Greg Hatza

Greg Hatza began piano studies at the age of five. A decade later he encountered the organ, made a permanent switch to that instrument, and became self-taught on it. Professional work began at sixteen with a four-year stint at the club owned by football player Lenny Moore, during which he also cut his two early albums. Those mid-seventies sessions appeared on Coral, after which the organist slipped into near-total obscurity for roughly twenty years. The instrument’s waning popularity in the seventies had already prompted a long-term move to electric keyboards. Hearing Joey DeFrancesco perform in 1993 changed that trajectory; the younger organist, already familiar with Hatza’s earlier recordings, urged him to return to the instrument. Hatza soon signed with Palmetto and issued The Greg Hatza ORGANization in the mid-nineties, proving his abilities had survived the long absence from the scene.