Biography
2023 First-Place Herbie Hancock Institute International Competition
2023 Chicagoan of the Year in Jazz
2023 Honoree of Chicago Symphony Orchestra
2023 Luminarts Fellowship for “Still Listening”
Jahari Stampley is a Chicago-born pianist who began playing the piano at the age of 14. Within two years of exploring the instrument, he began winning various competitions including Best High School Jazz Soloist Award and the National YoungArts Competition. By the age of 18 years old, he was recognized and followed by many world-renowned musicians including Yebba Smith, Jill Scott, Robert Glasper, Cory Henry, Jacob Collier, Stanley Clarke, and Derrick Hodge, among others. Jahari has toured with Stanley Clarke and is featured on Derrick Hodge’s "Color of Noise" album.
Jahari has performed in venues such as Radio City Music Hall in NYC, The Met Philadelphia, Byline Bank Aragon in Chicago, Carnegie Hall in NY, San Francisco Jazz Center, and MANY others. He’s also headlined & performed solo piano tours in Berlin, Koethen & Magdeburg, Germany, Geneva, Switzerland, and Los Angeles, California. He’s conducted music workshops in Santa Ana, Costa Rica, and taught masterclasses in Spokane, Washington. Jahari is also the band leader & featured pianist playing the part of Bill Wither’s keyboardist in the feature film “Spinning Gold". Many of Jahari’s performances have garnered praise in various media outlets, articles & magazines throughout the world.
Jahari won first place in the 2023 Herbie Hancock Institute International Competition, 2023 Chicagoan of the Year in Jazz, 2023 Chicago Youth Symphony Alumni Award, the first non-classical musician to receive the honor; and awarded the 2023 Luminarts Fellowship for his debut album “ Still Listening.” Earlier in his life Jahari won the Bösendorfer prize for the international 2019 American Jazz Pianists Association Competition (for ages 18-25), the 2018 ASCAP Foundation Fran Morganstern Davis Scholarship, and the National Young Arts Foundation 2018 Young Arts Winner.
Alongside all of this, Jahari released his first Debut Album entitled “Still Listening” which rose to #1 on Apple iTunes in the first weeks of the Album’s release. The music on “Still Listening” has also been set in an orchestral arrangement for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Jahari Also designed and wrote the music for a music Education mobile game, "Piano Chronicles”. It is available as a mobile app for all mobile devices on Google Play Store and the Apple Store.
Awards &
Recognitions
2023 First place Herbie Hancock Institute International Competition.
2023 Chicagoan of the Year in Jazz- Chicago Tribune
2023 First non-classical musician to receive Chicago Symphony Honors
2023 Luminarts Fellowship for the debut album “Still Listening”.
2019 Bösendorfer prize for the international American Jazz Pianists Association Competition (for ages 18-25).
2018 ASCAP Foundation Fran Morganstern Davis Scholarship
2018 National Young Arts Foundation Young Arts Winner.
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Herbie Hancock and Jahari Stampley October 2023
2023 First-Place Herbie Hancock International Competition
Established in 1987, the Herbie Hancock Institute’s International Competition is the most prestigious of its kind, recognized for discovering the next generation of jazz masters. The competition focuses on a different instrument each year and features an all-star judging panel. Past judges have included Dave Brubeck, Quincy Jones, Diana Krall, Christian McBride, Marian McPartland, and Pat Metheny, among many others. This high-profile annual event has launched the careers of Ambrose Akinmusire, Melissa Aldana, Joey De Francesco, Jane Monheit, Chris Potter, Joshua Redman, Marcus Roberts, Cécile McLorin Salvant, Tierney Sutton, Jon Irabagon, Jacky Terrasson and Ben Williams, to name a few.
“I’ve had the opportunity to hear some of the best pianists in the world throughout the years. In a sense, he really challenges them,” Hancock said in a recent interview. “I’ve never heard anybody play quite like that … I was thinking, ‘Maybe I should study with him.’” -- Herbie Hancock,
Hannah Edgar, Chicago Tribune Dec. 20th, 2023
Press Quotes
“JAZZ’S HANCOCK COMPETITION RETURNS, CROWNING AN ELECTRIFYING RISING STAR”
Jahari Stampley, a 23-year-old pianist from Chicago, won the prize as the genre’s premier coronation ceremony for young talent was held for the first time since 2019… With his tall, wiry frame hunched over the piano, his style arrived like a lightning bolt. He seemed to have as much in common with pianists steeped in Black classical and 20th-century gospel — like Artina McCain and Courtney Bryan — as he did with the idiosyncratic jazz lineage he has assembled for himself, which appears to include fast-fingered expressionists like John Hicks and Don Pullen. With a sound built around fluttering, arpeggiated motifs that he carries across keys and the full range of the keyboard, Stampley also refers directly to an African inheritance, redolent of the patterned plucking of a Malian kora or a Zimbabwean mbira.
