee, Donny McCaslin, George Mesterhazy, Pat Metheny, Paul Meyers, Dom Minasi, Charles Moffett, Antoinette Montague, Wilbur Morris, Diane Moser, Bob Mover, Simon Nabotov, Mark Nadler, Zaid Nasser, Wayne Naus, Arturo O'Farrill, Marco Panascia, Ken Peplowski, Sasha Perry, Roberta Piket, Bob Porcelli, Dave Post and Swingadelic, Scott Reeves, Emily Remler, Perry Robinson, Ari Roland, Wallace Roney, Saul Rubin, Barbara Russell, Ali Ryerson, Harvie S, Radam Schwartz, “Little” Jimmy Scott, Sahib Shihab, Coy Shockley, Jack Six, Mauricio Smith, Sean Smith, Warren Smith, James Spaulding, Michael Jefry Stevens, Stan Strickland, Carol Sudhalter, Ira Sullivan, Helen Sung, Steve Swell, Buddy Terry, Bob Thoesen Big Band, David Torkanowsky, Roseanna Vitro, Jack Walrath, Danny Walsh, James Weidman, Mark Whitecage, Deanna Witkowski, and Anthony Wonsey.

A native of Florida, where his musical studies began, Lillard relocated to Boston to study at the Berklee College of Music. There he earned merit scholarships, several Faculty Association Awards for Performance, and, in 1981, his bachelor's degree in jazz composition and arranging. In addition, he studied privately with Dean Anderson, percussionist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra; drummer Joe Hunt; jazz educator/composer Karl Berger; classical composer/conductor Michael Rosenzweig; Brazilian percussionist Portinho; the late Tom Boras of New York University's Jazz Department; jazz composer/pianist Kenny Werner; drummers Steve Bagby, Andrew Cyrille, and Eliot Zigmund; acclaimed big-band leaders/composers Mike Gibbs, Mike Holober, Greg Hopkins, Jim McNeely, and Maria Schneider; and, for harmony and counterpoint, revered music educator Paul Caputo.

Art is also a respected teacher and mentor of many years to his own students. He has taught privately, at several community music schools, and at Long Island University.

Awards

2003 Performance of Heavenly Big Band was recorded by the Rutgers University Jazz Archives 1994 Third place, original instrumental compositions, in Sound Views magazine's competition of new recordings, for my composition, "To Love One Someone." 1981 Faculty Association Award for Performance, Berklee College of Music. 1979-1981 Student scholarships, Berklee College of Music and Commonwealth of Massachusetts. 1973 Student scholarship, Florida International University. 1972 Outstanding Academic Achievement Award, Miami-Dade Junior College. 1969 Student scholarship, Miami-Dade Junior College