Competition Trio
John Hansen, piano
John Hansen is regarded as one of the most in-demand jazz pianists in the Northwest. A studied and musical ensemble player with a strong melodic vocabulary, John has always been recognizable for a unique personal voice.
His performance history includes such venues as NYC's Birdland, The Jazz Standard, Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, DC's John F. Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts, Seattle's Jazz Alley and Tula's, and international festivals and tours in France, Japan, Korea, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Russia and Central America. During his career, John has performed and recorded with many of the Northwest's premiere, award-winning bands including: the Jay Thomas Quartet, Jim Knapp Orchestra, Kelley Johnson, and The Bill Ramsay-Milt Kleeb Band with Pete Christlieb. He has been invited to perform with The Seattle Symphony, Rick Margitza, Randy Brecker, Ingrid Jensen, Ernestine Anderson, The Woody Herman Orchestra, Bud Shank, Bobby Shew, David 'Fathead' Newman, and more.
Michael Glynn, bass
Born in Seattle, Michael Glynn began playing bass at the age of 11. Beginning his jazz studies with former Count Basie and Louis Armstrong bassist Buddy Catlett, Michael starting working professionally while still a student at Garfield High School, where he played for four years in that school's renowned jazz band. After two years in engineering school at Columbia University in New York City, Michael returned to Seattle where he graduated summa cum laude in 2001 with a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Music in Jazz Studies from the University of Washington, where he studied under Doug Miller and Barry Lieberman.
Moving to Albuquerque in 2006, he quickly established himself as an integral part of the New Mexico music scene, performing and recording extensively, and also making time to earn his Master of Music degree from the University of New Mexico, studying with Mark Tatum. In 2012 Michael moved to Palo Alto for a year where he worked with Bay Area musicians.
As an educator, Michael has taught on the faculty of the Stanford Jazz Workshop and Centrum Jazz Port Townsend and has given numerous master classes and clinics across the U.S. and Canada, as well as teaching private lessons.
In addition to performing with countless local musicians throughout the Pacific Northwest, California, and New Mexico, Glynn has performed with jazz legends including Bud Shank, Jon Hendricks, Bobby Shew, Louis Hayes, Harold Mabern, Lewis Nash, Mark Levine, Dave Grusin, Geoffrey Keezer, Seamus Blake, Eric Alexander, Terrell Stafford, David Hazeltine, Benny Green, Gary Smulyan, Don Lanphere, Conte Candoli, Bob Florence, Doug Lawrence, William Parker, Kevin Hays, Larry Fuller, Aaron Parks, Marcus Printup, Walter Blanding, Dena DeRose, and the Cab Calloway Orchestra. Michael has performed around the United States and in Canada, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Oman, and Trinidad and Tobago. On top of his jazz work, Michael performs in a variety of other genres, including classical work with the New Mexico Philharmonic, the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra, Opera Southwest, and Canticum Novum Santa Fe, calypso with steel drum legend Ray Holman, and a mix of Arabic and Western music with Iraqi-American oud virtuoso Rahim Al Haj.
Michael currently resides in Seattle, Washington.
Julian MacDonough, drums
Julian MacDonough is based in Bellingham, Washington. Over the past twelve years, he has been a full-time member of the Mike Allen Quartet/Trio (Vancouver, BC), the genre-bending “funk” band Megatron (Bellingham, Washington) the Monday Night Project, and alt-country singer songwriter Kasey Anderson (Portland, Oregon).
Primarily hired as a freelance drummer along the west coast, Julian has had the pleasure of performing with such notables as Wynton Marsalis, Bobby Shew, Julian Preister, Aaron Parks, Grant Stewart and Brian Lynch. He also has numerous recordings credits with over 40 albums under his belt. Some notable recordings are Mike Allen’s award-winning albums Dialectic (2003) Fearless (2004) and A Hip Cosmos (2012), Kasey Anderson’s Nowhere Nights, Havilah Rand’s Bengalese Butterflies (2009) Jenni Potts’s Take This and Go and New York jazz pianist Aaron Parks First Romance.
Julian also enjoys his teaching position at Western Washington University as part of the Faculty Jazz Collective which includes the other members of the Mike Allen Quartet.