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Denman Maroney

Denman Maroney (1949-) is known for his hyperpiano technique (playing the keys with one hand and the strings with other using slides and bows of metal, plastic, rubber, and wood) and temporal harmony (composing and improvising in multiple tempos). He has composed over 90 works and recorded over 50 albums (35 as a leader) with Dave Ballou, Theo Bleckmann, Michael Dessen, Mark Dresser, Andrew Drury, Min Xiao Fen, Robin Fincker, Ratzo Harris, Shelley Hirsch, Earl Howard, James Ilgenfritz, Leroy Jenkins, Lisa Karrer, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Bob Meyer, Angelika Niescier, Kevin Norton, Ned Rothenberg, Rich O’Donnell, Michael Sarin, Samuel Silvant, David Simons, Hans Tammen, Scott Walton, and Matthias Ziegler among others. Among his teachers were Jimmy Garrison and James Tenney. He earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from Cal. Inst. of the Arts and has won fellowships from Chamber Music America, National Endowment for the Arts, NY Foundation for the Arts, NY State Council on the Arts, Arts Council of Rockland (NY), Michigan Arts and Culture Council, Jerome Robbins Foundation, Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, Music Omi, and Yale Summer School of Music and Art. His writings are published in John Zorn’s Arcana VI and Georg Graewe’s grubenklang: reloaded. He moved from New York to France in 2020. For more information see www.denmanmaroney.com.

Denman Maroney - Scott Walton - Denis Fournier: O Kosmos Meta

Read "O Kosmos Meta" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
December 31, 2023

This is a piano trio with a difference. On O Kosmos Meta (Greek for 'the world after'), American pianist Denman Maroney joins with his countryman bassist Scott Walton and French drummer Denis Fournier for a set of nine collective inventions. While there are any number of egalitarian threesomes out there, Maroney's distinctive approach pushes this session beyond the norm. For the last forty years, Maroney has termed his instrument “hyperpiano." Although still a piano, Maroney plays the keys ...

Album Review

Denman Maroney: Solo @70

Read "Solo @70" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
September 14, 2019

Denman Maroney, best-known for his use of the dual-keyboard hyper piano, celebrates his seventieth birthday with a massive collection of solo pieces played on the traditional piano. However, there is little traditional about Solo@70. Maroney's sizable catalog of over forty releases includes several solo projects; the previous such album, Domicil Solo (Live) (Self Produced, 2017) consisting of one, forty-four-minute improvised piece. On Solo@70 he flips the solo format with thirty-eight pieces across a three-disc digital set. Included are compositions that ...

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Album Review

Denman Maroney Quintet: Udentity

Read "Udentity" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
May 29, 2009

In this fascinating 2009 release, leader Denman Maroney morphs the avant-garde implications of hyperpiano fare into a semi-structured progressive jazz endeavor with tunes that are largely melodic and uncannily attainable. The artist derives influence from avant-garde composers John Cage and Henry Cowell, who used nuts, bolts and other implements to perform on the piano via unconventional methodologies.

Maroney finds ways to exploit the piano's mechanics by bowing, plucking and sliding on the strings with bowls, knives and other ...

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Album Review

Denman Maroney: Udentity

Read "Udentity" reviewed by Troy Collins

by Troy Collins
March 14, 2009

Denman Maroney, the sole practitioner of “hyperpiano," has a singular technique that is a natural extension of the pioneering efforts of such visionary composers as John Cage, Henry Cowell and George Crumb. Expanding on the well-established practice of augmenting the interior strings of the piano with found objects, Maroney bows, plucks and scrapes the strings with brass bowls, copper bars, plastic cases, rubber blocks and other objects with one hand, while playing the keys with his free hand. Transforming the ...

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Album Review

Denman Maroney/Ned Rothenberg/ Reuben Radding/Michael Sarin: Gaga

by Marc Medwin
October 12, 2008

Denman Maroney is one of the most exciting pianists around today, just as Nuscope is one of the finest labels for creative music. The pairing is an excellent one on this offering from Maroney, reed player Ned Rothenberg, bassist Reuben Radding and drummer Michael Sarin, all musicians in top form in the service of some stellar compositions.Gaga presents the free flow of innovative composition that still somehow manages to groove. Rhythmic propulsion is a bit less ...

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Album Review

Denman Maroney & Hans Tammen: Billabong

by Glenn Astarita
December 1, 2000

This new release titled, Billabong presents the listener with a series of duets by two eminent improvisers who pursue relatively unusual implementations as Denman Maroney mans the “hyperpiano” in concert with Hans Tammen’s permutations on the “endangered guitar”.

With this effort, the duo converges for eight pieces that might depict some sort of bizarre and thoroughly imaginative musings among creatures from outer space as the musicians offer a very special language atop a seemingly uncontrollable path of improvisational deconstruction. On ...

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All About Jazz Top 10 Tracks: August 2020

Source: All About Jazz
September 1, 2020

All About Jazz features a free song every day spanning all genres of jazz, and of the 30 tracks featured in August, these ten represent our personal favorites. We also included the top ten reader favorites as indicated by total listens. Musicians and record labels can submit full length MP3s for consideration here. Enjoy! TOP TRACKS Martingale Denman Maroney From: Martingale 08:39 Il lago di Ikahti Filippo Bonaccorso From: Enigmatica ...
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"There are few minds as agile and inquiring as that of pianist, composer and educator Denman Maroney. Over nearly 40 years, he has managed to rethink the piano’s vocabulary, creating a readily identifiable language on the instrument. He calls his contribution “hyperpiano”, a method of playing inside the piano that is characterized by a dizzying and diverse pallet of sonorities that make the instrument into an orchestra. He has also developed an equally unique compositional language involving combined pulses, employing the phrase “temporal harmony” to describe it. Yet, there is a directness, at times almost a simplicity, in his music. With his playing and in his compositions, Maroney combines musical genres and transforms sounds we think we understand, adding depth and color, often at great speed, while never sacrificing clarity."