Emmy Winners Join Local Jazz Scene

Emmy Winners Join Local Jazz Scene

Brad and Gaye Hatfield, internationally known musician/composers now make music in their Vero Beach home. JASON HOOK

Brad and Gaye Hatfield are the real McCoy when it comes to music

Gaye and Brad Hatfield proudly show off their Emmy awards. JASON HOOK

You never really know who’s sitting behind the microphone at a local jam session. That unassuming saxophonist blending into a Fort Pierce Jazz & Blues Society Tuesday night jam may have been a professor at Berklee College of Music. That pianist casually playing behind a vocalist may have written music for blockbuster films or composed Emmy-winning songs heard by millions. In Fort Pierce, legends don’t always announce themselves. They often just show up, unpack their instruments, and let the music speak.

Two of those quiet legends are Brad and Gaye Hatfield, a couple whose musical journey spans decades, continents, symphonies, studios and now, the Treasure Coast.

Their story begins nearly four decades ago with a young pianist named Brad who was leading a wedding band in search of a vocalist. When a talented young singer named Gaye auditioned, music wasn’t the only thing that clicked. They soon began dating, eventually married, raised two children, and spent their adult lives supporting not just their individual careers but the shared creative world they built together.

Gaye, 66, grew up at the piano, accompanying her high school chorus, before learning glockenspiel so she could join the band. One instrument led to another until the saxophone finally claimed her heart. After high school, she headed to the renowned Crane School of Music in upstate New York, later transferring to Boston’s Berklee College of Music. Upon graduation, Berklee invited her to stay, and she spent the next 30 years teaching there.

Her love of jazz classics began long before she stepped foot in a college classroom.

“My mother used to have me sit at the piano and go through songbooks of all the old standards,” Gaye recalled warmly. “She would sing George Gershwin tunes right beside me, so I learned a lot of jazz standards sitting next to her at the piano.”

PRACTICE, PRACTICE

Gaye Hatfield spent 30 years teaching at Berklee College of Music in Boston and now performs locally with the Fort Pierce Jazz & Blues Society. JASON HOOK

Brad, 69, started on his musical path just as early, though in an unexpected setting. He comes from a family of doctors, yet his mother insisted every one of her children learn the piano.

“I have three older siblings and all of us played piano,” he said. “By seventh grade, she picked another instrument for us to learn. I played the bass. My brother and I were into pop and jazz, so we always had basement bands. By 15, I was working — playing bass on gigs with my piano teachers.”

Despite the family’s medical tradition, he added with a laugh, “None of us went into the medical profession, but three of us became professional musicians.”

Brad also attended Berklee College of Music, though he didn’t graduate. Berklee hired him to teach anyway, recognizing sheer talent over formalities. He taught part time, through the early 1980s, while performing and composing. He went on to teach full-time at Northeastern University before, eventually, returning to part-time roles so he could continue performing and writing.

Through the demands of parenthood, teaching, and performing, Brad and Gaye wove their careers together like a symphony: collaborative, balanced and constantly improvising.

Brad’s career blossomed into one of Boston’s most respected musical voices. He played with both the Boston Pops and the Boston Symphony. His arrangements and compositions have been performed by orchestras that include the Houston Symphony, Kansas City Symphony, Atlanta Symphony and Rochester Philharmonic. When world-class musicians passed through Boston, Brad was often the one called to perform with them.

SCREEN TIME

The Hatfields now compose, arrange and produce their music in their in-home studio. BRAD HATFIELD

But his work didn’t stop on stage. Brad became a go-to composer for TV and film studios needing original scores. His music can be heard in Iron Man II, Borat, Analyze This, The Break-Up, Cop Land, and in hit television shows including The Sopranos, ER, Melrose Place, CSI, Saturday Night Live and Walker, Texas Ranger.

Over the past decade, though, his most meaningful work has been the music he creates alongside his wife. Together, Brad and Gaye compose original songs for the long-running, daytime drama The Young and the Restless. In 2022, their original song, Grateful for It All, won an Emmy — remarkably, beating out a Beyoncé song in the same category.

