Heckel/Newsam/Hunter Trio
The Heckel/Newsam/Hunter Trio features the cool, clean sounds of vibraphone, guitar and bass. The trio draws on a wide-ranging repertoire of jazz standards, originals and other tunes that include compositions by Chick Corea, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Milt Jackson, Keith Jarrett, Gary Burton, Horace Silver, Dave Brubeck, Radiohead and many others.
Paul Heckel - Vibraphone
Paul has been an active freelance vibraphonist in the New England jazz scene for over 30 years. He has had the opportunity to play with many world-renowned jazz artists including Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Joe Williams and Buddy DeFranco. He also plays with many well-known regional players such as John Hunter, Charlie Jennison, Nate Therrien and Tim Webb.
He has a wide-ranging repertoire of jazz standards and other tunes that includes compositions by Chick Corea, Miles Davis, Thelonious Monk, Milt Jackson, Keith Jarrett, Gary Burton, Horace Silver, Dave Brubeck, Radiohead and many others.
Paul can draw on a network of musical collaborators to put together groups of different instrumentations (adding bass, drums, saxes and/or brass) and sizes (solo, duo, trio, quartet) to match the needs to many different types of performance venues. He often plays duos with John Hunter on bass where the improvised musical interactions resemble conversations among friends.
David Newsam - Guitar
David is an exceptional jazz guitarist who has taught at Berklee and UNH for decades. He's a creative, swinging player who comes out of the Wes Montgomery tradition. He is a graduate of Berklee College of Music in Boston where he studied with Jim Kelly, Larry Baione and William Leavitt.
David performs solo and group engagements throughout New England. He has performed in concerts and clinics with many noted musicians, among them guitarists Jim Hall, Bucky Pizzarelli and Howard Alden, pianists Dave McKenna and James Williams, drummers Ed Shaugnessy, Louis Bellson, Bob Moses and Alan Dawson, and jazz legends Clark Terry, Phil Wilson, Joe Williams and Milt Jackson. He has extensive theater experience including performances with Jack Jones, Mitzi Gaynor, Dianne Carroll, The Fifth Dimension, The Shirrelles, and Carol Channing. Recent concert appearances include performances at Berklee College of Music, Longy School of Music, Dartmouth and St. Anselm Colleges, The House of Blues and the Boston Hatch Shell. David is the author of the book, Making Money Teaching Music, published by Writer's Digest Books.
John Hunter - Bass
Bassist John Hunter has performed in concerts and television appearances from Maine to San Francisco while accompanying such jazz greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Clark Terry, Slide Hampton, Sheila Jordan, Jimmy Heath, James Moody, James Williams, Louis Bellson, Milt Jackson, Joe Williams, Paquito d’Rivera, Marian McPartland, Jeff Coffin, Wycliff Gordon, and Mike Metheny. He has accompanied singers Toni Tenille, Maureen McGovern, and The Four Freshmen, and also appeared with such diverse groups as the Broadway touring company of “Chorus Line” and the Los Angeles Opera a la Carte.
He is a member of the Seacoast Big Band and the newly formed Capital Jazz Orchestra, which toured the eastern U.S with Ken Peplowski in the fall of 2013.
His teaching credits include faculty positions since 1979 at the University of New Hampshire, Dartmouth College, the University of Maine at Augusta, the N.H. Summer Youth Music School, and numerous clinics and workshops at colleges and public schools throughout the Northeast.