Eddie Hazell

Lit up New Jersey, Manhattan stages

Little Falls native Eddie Hazell, a jazz guitarist and singer who performed nationwide, including many gigs at North Jersey and Manhattan venues, died Nov. 2. He was 76.

He had Parkinson's disease, said his wife, Anne.

While a student at Passaic Valley High School, Mr. Hazell formed a group called the 3 Echoes, which occasionally became the 4 Echoes when Eddie brought in another musician.

"He knew what he wanted to do from the beginning  there was no doubt he was going to be a musician," said Ed Petkus, who knew Mr. Hazell from the neighborhood and authored a biography of the guitarist.

Mr. Hazell toured extensively early in his career and cut his first album in 1961. He appeared on the "Today" show, "The Merv Griffin Show" and "Kraft Music Hall."

Mr. Hazell was playing at Bakerscq Keyboard Lounge in Detroit in 1964 when he asked a local trio to back him up. Some years later, the trio's bassist, Jim Hankins, received a job transfer to New Jersey and was invited by Mr. Hazell to join the Eddie Hazell Trio. They shared stages for a quarter century.

Hankins, of Hillsborough, said Mr. Hazell's stock in trade was "the American songbook."

"Broadway stuff, Gershwin," Hankins said. "He didn't have an exclusively jazz repertoire. Eddie was quite the professional. He knew what he wanted to play, and how he wanted to play it."

In a review of a 1975 performance at Stryker's Pub in Manhattan, John S. Wilson noted in The New York Times that Mr. Hazell's greatest attribute was neither his voice nor his "excellent" guitar playing.

"What gives Mr. Hazell his basic distinction," Wilson wrote, "is the adventurousness, imagination and taste shown in his choice of repertory, supported by the skill with which he realizes the possibilities of the material he has chosen."

The following year, The Record praised his album, "Take Your Shoes Off, Baby," calling it a collection of standards "enhanced by Hazell's deceptively casual approach."

Mr. Hazell, who moved to Vernon from Pompton Plainscq about 20 years ago, last performed in 2007, at Manhattan's Tavern on the Green. His trio appeared at venues across New Jersey, including the Williams Center for the Arts in Rutherford, Liberty State Park, Jimmy Reid's in Ramsey, Newark Airport, the Julius Forstmann Public Library in Passaic and the Bergen Museum in Paramus.

Petkus, a retired William Paterson University professor, interviewed Mr. Hazell, his family and his fellow musicians for the biography, which was published in February. It is titled "Someone Out There is Listening: The Life of Eddie Hazell, Jazz- Guitar-Vocalist."

Mr. Hazell may not have been a household name, Petkus said, but he made his mark.

"He had a successful career and a successful life," Petkus said. "The people who don't necessarily become the big stars are the ones who keep the genre going, and Eddie was certainly an innovator.

"He didn't compromise; he was unique in the way he sang and played the guitar. & He cared deeply about his musicians and cared deeply about his music. I would say he had star quality."

Mr. Hazell is survived by his wife, Anne Nielsen Hazell, and the children from his marriage to the late Naedine Thompson Hazell, who predeceased him: daughter Naedine cq both are naedine Hazell and sons Edward and Kevin Hazell. He also is survived by his stepchildren, Maegann cq Struble, Deborah Gallagher and Ned Meeder, and nine grandchildren.

Visiting will be Saturday from 2 to 4 and 7 to 9 p.m. at M. John Scanlan Funeral Home in Pompton Plains.cq

E-mail: levin@northjersey.com