My new Étude book is available at Amazon.com and was recently reviewed in Downbeat Magazine. What follows is a bit of the introduction which may pique your curiosity to the challenges awaiting advancing guitarists in these pages. More content (video performances etc. ) coming summer 2017. Enjoy! From the Introduction to Prof Hof’s Thirty Nearly […]
Ghost Frets, my latest solo guitar album, dedicated to my dear friend and fellow six string samurai, Garrison Fewell is now available as of 9/16/16. It features a couple of songs by Garrison including Ayleristic and Blues Update, plus a tune G and I used to love to play in our duo concerts, Monk’s Let’s Cool […]
I have taken a long break from solo guitar. Hell, I have taken a long break from posting a blog on ye olde home page. Life sometimes has a way of creating obstacles which prevent getting everything done on that “to do” list. It began in summer of 2015 when my best friend, Garrison Fewell, […]
Jazz writer Kevin Whitehead reviews ‘Prehistoric Jazz Volume 1 & 2’ on NPR’s Fresh Air. I am very honored to have had these recording, which features my recompositions of ‘The Rite of Spring’ and ‘Quartet for the End of Time’ featured on Fresh Air. The review is particularly poetic and filled with imagery which I believe […]
Exciting News, CNM (Creative Nation Music) has released the Eric Hofbauer Quintet’s debut recordings “Prehistoric Jazz -Volume 1 & Volume 2”. Volume 1 features my arrangement of Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” and Volume 2 features my arrangement of Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time”. Both feature the quintet of myself, Jerry Sabatini on trumpet, Todd Brunel […]
On Feb. 7, 2014 the Eric Hofbauer Quintet performed as part of Matt Samolis’ Church of the Advent Library Concert Series. Matt’s single camera shot frames the band nicely in the confines of the brick lined library stage. The sound quality is good and the full house gave us some wonderful energy to work with. […]
The Autumn 2013 solo tour has ended. It was a grand adventure, as expected. I got to play in NYC and play a set of Steve Lacy tunes with Josh Sinton and Tomas Fujiwara of Ideal Bread. Then I got to catch up with my old teacher and good friend Robert Ferrazza at Oberlin, as […]
On May 29th, the centennial of Stravinsky’s premiere of ‘Le Sacre Du Printemps’, I premiered an arrangement of that epic piece for improvising jazz quintet on a concert entitled, ‘Pre-historic Jazz: The Rite and 100 Years of Revolution’ The concert title was taken from a video clip of Leonard Bernstein conducting a studio orchestra from […]
I have to make a confession. I wake up almost every morning and decide not to quit playing music. Let me clarify, I decide not to quit playing and teaching music, jazz specially, as a vocation. I know I can’t quit playing my guitar, in the same way I can’t just quit breathing and expect […]
In lieu of the world ending today my little DIY, shoe-string budget, pull yourself up by the boot straps, fly by the seat of your pants, rip the shirt off your back (and any other clothing metaphors) jazz record label, Creative Nation Music is announcing the release of two new CDs, Recontradoble by the Pablo Ablanedo […]
I have written in past blogs about BOLT (our motto is Adventurous Improvised Music) which features Jorrit Dijkstra on alto and lyricon, myself on guitar, Junko Fujiwara on cello and Eric Rosenthal on drums. For every BOLT show we improvise a completely new set pulling from multiple vocabularies (jazz, free music, minimalism, modern classical, folk, […]
Creative Nation Music 022 MORE INFORMATION
The summer can be a great time for an artist of any discipline to take stock in the direction of their work by reflecting on past projects and starting new ones. Many visual artists, musicians, actors, dancers teach during some of year and usually the summer affords us the time (for we can usually afford […]
The recording of the music for the last CD in my American Trilogy is complete! 4 days of total solitude at my home studio, hours of preparation, contemplation, creative consternation and finally revelation! All the compositions and improvisations have been documented and recorded. What an experience. Very intense and certainly rewarding, if you have not […]
This is a 13 minute mini set where I play straight through connecting 4 different pieces together. I start with my own ‘Jac Mac Talkin’ from the Infrared Band recording Myth Understanding. Next I move to ‘I Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out To Dry’ into Joe Oliver’s ‘West End Blues’. Both of which are […]
My friends Esther Viola and Ben Dicke just started a concert series called the ‘Junk Kitchen’, which runs the first Friday of every month at the Outpost in Cambridge MA, and our group, First Worst Thirst, is the house band for each show. Each month there is a different theme to the concert and this brings in a myriad of […]
One of the most lasting innovations coming out of Louis Armstrong’s revolutionary period of development and growth in the late 20s and early 30s was the use of pop songs in jazz repertoire. By jazz repertoire, I mean songs that are basically blueprints, structures or contexts for improvisation and specifically jazz soloing. This is distinctly […]
Or… this could be called One From the Dusty Old Duffle Bag, because that is where I found this week’s selection. Apparently I have a black duffle, stuffed away on a shelf in my studio after my move, which is filled with old CD and DAT masters and live recordings. Basically, the contents of this […]
One month later and I still think about my experiences at the Penn Ar Jazz Festival almost everyday. There are a few moments that stand out in my memory and have proved to have a deep influence on my recent attitudes towards music and the music industry. My first weekend in France (in Brittany specifically […]
It has been a long while since I have posted. There has been a lot going on in the last month. The last half of October I was in France on my first ever solo tour out of the U.S. It was an amazing experience and I plan on blogging about it all in detail […]
During this week of remembrance and reflection I would like to share two pieces from my American series. Of all my work, my two solo albums have been most influenced by the events of September 11th, 2001. In the wake of the tragedy of that day, I recorded American Vanity, an exploration into what I […]
Every once and a while it is fun to dig into my library of recorded material, brush off the dust of a track or two and take a listen. I have tons of ‘never-been-released’ material that is ‘in the can’ (record label jargon for a finished product sitting on the shelf waiting to be released) […]
In the last month I have connected with some of my favorite musicians in town (Boston) and not only did we play some great gigs but decided to pursue working together as ensembles. The first group is a quintet formed by the amazing saxophonist Tom Hall (check out his site, he is a prolific performer […]
Since the release of LEVEL, there have been some wonderful and interesting reviews of the work. While some have addressed the overt ‘avant-guard’ tendencies of the recording, some have, almost inexplicably, insisted just the opposite – that it is quite traditional. Truth is, they are both correct. But the point is not to just comment […]