Dennis Hamm

Jazz pianist, Dennis Hamm, renowned for his work with Thundercat, formed Sentisonics around his novel approach to music perception analysis with a focus on emotions. On Thundercat’s world tours he was exposed to the captivating animations and visual effects that festival artists utilize in their stage productions. Thundercat’s music stands out at these popular music festivals for its jazz harmony and improvisation, both of which make visualization for the live stage challenging. Inspired by the prospect of creating live visuals that are driven by harmony and improvisation, he set out to research harmony perception, and in that pursuit he developed a new approach to harmony analysis anchored in emotional expression. After sharing his discoveries with professional musicians, scholars and music fans, he soon realized his ideas would benefit a wide range of creators and consumers of the musical, visual, and therapeutic arts.

Hamm has been an integral part of Thundercat’s trio since 2012, contributing as a writer and performer on his last three albums. He also serves as the musical director for the soulful songstress Alice Smith. His global influence extends to performances in 53 countries alongside renowned artists Chris Cornell, Alan Holdsworth, Babyface, Kenny Loggins, Michael McDonald, Gino Vannelli, Louis Cole, Knower, Josh Groban, Larry Carlton, Jonathan Butler, India Arie, Virgil Donati and Simon Phillips. His featured performance on Phillips’ album “Protocol 4” earned him a Grammy nomination, and he also provided performance and writing contributions to Thundercat’s Grammy-winning album “Drunk” and to Debi Nova’s Grammy nominated and Latin Grammy-winning album “3:33.”