We’re The Heard, a funky-folk-grass band from Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Meet us out on the Huron River on Sunday July 28th on Island Park (Ann Arbor). We’ll be playing 3 sets! So grab your paddles, inflate your tubes, fill your coolers & meet us on the Huron River a free summer concert.
Show is from 2:30pm-5:30pm.
Float Jam Address: 1420 Island Drive, Ann Arbor, MI
Walk, Ride or Float Down The Huron River from the Cascades to Island Prk!
EZ walk back 2 Tube Rentals (~45 min)
Fill Out a Contact Form and listen to our New Song:
Our Story
The Heard began to form on a mid-summer night in the wake of the pandemic. Jon Harlan attended a jazz concert at the Blue Llama, in Ann Arbor, where Travis Aukerman was playing drums with a small jazz trio. Jon noticed Travis had the innate ability to keep a group of improvising musicians together. Jon introduced himself to Travis and mentioned that he was starting a band. The two eventually got together to arrange and record their first song “No Man’s Land”.
After a couple sessions together, Jon and Travis, started to invite musicians from the Ann Arbor area to join them for jam sessions in Jon’s basement studio. One of those musicians was Dave Cerelli, who Jon saw play with his own band at Mash, a bar in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan. Jon was inspired by Dave’s funky melodic & rhythmic grooves on the bass and introduced himself to Dave, inviting him over for a jam in February of 2022.
One day, when Jon, Dave & Aukerman were planning to meet for rehearsal, Aukerman couldn’t make the session, so Dave invited his long time friend and former classmate, Dan Konold (drummer), to the rehearsal. Dan fit right into the fold, quickly becoming part of the band’s core.
Then, on a warm summer night, along the Huron River straits, the clouds cleared and the wind settled. The stars above the tree line shifted into alignment, and stars began to dance. Just then, Gabriel VanLoozen & Jonathan Harlan happened to find themselves on the same intramural kickball team, looking up at the same sky at the same time, for the first time. Upon learning about Jon’s band, Gabe, as a long-time ye’ a bit rusty of an Irish folk fiddler, dusted off the bow, and joined up with the The Heard later that summer.
The band would meet up regularly and invite local musicians to sit in withthem. piano player on various gigs and suggested to invite him to attend a studio session. In walks
One of those musicians was Will Bennet, the piano man with a license to jam. Both Aukerman & Cerelli had previously played with Will at local Ann Arbor gigs, and knew he was someone who could bring world-class improvisational skills to the band, with an ear for melody matched by few others on earth, Will joined up with The Heard.
There was still an important component of The Heard missing, the wind section, that would eventually capture the attentions of a true renaissance man, Travis Spuller.
A friend of Jon’s from the downtown Ann Arbor music joints. While both attending a Joe Hertler & The Rainbow Seekers concert at The Blind Pig, Jon learned about Spuller’s background with the Baritone Saxophone. The next day, Spuller found a Bari-Sax on craigslist and an electric-flute from the future and joined up with The Heard.
We look forward to jamming with y’all and hope to write the next part of the story together!