Gary Monheit & Dan Krimm Bios

Gary Monheit (piano) played with Stanley Jordan and Dan Krimm in the group Mainstream and played and recorded with the Dan Krimm Ensemble. In Santa Barbara he played and recorded with the Nate Birkey Quintet. Gary taught Jazz Piano and Jazz Ensemble at the Peabody Preparatory in Baltimore. He was a dance accompanist for Elliot Feld, Alvin Ailey, Barnard College, and Princeton University. His compositions for dance and theatre have been performed in the U.S. and Europe. He has studied jazz with Hal Galper and Joanne Brackeen.


Links: Gary on All Music Guide

Jazz recordings: Dan Krimm/Sentience, Nate Birkey Quintet/Indelibly You



Dan Krimm (fretless bass) has recorded two well-received studio albums of his own compositions. He received a National Endowment For The Arts jazz fellowship to work on the first, "Sentience" (MP3/FLAC download), which featured Vic Juris on guitar and Marty Fogel on sax. His second album "Subtle Truth" (MP3/FLAC download) featured Rolf Sturm on guitar. He played with Stanley Jordan, Gary Monheit and others while studying at Princeton and was active in NYC, recording with jazz singer Arlette Beauchamps. In Los Angeles he performed regularly with post-bop guitarist Kim Reith, and performed and recorded with avant-garde drummer Rich West (see also Richie West). After moving to the Bay Area he released a live concert album, "Last Chance Jazz" (MP3/FLAC download).


Links: Dan's web site, Dan on All Music Guide

Jazz recordings (non-original): Rich West/Heavenly Breakfast, Arlette Beauchamps/Love Again

The Gary Monheit and Dan Krimm Story


Gary Monheit (piano) and Dan Krimm (fretless bass guitar) began their musical association as undergraduates at Princeton in the mid-70s, inspired by the outbreak of new music in the jazz world, from Chick Corea/Return to Forever, Herbie Hancock, John McLaughlin and Weather Report, to Keith Jarrett, Pat Metheny, Oregon, John Scofield, and more.

As students they formed a jazz quartet to play original compositions as well as modern standards and some of the new music being invented by current artists. They also played with other musicians on campus, including Anthony Branker and Stanley Jordan.

Branker recorded an album of his original jazz compositions for his senior thesis project For The Children including Gary, Dan and Stanley in the band. This was "first vinyl" for most members of the band, with the exception of Gary who had recorded an album of jazz standards in high school with the band Whiskey Sour. Branker returned to Princeton after earning advanced degrees elsewhere and is now the long-time Director of Jazz Studies in the music department.

Gary and Dan also played with Stanley Jordan at his annual spring concerts on campus, and together in the band Mainstream led by drummer Jim Allington, with guests such as Arthur Rhames and Steve Nelson. Jordan later was discovered by George Wein and blasted into the commercial jazz world in the mid-80s.

While still on campus, Gary composed and arranged music for theater and dance, especially the initial instances of the Princeton-to-Edinburgh project which took theatrical troupes to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival beginning in 1980. He enlisted Dan for the first production (a trio of short pieces by Gertrude Stein) and preview performances on campus for the second. He also was commissioned to write a piece for piano and electric bass which the two premiered in Baltimore, and music for a dance performance broadcast on New Jersey Public Television for which he had Dan play percussion.

In the early 80s, Gary and Dan both moved to New York City to pursue their careers, and also continued to collaborate musically. Gary's work in musical theater continued with a one-act musical play presented at the Ensemble Studio Theater in 1982 ("Rosario and the Gypsies" by Eduardo Machado), for which Dan played bass, and which included actors John Rothman and Cheryl (Gates) McFadden. Dan began forming a group to perform his original compositions, starting with duos with Gary, and eventually expanding to a full quartet with flutist Jan Leder, and drummer Grant Jarrett.

In 1984 Dan was awarded a Jazz Fellowship grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, which enabled him to record his debut album Sentience released in 1986. His quartet provided the core of the group for this recording, with two special guests as the fourth member on several tunes: Vic Juris (guitar) and Marty Fogel (sax). Gary played a vital role in this recording, helping to form the foundation around which the rest of the group coalesced.

After performing for awhile to promote the album, it was time for next steps. Gary left NYC for career-related reasons and eventually moved to California. Dan stayed in NYC for several more years, building a new group to record his second album Subtle Truth released in 1991.

Gary and Dan reconnected in the San Francisco Bay Area after Dan moved to California himself. In 2006 they joined a quintet organized by a neighbor of Gary's and began playing together again after a break of almost 20 years. The band, Fortune Smiles, recorded an album in 2010, following which Dan re-mastered and re-released his two studio albums in 2011.

The two began to play as a duo once again in early 2013, focusing on a mixture of original compositions and arrangements, modern standards and contemporary works of others such as Brad Mehldau, Keith Jarrett and John Scofield. Later in 2013 Dan mastered and released for the first time a recording of a live concert from 1993 which included three compositions never before released publicly.

At this time the Fortune Smiles band had been considering recording a second album of more recent original tunes. While the quintet did not pursue this project, Gary and Dan did, expanding to trio by adding well-known Bay Area drummer Scott Amendola, and including a program of eight new tunes, four each by Gary and Dan, released in 2016: New Shoots.