Sam Hirsh
Piano
About
Sam Hirsh is a jazz pianist, composer, and educator based in Los Angeles. His playing has been described as finding "new poetry in the rich vocabulary of the hard bop to post-bop continuum." A graduate of the USC Thornton School of Music, where he studied under Russ Ferrante, Otmaro Ruiz, and Alan Pasqua, Hirsh has performed with artists including Ralph Moore, the Bill Holman Big Band, the Clayton/Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, Gilbert Castellanos, Henry Franklin, Terrace Martin, and Melissa Morgan. His debut album Quite Frankly, featuring Ralph Moore, reached the JazzWeek Radio Chart top 20 in 2020, and his genre-crossing second album Quarantine Dreams followed in 2022. Hirsh is on faculty at the Pasadena Conservatory of Music and has taught at the Quincy Jones Jazz Camp and the COJAC Monterey Jazz Festival Summer Camp.
Trivia
Hirsh's full given name is Sadamu Samuel Hirsh — Sadamu means "to become" in Japanese, a meaning he has embraced as central to his artistic identity. His song "Quite Frankly" is dedicated to Frank Ambrose, an older retired truck driver who used to listen to him play when he was young in Portland. The track "No C!" is a playful reference to the common misspelling of his surname as "Hirsch." He is currently working on a third album exploring his identity as an Asian American, inspired by a 2024 trip to the house in Kyoto where he was born.
Early Life
Sam Hirsh was born Sadamu Samuel Hirsh on January 13, 1989, in Kyoto, Japan. His father was a bebop saxophonist originally from Chicago who introduced him to the music of Cedar Walton, Hank Jones, and Benny Green. The family moved to Portland, Oregon, when Hirsh was four. He began studying classical piano as a young child and also played flute and saxophone during elementary and middle school. In his freshman year of high school, he discovered jazz through his father's records and began playing professionally within a year, performing locally with his father's band and leading his own trio. In 2009 he won a scholarship to the USC Thornton School of Music, studying under Russ Ferrante, Otmaro Ruiz, and Alan Pasqua. He graduated in 2012 and quickly established himself in the Los Angeles jazz scene.
Sam Hirsh Solos
2021
Piano solo - Rendezvous - 2021
4/4 ballad in F major at 53 BPM