Eldad Tarmu was born in Los Angeles, California, where he started his musical career by studying drums and percussion. He learned to play jazz vibraphone mentored by Dave Pike. Upon graduating from Tel Aviv University in Israel, he returned to the US and began touring internationally with various jazz ensembles, performing in festivals and music venues in over twenty-five countries, mainly in Europe and Asia.

In 1997 he released his first record, Aluminum Forest, followed by Get Up Close in 2001, to notable critical acclaim. In 2005 he got a Master�s degree in Afro-Latin Music from California State University Los Angeles. The same year he was appointed Head of the Jazz Department at the Richard Oschanitzky Jazz School of Tibiscus University in Timisoara, Romania, following a collaboration with Romanian bassist and violinist Johnny Bota, one of the school founders.

In 2006, he established a partnership with the American Cultural Center in Bucharest, aiming to contribute to the strengthening of cultural ties between Romania and the USA, by promoting jazz as an American art form. In 2009 he returned to the US to continue his education at Stony Brook University, where he got a second Master�s degree, in Classical Composition.

He is currently a Doctor of Musical Arts in Jazz Performance from the same school, a degree pursued under the guidance of Ray Anderson.

A professor of Music Studies at Hudson County Community College and Raritan Valley Community College in New Jersey, he developed and introduced a Latin-American Music course for HCCC.

Throughout his career, he collaborated with names like Ron Affif, Ray Anderson, Mike Clark, Billy Higgins, Freddie Hubbard, Taj Mahal, Frank Morgan, Poncho Sanchez, Cybill Shepherd, and Ernie Watts.

In recent years, he has been increasingly focused on original contemporary classical music for chamber ensembles and vibraphone, composing for string quartets and woodwind quintets, as well as works for piano. His Grammy-nominated CD Stained Glass Stories, was released in 2017 and was dedicated to his late mother, Chicago-born painter Galya Pillin-Tarmu.

A new album of jazz-funk originals, called Tarmu Jazz Quartet, will be released on March 1st, 2023 on the Boho Indie Label, and aside from having Eldad Tarmu at the helm, will also feature saxophonist Adam Hutcheson, bassist Sam Bevan, and drummer Cengiz Baysal.

1. Cafe Sole (4:41)
2. Self-Inflicted Wounds (3:42)
3. El Hipnotizador (5:37)
4. Beneath the Gloss and Shine (5:05)
5. Kinda Elegant (5:13)
6. No Makeup (4:49)
7. A Tale of Dirt and Flowers (4:21)
8. Mating Calls (4:35)
9. Tall Grass Prairie (5:43)

This wholly hypnotizing, magnificently alluring new album opens on the infectious grooves found within Cafe Sole and then brings us the cheerily jaunty Self-Inflicted Wounds, the veritably cinematic El Hipnotizador, before one of my personal favorites is brought forth, the shimmering ambiance within Beneath the Gloss and Shine.

Up next is the smoothly mellifluous, and aptly-named Kinda Elegant and the more forthright No Makeup and they are in turn followed by the sheer honeyed elegance of the titular A Tale of Dirt and Flowers, the album coming to a close on the quietly rambunctious Mating Calls and the low ebbed, beautifully crafted Tall Grass Prairie.

Tarmu Jazz Quartet is:
Eldad Tarmu - vibraphone
Adam Hutcheson - saxophone
Sam Bevan - bass
Cengiz Baysal - drums

Eldad is endorsed by Zildjian and Mike Balter Mallets.

Official Website

Tarmu Jazz Quartet @ Facebook