Home » Jazz Musicians » Ben Zweig

Ben Zweig

Ben Zweig, originally from Randolph, New Jersey, began playing drum set at age 5. At a young age he developed a wide range of interests, additionally playing trumpet, traditional Trini folk music on steel pans, and performing as a classical percussionist with All-State, All-Eastern, and All-Natioanal student orchestras. He currently works professionally throughout the NYC area performing and recording with esteemed musicians such as Cecil Bridgewater, Paul Bollenback, David Wong, Arturo O'Farrill, Michael Dease, Dave Stryker, Curtis Lundy, Joel Press, and Freddie Hendrix. Ben also performs regularly with the Grammy nominated JC Hopkin's Biggish Band. He's performed at many venues such as NJPAC Victoria Theater, The Plaza Hotel, NJPAC Prudential Hall, Smoke Jazz Club, Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, Fat Cat NYC, Litchfield Jazz Festival, and the Kennedy Center. In 2011 he was awarded the NJ Governor’s Award for Excellence in Jazz. Ben's teachers and greatest musical influences include Joe Farnsworth, Billy Hart, Kenny Washington, Rodney Green, Justin DiCioccio and John Riley. He currently attends Manhattan School of Music and is set to graduate in 2015.

Tags

2
Album Review

Hannah Gill: Everybody Loves a Lover

Read "Everybody Loves a Lover" reviewed by Pierre Giroux


Hannah Gill has a passion for jazz and draws her inspiration from the likes of Blossom Dearie, Anita O'Day and Ella Fitzgerald. On this debut release Everybody Loves a Lover, Gill takes on eleven swing-era standards, and while staying true to the original music, she infuses them with her style, which is inflected with blues and soul. Supporting her on this album is a septet of talented musicians who share her enthusiasm for danceable rhythms and melodic riffs. They are ...

1
Album Review

Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project: A Thousand Pebbles

Read "A Thousand Pebbles" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Ben Rosenblum's Nebula Project is a group which incorporates sounds from all over the world. Gospel, Brazilian rhythms, European folk dances, and other kinds of music all mix freely with jazz in this exciting and unpredictable set. The horn players, trumpeter Wayne Tucker and reed players Jasper Dutz and Xavier Del Castillo, all do excellent work in realizing the leader's freewheeling concepts. “Bulgares" has Tucker's trumpet and Dutz's bass clarinet darting out in a whirling Bulgarian rhythm over ...

32
Album Review

Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project: A Thousand Pebbles

Read "A Thousand Pebbles" reviewed by Jack Bowers


This is music for the open-minded. On A Thousand Pebbles, his fourth album as leader, New York-based pianist & accordionist Ben Rosenblum's seven-member Nebula Project traverses a number of musical landscapes, from Bulgaria to Brazil, Ireland to Israel, and realms beyond, offering a pleasurable smorgasbord of contemporary jazz that is always engaging and never shopworn. Rosenblum the composer wrote all of the album's eleven numbers save one, Antonio Carlos Jobim & Chico Baurque's melodious “Song of the ...

Album Review

Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project: A Thousand Pebbles

Read "A Thousand Pebbles" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro


Il giovane pianista e fisarmonicista (qui più la seconda della prima pelle, diremmo, almeno come incidenza sul sound d'insieme) newyorchese Ben Rosenblum firma con questo A Thousand Pebbles il quarto album a suo nome e il secondo alla testa del Nebula Project, sestetto (qui rinforzato da Xavier Del Castillo) versatile e capace di generare un clima solare e spesso festoso, intriso di umori latini e comunque popolari in senso lato (Rosenblum, che non di rado si sovrappone su entrambi i ...

Album Review

Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project: Kites and Strings

Read "Kites and Strings" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro


Si parte con un episodio che potremmo definire post-bop, “Cedar Place," uno dei sette a firma di Ben Rosenblum, integrati da “Somewhere" di Leonard Bernstein, “Philadelphia" di Neil Young e un tradizionale bulgaro, ma in fondo è una falsa rivelazione, perché a seguire questa che è l'opera prima del giovane pianista e fisarmonicista newyorchese si sdipana su toni decisamente variegati, in cui il grande ceppo jazzistico è certo perfettamente avvertibile, ma i vari episodi sono più compositi, qua e là ...

4
Album Review

Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project: Kites and Strings

Read "Kites and Strings" reviewed by Jerome Wilson


Ben Rosenblum uses a lot of different instrumental elements on this release. For starters, he himself plays both piano and accordion, and his sextet also features trumpet, reeds and guitar. In addition, vibraphone and trombone show up on some tracks. That creates a blend of various textures and sounds which bring variety to this program of bright jazz compositions. Rosenblum's accordion flows together nicely with the sounds of Wayne Tucker's trumpet, and Jasper Dutz's bass clarinet on the ...

3
Album Review

Ben Rosenblum Nebula Project: Kites and Strings

Read "Kites and Strings" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Expectations are necessarily guarded when preparing to appraise a recording by the Nebula Project whose leader plays accordion. Be that as it may, any such uneasiness is quickly erased by Ben Rosenblum and his doughty ensemble whose music is decidedly colorful, melodic and accessible—which is not meant to undervalue diversity, another of its discernible points. Rosenblum, who wrote seven of the album's ten numbers, draws on influences as varied as klezmer jazz, Bulgarian folk music and even Johannes Brahms to ...

Read more articles

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

A Thousand Pebbles

Self Produced
2023

buy

Everybody Loves a...

Turtle Bay Records
2023

buy

Kites and Strings

One Trick Dog Records
2020

buy

Implicit Attitude

From: A Thousand Pebbles
By Ben Zweig

Izpoved

From: Kites and Strings
By Ben Zweig

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.