And that Emmy-winning track? Not recorded in a Los Angeles studio. Not even in Boston.

It was produced from their home in Vero Beach.

“It was during COVID and the show was on a bit of a hiatus,” Brad explained. “The shooting and recording schedules were all messed up. They had one episode that needed all jazz 

music and some featured songs, and I had to produce everything remotely.”

The production was a logistical high-wire act.

“At the end of the episode, there was a memorial scene for a character whose actor had passed away in real life. We needed a powerful song. Gaye collaborated with Jeff Meegan to create something stylistically aligned with the rest of the episode and sent it to me. I wrote the score.”

The recording lineup spanned the country: a drummer in North Carolina, vocalists in New York and Boston, a saxophonist in Boston, a trumpet player in New Mexico and another drummer in Chicago.

“The lead vocalist recorded her track in a closet in Boston,” Brad said with a laugh. “We pieced this daunting pile of music together in my home studio and it ended up winning an Emmy.”

That same year, writer Brad Hatfield and Young and the Restless actor/singer/songwriter Cait Fairbanks also garnered an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Original Song for their collaboration on the song Next to You, which was a featured on-camera performance on The Young and the Restless on Oct. 15, 2021.

But that wasn’t his only Emmy nomination or win: he’s been nominated numerous times and, back in 2006, his collaboration with Michael Kisur, Sunshine, won an Emmy for original song on Young and the Restless.

Brad Hatfield, who has played with symphonies around the world, now enjoys composing and playing in his home studio. JASON HOOK

PROCESS

After decades of collaboration, the Hatfields have their process down to an art. Brad works in his upstairs studio; Gaye composes downstairs. If Brad is on a Zoom call with music supervisors, discussing an emotional tone for an upcoming scene, he’ll message Gaye mid-call. She often begins composing before the call ends.

“In a soap opera, there’s always music in the background to help sell the scene,” Brad said. “We get instructions about the mood they want. Gaye writes the foundational musical elements: piano, flute, strings, rhythm. Then I move into production, add instrumentation and score it.”

Neither claims to be a strong lyricist, so lyricist Jeff Meegan rounds out the creative trio. Together, they share authorship, swapping drafts, layering sounds and building polished pieces that millions of viewers hear daily.

While the Hatfields were die hard Bostonians, they visited Florida regularly to visit Gaye’s mother in Jupiter. The couple eventually decided to become snowbirds and enjoy the warm Florida winters. They had a second home for a bit in Stuart and then moved up to Port St. Lucie. After COVID hit and they spent more time in Florida, they decided to search the Treasure Coast for a more permanent place. The beauty and culture of Vero Beach won them over so they purchased a larger home that would accommodate their individual studios.

After settling into Vero Beach, Brad stepped back from performing just as Gaye stepped back in.

“I decided to dip my toes into performing again after decades,” she said. “I dusted off my saxophone and joined some of the jazz jam sessions with the Fort Pierce Jazz & Blues Society. Brad came with me just to be supportive.”

The local musicians welcomed them instantly, unaware at first of their extensive backgrounds. Soon, invitations followed for performances at the Sunrise Theatre’s Black Box Theatre, for collaborations and for leadership. Today, Gaye performs with their group, the 20th Street Jazz Band, including upcoming shows at the Blackbox Theatre on Dec. 9 and March 10. She also founded a saxophone quartet and serves on the board of the Treasure Coast Jazz Society.

The couple has settled beautifully into small-town life, embracing the intimacy of the Black Box Theatre and the community spirit of the local jazz jams. For musicians who have worked on world stages, this chapter is quieter, but no less meaningful.

And that’s the magic of the Fort Pierce Jazz & Blues Society: You could sit 10 feet away from two artists who have played with elite orchestras, composed for blockbuster films, written Emmy-winning songs and taught generations of musicians; yet they’re here simply for the joy of playing.

So, the next time you attend a jam session and hear a soaring sax solo or a beautifully phrased piano line, listen a little closer. You might just be hearing world-class musicians whose music has traveled the globe, but whose hearts now belong to the Treasure Coast.

See the original article in print publication