Michael Hackett Quartet "Setting Standards"

Dr. Hackett’s career has been quite diverse, backing up artists such as Aretha Franklin, Natalie Cole, Frankie Valli, and Perry Como as well as performing in regularly in jazz clubs such as Birdland, Swing 46, and Blues Alley while living in New York City and Washington, DC.  His playing has been featured in national television and radio commercials, and many commercially available recordings, including those with Scott Whitfield’s Jazz Orchestra East, and with The Buselli/Wallarab Jazz Orchestra. While in North Carolina he was an active performer in the region maintaining membership in the Piedmont/Triad Jazz Orchestra and the North Carolina Brass Band.

Chris Rottmayer is a jazz pianist, composer, and jazz vibraphonist living in Madison, Wisconsin. Chris has been a freelance jazz pianist since 1990, was a pianist for Walt Disney World from 1999 to 2020, and has released three albums as a leader: Reactive Synthesis (2013), Sunday at Pilars (2019), and So In Love (2020). Chris is currently the Instructor of Jazz Piano at the University of South Florida, where he has taught since 2007, and is pursuing a DMA in Piano Performance at the University of Wisconsin- Madison where he holds a Teaching Assistantship in the Theory department.

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