Most important, his playing felt unforced, as if powered from an internal engine. This was an artist you wanted to hear again and to know more about.”
October 17, 2023, Giovanni Russonello New York Times
JAHARI STAMPLEY: STILL LISTENING
“Chicago-based pianist Jahari Stampley is a definite prodigy. …Stampley's simultaneously effervescent and melancholic chords hint at times at folk and at other country influences while remaining steeped in the blues. His layered pianism captivates and mesmerizes with its subtlety. There are no unnecessary pyrotechnics here, just quiet introspection.”
Sept 12, 2023, Hrayr Attarian, All About Jazz.
NEW YORK — Jahari Stampley has a swarming, kinetic interface with the piano, which can make it seem like a contraption rattling to keep pace with his stream of thought. In the last several years, that brash but tactical style has served him well on tour with the virtuoso bassist Stanley Clarke and others. On Sunday night at the new Perelman Performing Arts Center in Lower Manhattan, it won him first prize in the Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz International Piano Competition, instantly putting his insurgent talent on a broader global stage…When it was time for Goods and Allen to lock into his groove, they struggled, because Stampley left them in the dust; from his seat at the piano, he made it unclear whether he was piloting a Fazioli or a Ferrari.”
October 16, 2023, Nate Chinen, Editorial Director WRTI.
“... Jahari gives us chameleonic grooves anchored by impeccable arpeggios that rise and fall against dense, driving rhythms. He effortlessly balances whimsical notions and melancholic chords with fiery percussive statements that capture the complex and sweet moments of life.”
- Karas Lamb, Revive Music
PIANIST AHARI STAMPLEY JUST WON A PRESTIGIOUS JAZZ COMPETITION- HE’S ONLY 24
"I've always loved someone like Herbie," Stampley said. "Not only can he embody the spirit of jazz and jazz itself, but he never limits himself into a bubble of anything that he creates artistically. And I feel like for me as an artist, I just always think about playing honestly. I think I won't limit myself to just jazz per se, but I want to expand beyond in the same way that I feel the people that I love have done, for example, like Jacob Collier or Jon Batiste or, you know, Herbie." NOV. 16, 2023, NEDA ULABY, NPR ART DESK
JAHARI STAMPLEY WINS HANCOCK INSTITUTE’S PIANO COMPETITION
“It was Stampley’s “potentiality” that impressed Danilo Pérez, who adjudicated the competition along with Herbie Hanock, Hiromi, Bill Charlap, and Orrin Evans. “[Stampley] articulated an image of a sound that was very personal,” Pérez said. “The uniqueness of his performance made a statement during that short 10 minutes.”
“When we were listening to all of the 11 contestants, we were thinking about who we wanted to continue hearing not just as judges but as fans,” Perez explained. “We were looking for someone who captured the potentiality of sound.”
October 31, 2023, John Murph, Downbeat Magazine
JAHARI STAMPLEY IS STILL LISTENING
Jahari Stampley is emerging as a modern Jazz innovator, recognized as a prolific pianist, composer, producer and educator. A well-seasoned professional at the age of 23, he has carved out a place for himself as a next-generation explorer of music.
His new album, Still Listening, is a mixture of solo piano and ensemble selections, is a collection of Jahari’s innovative and virtuosic Jazz expressions that takes the listener on a transcendent musical journey. His melodies & rhythms encompass elements from the past and showcase innovations for the future. - NOV 16, 2023, NPR JAZZ 24.
Pianist Jahari Stampley joins Rachel Bade-McMurphy live in the studio August 2023
Jahari performs 2 original compositions from his new CD release “Still Listening” which was released on all platforms in Sept 2023. On October 15, 2023, Jahari was named the winner of the Herbie Hancock Jaz Piano competition (formerly the Thelonious Monk competition). Jahari will be performing in Spokane on Saturday, October 21, 2023, at Holy Names Music Center as a guest artist with Imagine Jazz.
October 16th, 2023, Rachael Bade Mc Murphy, NPR member station WKSFC
