1.
Album
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Album, is a collection of audio recordings issued as a single item on CD, record, audio tape, or another medium. Albums of recorded music were developed in the early 20th century, first as books of individual 78rpm records, vinyl LPs are still issued, though in the 21st century album sales have mostly focused on compact disc and MP3 formats. The audio cassette was a format used from the late 1970s through to the 1990s alongside vinyl, an album may be recorded in a recording studio, in a concert venue, at home, in the field, or a mix of places. Recording may take a few hours to years to complete, usually in several takes with different parts recorded separately. Recordings that are done in one take without overdubbing are termed live, the majority of studio recordings contain an abundance of editing, sound effects, voice adjustments, etc. With modern recording technology, musicians can be recorded in separate rooms or at times while listening to the other parts using headphones. Album covers and liner notes are used, and sometimes additional information is provided, such as analysis of the recording, historically, the term album was applied to a collection of various items housed in a book format. In musical usage the word was used for collections of pieces of printed music from the early nineteenth century. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, the LP record, or 33 1⁄3 rpm microgroove vinyl record, is a gramophone record format introduced by Columbia Records in 1948. It was adopted by the industry as a standard format for the album. Apart from relatively minor refinements and the important later addition of stereophonic sound capability, the term album had been carried forward from the early nineteenth century when it had been used for collections of short pieces of music. Later, collections of related 78rpm records were bundled in book-like albums, as part of a trend of shifting sales in the music industry, some commenters have declared that the early 21st century experienced the death of the album. Sometimes shorter albums are referred to as mini-albums or EPs, Albums such as Tubular Bells, Amarok, Hergest Ridge by Mike Oldfield, and Yess Close to the Edge, include fewer than four tracks. There are no rules against artists such as Pinhead Gunpowder referring to their own releases under thirty minutes as albums. These are known as box sets, material is stored on an album in sections termed tracks, normally 11 or 12 tracks. A music track is a song or instrumental recording. The term is associated with popular music where separate tracks are known as album tracks. When vinyl records were the medium for audio recordings a track could be identified visually from the grooves
2.
Jazz
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Jazz is a music genre that originated amongst African Americans in New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and developed from roots in Blues and Ragtime. Since the 1920s jazz age, jazz has become recognized as a form of musical expression. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, call and response vocals, polyrhythms, Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, and in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Although the foundation of jazz is deeply rooted within the Black experience of the United States, different cultures have contributed their own experience, intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as one of Americas original art forms. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on different national, regional, and local musical cultures, New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. In the 1930s, heavily arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging musicians music which was played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed in the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, modal jazz developed in the late 1950s, using the mode, or musical scale, as the basis of musical structure and improvisation. Jazz-rock fusion appeared in the late 1960s and early 1970s, combining jazz improvisation with rock rhythms, electric instruments. In the early 1980s, a form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful. Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Latin, the question of the origin of the word jazz has resulted in considerable research, and its history is well documented. It is believed to be related to jasm, a term dating back to 1860 meaning pep. The use of the word in a context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a context in New Orleans was in a November 14,1916 Times-Picayune article about jas bands. In an interview with NPR, musician Eubie Blake offered his recollections of the slang connotations of the term, saying, When Broadway picked it up. That was dirty, and if you knew what it was, the American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz has proved to be difficult to define, since it encompasses such a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, in the opinion of Robert Christgau, most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz. As Duke Ellington, one of jazzs most famous figures, said, although jazz is considered highly difficult to define, at least in part because it contains so many varied subgenres, improvisation is consistently regarded as being one of its key elements
3.
Free jazz
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For the Ornette Coleman album see Free Jazz, A Collective Improvisation. Though the music of jazz composers varied widely, a common feature was dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop. Often described as avant-garde, free jazz has also described as an attempt to return jazz to its primitive, often religious, roots. As its name implies, free jazz cannot be defined more than loosely, as many musicians draw on free jazz concepts and idioms, and it was never completely distinct as a genre. Many free jazz musicians, notably Pharoah Sanders and John Coltrane, used harsh overblowing or other techniques to elicit unconventional sounds from their instruments, Free jazz musicians created a progressive musical language which drew on earlier styles of jazz such as Dixieland jazz and African music. Typically this kind of music is played by groups of musicians. The music often swings but without regular meter, and there are frequent accelerandi and ritardandi, Free jazz is strongly associated with the 1950s innovations of Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor and the later works of saxophonist John Coltrane. Other important pioneers include Charles Mingus, Eric Dolphy, Albert Ayler, Archie Shepp, Joe Maneri, some of bassist Charles Minguss work was also important in establishing free jazz. Although today free jazz is the generally used term, many terms were used to describe the loosely defined movement, including avant-garde, energy music. During its early and mid-1960s heyday, much free jazz was released by established labels such as Prestige, Blue Note, keith Johnson of AllMusic describes a Modern Creative genre, in which musicians may incorporate free playing into structured modes -- or play just about anything. Defining the essence of jazz is complicated, many musicians draw on free jazz concepts and idioms. Many individual musicians reject efforts at classification, regarding them as useless or unduly limiting, earlier jazz styles typically were built on a framework of song forms with a set framework of chord changes. In free jazz, the dependence on a fixed and pre-established form is eliminated, Free jazz, especially during its inception, contains theme of both progressive musical language and gathering inspiration from the past. The rejection of the bop aesthetic was combined with a fascination with earlier styles of jazz such as Dixieland jazz with its collective improvisation. This includes Ed Blackwells use of the West African talking drum, typically this kind of music is played by small groups of musicians, although some examples use larger numbers. For example, John Coltranes 1965 album Ascension, uses eleven musicians, other forms of jazz use clear regular meters and strongly pulsed rhythms, usually in 4/4 or 3/4. Free jazz normally retains a general pulsation and often swings but without regular meter, despite all of this, it is still very often possible to tap ones foot to a free jazz performance, meter is more freely variable but has not disappeared entirely. Previous jazz forms used harmonic structures, and even when improvisation occurred it was founded on the notes in the chords, Free jazz almost by definition is free of such structures, but also by definition it retains much of the language of earlier jazz playing
4.
