Johannes Wallmann and Dennis Mitcheltree

The musical partnership of pianist Johannes Wallmann and tenor saxophonist Dennis Mitcheltree began 1997 in New York City, where pianist Wallmann, fresh out of graduate school and starting his professional career in the “Jazz Capital of the World,” was invited by the already established saxophonist to join his quartet for a two-week tour of the Midwest. Twenty-six years later, Wallmann and Mitcheltree’s collaborations include six quartet tours of the U.S., two duo and quartet tours of Germany, countless additional performances in venues throughout North America, three albums led by Mitcheltree (including his 2022 release Golden Rule) and one led by Wallmann, as well as many joint educational and festival workshops in New York, California and throughout the Midwest. Drawing on the near-telepathic chemistry Wallmann and Mitcheltree have honed over the span of 26 years, this performance precedes the recording of their first duo album, to be recorded at Madison’s Hamel Music Center.

Johannes Wallmann is a pianist, composer, and the Peterson Professor of Jazz Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Wallmann has recorded nine critically acclaimed albums as a leader, including Elegy for an Undiscovered Species (Shifting Paradigm Records), which was named a “Best of 2021” album by DownBeat magazine and described as “delightfully mind blowing throughout” by Midwest Record. DownBeat magazine has called Wallmann “a remarkable pianist and composer [whose] evocative compositions are brimming with melodic cogency and rhythmic pull” and called his playing “confident, muscular and elegant.”

Born 1974 in Germany and raised on Canada’s Vancouver Island, Wallmann studied jazz piano and composition at Berklee College of Music and at New York University. Over twelve years in New York City and five years in Oakland, CA, he established himself as a versatile and in-demand sideman before moving to Wisconsin in 2012. Wallmann has toured throughout North America, Europe, and Asia, and has recorded or performed with Brian Lynch, Ralph Alessi, Seamus Blake, Gilad Hekselman, and Kevin Mahogany, among many others. He is a Yamaha piano artist and the recipient of two Canada Council grants, a 2019 Emily Mead Baldwin Award in the Creative Arts, and a 2021 H.I. Romnes Fellowship.

Veteran jazz saxophonist and composer Dennis Mitcheltree recently released his 6th album as a leader, Golden Rule. The album “delights and amuses while keeping the mind fueled and geared up […] Mitcheltree’s tenor sax tone is warm, rounded and Sonny Rollins-like, but adorning a slightly trickier mind. We need music like this, as diverting philosophical salve in dire time,” writes Kevin Lynch in Milwaukee’s Shepherd Express. Critics have described Mitcheltree’s playing as “soulful, swinging, and street smart” (Michael G. Nastos, All Music Guide) and “aggressively adventurous and most expressive” (Nancy Ann Lee, Jazz Times), and Jared Donze (Iowa City Icon) called him “a master storyteller with the tenor sax.”

Mitcheltree was born and raised in Wisconsin, picking up the oboe and saxophone at age 12. He studied at Berklee College of Music, before moving to New York City in 1987 where he became a mainstay of the jazz scene, and relocating to Los Angeles in 2007. He has performed and recorded with masters of the jazz world: Clark Terry, Billy Taylor, George Cables, Bill Holman, Bob Moses, Jim McNeely, Howard Johnson, Gary Bartz, Kenny Werner, James Williams, Don Sickler, Charli Persip, Ronnie Matthews, Pete Yellin, Richie Cole, Bill Holman, Pete Christlieb, Doug Webb, Carl Saunders, Joe Labarbera, John Clayton, Christian Jacob and Bruce Forman along with contemporaries Uri Caine, Ingrid Jensen, Johannes Wallmann, Andy Milne and David Binney.

Mitcheltree is the Artistic Director for the American Music Group, widely known for the INFLUENCES series presented at Carnegie Hall. A former student of Joe Viola, Billy Pierce, Jim McNeely, George Garzone and Joe Lovano, Mitcheltree is also a renowned jazz teacher and clinician of jazz improvisation, harmony, composition and saxophone/woodwinds. He teaches privately and as a guest artist/clinician/lecturer at universities and jazz education programs worldwide.