Engaging, Unpretentious Live Jazz Music

Hamford Chmielewski Jazz Trio

Testimonials:

“To the Hamford-Chmielewski Trio....Thank you for the wonderful performance at the 2024 Adrian Artalicious Fine Arts Fair!  …your smooth jazz sounds were heard throughout the Festival.  I receive so many great comments and reviews from our Fair goers.  We look forward to having you back in 2025!  Thanks again!"

—John Valenti, Entertainment Chairman, Artalicious Arts Fair, Adrian, MI

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“The Hamford Chmielewski Trio is just what my business needed to get heads turning and feet tapping. Passersby were drawn into my establishment by their tasteful renditions of jazz classics.”

—Patrick Echlin, Owner, 734 Brewing, Ypsilanti, MI

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“The Hamford Chmielewski Jazz Trio regularly creates a decadent sonic backdrop for our New Year’s Eve Jazz Dinners and special Sundays on the Bloom Room stage. Their music is a natural compliment to our loungey space, and you won't find a nicer person to collaborate with than Pete. We highly recommend adding the group’s textured, upscale soundscape anywhere jazz fits—and where doesn’t jazz fit? This trio knows how to generate atmosphere in spades with melodic jazz that is lively but unobtrusive and allows our guests to mingle, converse, and enjoy their beverages in style.”

—Lindsey and Ben Forche,

Owners, Four Keys Brewing/Starling Lounge/The Bloom Room, Blissfield MI 

The Hamford Chmielewski (shim a loose key”) Jazz Trio engages audiences with their unpretentious performances of traditional jazz swing, bossa nova, and jazz-funk styles, in a pleasantly compact piano/electric bass/drums format. The group prides itself in “playing the room,” as either soft background music or something more direct if requested. This is not the kind of band that venues ask to turn down the volume, yet they can be appropriately loud when necessary. Personnel consist of Pete Ford on piano, with Alisia Chmielewski on drums and Katie Hamann on bass. Both Alisia and Katie are former music students of Professor Ford at Adrian College. Having since earned degrees in Music Education, they maintain professional careers of their own as Michigan music educators.

Hamford Chmielewski Jazz Trio performs for events large or small, private or public, uniquely enhancing the space in which they play.

The Hamford Chmielewski Jazz Trio has performed in Michigan for festivals (particularly as Main Stage Performers at “Artalicious” in Adrian, MI), for community concert series, and at the Ritz Theatre (National Theater) in Tiffin, Ohio for their “It’s Friday” concert series, and at 734 Brewing in Ypsilanti MI. Their default home base has been Four Keys/Starling Lounge/The Bloom Room in Blissfield MI, where they often play for special events, including multiple New Year’s Eve performances.

For a sampling of what this group sounds like, here is a link to an informal rehearsal of Duke Ellington’s “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore:”

https://youtu.be/ups8a9gkYkI?si=uxG84Tk_Go9A4lmI

And the following is a link to a snippet of live performance at Four Keys, with the funk-jazz tune “The Chicken:”

https://youtu.be/L_7cU6Wgz3o?si=YBOL6c9pt1gNWGBc

This is the tune “Doxy,” again recorded in an informal rehearsal:

https://youtu.be/crZ47H9R2sk?si=3KQcbHD7iAsIIlRG

Please contact Pete Ford petefordtheory@gmail.com for booking information and availability.

Hamford-Chmielewski Jazz Trio Performing here at the National Theater in Tiffin, OH, December 2024

Various images of gigs and rehearsals