PRESS RELEASES
Dan Siegel | “Resolution”
Veteran Pianist, Composer, Keyboardist & Producer Dan Siegel Announces Resolution, a Nine-Song Contemporary Jazz Album Shaped by Instinct, First Takes and Trusted Collaborators
After Four Decades in Music, Siegel Leaves More of the Humanity In — Letting the Music “Be What It’s Going to Be”
Featuring Brian Bromberg, Jay Bellerose, Dean Parks, Greg Liesz, Patrick Warren and More
Available September 11, 2026 via DSM
After four decades of recording, pianist, keyboardist, composer, and producer Dan Siegel stopped trying to perfect everything. On Resolution, his forthcoming nine-song contemporary jazz album due September 11, Siegel left more of the original performances intact and stopped ironing out every imperfection. “I have a tendency to overwork things, to iron out all the little kinks,” he says. “That kind of leaves it without humanity — a little too perfect and polished. This is a little bit raw and rough around the edges in places.”
The title came from the opening track, where Siegel hears “something sort of grand” in the ending and a sense of resolve by the time the tune lands. Built around modal harmony, the piece gradually settles into place.
Siegel first imagined Resolution as a rootsier, Americana-leaning trio record and recruited drummer/percussionist Jay Bellerose after hearing a quality in his playing unlike anyone he had worked with before. “His style is really subtle, he came up with different grooves,” Siegel says. “I thought, wow, this guy could be really great for the music.” After sending Bellerose a set of piano demos, Siegel immediately felt understood. “He responded, ‘Oh, this is really cool,’ and I thought, okay, he gets it.”
Recorded between January 9 and April 19, 2026, at The Hideaway in Chatsworth and EastWest Studios, Sunset Sound, and Boulevard Recording in Hollywood, Resolution centers on Siegel alongside bassist Brian Bromberg and Bellerose. Siegel produced the album, Tom McCauley recorded and mixed it, and Chris Bellman mastered it at Bernie Grundman Mastering.
Guests include percussionist Lenny Castro, vibraphonist Craig Fundyga, guitarists Dean Parks, Allen Hinds, and Matt Hornbeck, steel guitarist Greg Liesz, accordionist Patrick Warren, alto saxophonists Alex Hahn and Chris Sullivan, tenor saxophonists Tristan Cappel and Jacob Scesney, drummer Jimmy Branly on “Give or Take,” and vocals by longtime collaborator Rogerio Jardim.
Most of Siegel’s piano parts came directly from the original trio sessions. Unlike many of his earlier projects, the shape of the music became clear almost immediately. “Usually, it kind of reveals itself as you start piling more and more things on top,” he says. “On this project, you kind of knew what it was on that first day or two that we tracked. It was like that was what the music was going to be.”
Returning to the sessions, Siegel often reached the same conclusion: “Well, it ain’t perfect, but it’s got a vibe.” He laughs that he could always “play better” or “play faster.” On a few tracks, though, something essential disappeared. “I couldn’t really recapture the vibe,” he says. “I just said, forget it. Leave it.”
Bromberg heard the album’s restraint immediately. After recording, he joked that listeners might find the music “too serene” and told Siegel he needed “a tune with a big back beat.” Siegel laughed it off. “That’s not at all what I was trying to do.”
Siegel no longer lets trends or commercial expectations determine what he makes. “The audience — you can go in search of an audience, or you’re gonna let the audience find you.”
Over more than four decades, Siegel has built a career through melody, harmony, pacing, and ensemble interplay. AllMusic praised 2024’s Unity for its “creative vision” and “disciplined consistency”; JAZZIZ called 1995’s Hemispheres “one of the most original and intriguing discs of this or any other year.” Yet Siegel frames his identity simply: “I’m a composer first and I perform piano second.”
Born in Seattle and raised in Eugene, Oregon, Siegel began piano lessons at eight. His first teacher, Francis Ragazzino, encouraged him to compose early, pushing him to fill manuscript books with short musical ideas while introducing theory and harmonic analysis through group lessons with other students. By eleven, he had developed a strong musical foundation. By twelve, he was already playing YMCA dances professionally. By fourteen, he was teaching lessons himself.
At eighteen, borrowed records by Chick Corea, Herbie Hancock, and Bill Evans permanently shifted Siegel’s direction. “It was the harmony that really connected with me,” he says. “Then I thought, this is what I want to do.”
He studied music composition at the University of Oregon, later earned a master’s degree in jazz studies, and spent years transcribing fusion records for bands he played in. Eventually, he stopped. “I got tired of sitting there with a turntable and trying to figure out what everybody else played,” he says. “I said, I’m just going to start writing.”
That decision shaped early albums including Nite Ride (1980), The Hot Shot (1981), Oasis (1981), Dan Siegel (1982), and Reflections (1983). After moving to Los Angeles, he expanded his palette through later releases including Another Time, Another Place (1984), Hemispheres (1995), Clairvoyance (1998), Origins (2018), and Unity (2024). “I’ve learned how to trust my instincts a little bit more,” he says. “Experience is valuable.”
The material for Resolution emerged gradually over roughly eight months. Siegel planned ten compositions, but the music stopped at nine. “It was like somebody turned off the spigot,” he says. “I thought, okay, well, that’s it — that’s all I’m gonna get.” Nine songs became Resolution.
Bellerose changed the feel of the record. Sometimes Siegel would offer direction; Bellerose would play essentially the same thing again. “After like the third take, I figured, okay, fine,” Siegel says. “That’s what it is.” “If you hire people that are going to bring something to the party,” he says, “you let them have a good time.”
“Factotum,” named after the Charles Bukowski novel, jumps between multiple sections that “sound like they’re different songs, but they all kind of fit together in a weird way.” Bellerose heard echoes of Ramsey Lewis in “Room to Move,” where Dean Parks added understated wah-inflected guitar. “Dean’s one of those guys that knows how to add without taking away,” Siegel says. “In Search Of” leaves its title open-ended. “Easy Does It” leans into New Orleans through Patrick Warren’s accordion and Bellerose’s feel. “Quiet Place” began under the working title “Bayou,” sparked by a chord movement that reminded Siegel of Linda Ronstadt’s “Blue Bayou.”
On “Give or Take,” Siegel briefly tried singing a melodic overdub himself before abandoning the idea. “The consensus was I sucked,” he says with a laugh. Jardim stepped in instead, adding wordless syllables that lift the second half of the tune. “Sometime Somewhere” reminded Siegel of West Side Story, while “Time of Need” closes the record with a church cadence suggested during mixing — “a good way to end the record.”
Dedicated to Siegel’s mother, Elizabeth Siegel (1929–2026), Resolution also honors the person who first pushed him toward music. She insisted he take piano lessons and encouraged him to write from an early age. His father discouraged music as a career. Heading out the door for gigs with a guitar and amp, Siegel remembers his mother quietly giving him a wink.
Even in her nineties, she kept asking how the album was going. “She played a big part in my creative life,” he says. “She was a lot of fun.” Losing her still catches him off guard. “I still think sometimes that she’s there,” he says. “I think, ‘Oh, I could call her’ — and then I’m like, ‘No, I can’t call her.’”
“I’ve gotten to a point where I just let the music be what it’s going to be,” Siegel says. “You don’t want to get in the way. Let it speak.”
Dan Siegel | Photo by Mark Maryanovich
Dan Siegel · Resolution
DSM · Release Date: September 11, 2026
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