Chicago
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Chicago, officially the City of Chicago, is the third-most populous city in the United States. With over 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the state of Illinois, and it is the county seat of Cook County. In 2012, Chicago was listed as a global city by the Globalization and World Cities Research Network. Chicago has the third-largest gross metropolitan product in the United States—about $640 billion according to 2015 estimates, the city has one of the worlds largest and most diversified economies with no single industry employing more than 14% of the workforce. In 2016, Chicago hosted over 54 million domestic and international visitors, landmarks in the city include Millennium Park, Navy Pier, the Magnificent Mile, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum Campus, the Willis Tower, Museum of Science and Industry, and Lincoln Park Zoo. Chicagos culture includes the arts, novels, film, theater, especially improvisational comedy. Chicago also has sports teams in each of the major professional leagues. The city has many nicknames, the best-known being the Windy City, the name Chicago is derived from a French rendering of the Native American word shikaakwa, known to botanists as Allium tricoccum, from the Miami-Illinois language. The first known reference to the site of the current city of Chicago as Checagou was by Robert de LaSalle around 1679 in a memoir, henri Joutel, in his journal of 1688, noted that the wild garlic, called chicagoua, grew abundantly in the area. In the mid-18th century, the area was inhabited by a Native American tribe known as the Potawatomi, the first known non-indigenous permanent settler in Chicago was Jean Baptiste Point du Sable. Du Sable was of African and French descent and arrived in the 1780s and he is commonly known as the Founder of Chicago. In 1803, the United States Army built Fort Dearborn, which was destroyed in 1812 in the Battle of Fort Dearborn, the Ottawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi tribes had ceded additional land to the United States in the 1816 Treaty of St. Louis. The Potawatomi were forcibly removed from their land after the Treaty of Chicago in 1833, on August 12,1833, the Town of Chicago was organized with a population of about 200. Within seven years it grew to more than 4,000 people, on June 15,1835, the first public land sales began with Edmund Dick Taylor as U. S. The City of Chicago was incorporated on Saturday, March 4,1837, as the site of the Chicago Portage, the city became an important transportation hub between the eastern and western United States. Chicagos first railway, Galena and Chicago Union Railroad, and the Illinois, the canal allowed steamboats and sailing ships on the Great Lakes to connect to the Mississippi River. A flourishing economy brought residents from rural communities and immigrants from abroad, manufacturing and retail and finance sectors became dominant, influencing the American economy. The Chicago Board of Trade listed the first ever standardized exchange traded forward contracts and these issues also helped propel another Illinoisan, Abraham Lincoln, to the national stage
5.
New York City
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The City of New York, often called New York City or simply New York, is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2015 population of 8,550,405 distributed over an area of about 302.6 square miles. Located at the tip of the state of New York. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has described as the cultural and financial capital of the world. Situated on one of the worlds largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, the five boroughs – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan, The Bronx, and Staten Island – were consolidated into a single city in 1898. In 2013, the MSA produced a gross metropolitan product of nearly US$1.39 trillion, in 2012, the CSA generated a GMP of over US$1.55 trillion. NYCs MSA and CSA GDP are higher than all but 11 and 12 countries, New York City traces its origin to its 1624 founding in Lower Manhattan as a trading post by colonists of the Dutch Republic and was named New Amsterdam in 1626. The city and its surroundings came under English control in 1664 and were renamed New York after King Charles II of England granted the lands to his brother, New York served as the capital of the United States from 1785 until 1790. It has been the countrys largest city since 1790, the Statue of Liberty greeted millions of immigrants as they came to the Americas by ship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is a symbol of the United States and its democracy. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. Several sources have ranked New York the most photographed city in the world, the names of many of the citys bridges, tapered skyscrapers, and parks are known around the world. Manhattans real estate market is among the most expensive in the world, Manhattans Chinatown incorporates the highest concentration of Chinese people in the Western Hemisphere, with multiple signature Chinatowns developing across the city. Providing continuous 24/7 service, the New York City Subway is one of the most extensive metro systems worldwide, with 472 stations in operation. Over 120 colleges and universities are located in New York City, including Columbia University, New York University, and Rockefeller University, during the Wisconsinan glaciation, the New York City region was situated at the edge of a large ice sheet over 1,000 feet in depth. The ice sheet scraped away large amounts of soil, leaving the bedrock that serves as the foundation for much of New York City today. Later on, movement of the ice sheet would contribute to the separation of what are now Long Island and Staten Island. The first documented visit by a European was in 1524 by Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer in the service of the French crown and he claimed the area for France and named it Nouvelle Angoulême. Heavy ice kept him from further exploration, and he returned to Spain in August and he proceeded to sail up what the Dutch would name the North River, named first by Hudson as the Mauritius after Maurice, Prince of Orange
6.
Pharoah Sanders
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Pharoah Sanders is an American jazz saxophonist. Saxophonist Ornette Coleman once described him as probably the best tenor player in the world, emerging from John Coltranes groups of the mid-1960s, Sanders is known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on the saxophone, as well as his use of sheets of sound. Sanders is an important figure in the development of jazz, Albert Ayler famously said, Trane was the Father, Pharoah was the Son. Pharoah Sanders was born Farrell Sanders on October 13,1940 in Little Rock and his mother worked as a cook in a school cafeteria, and his father worked for the City of Little Rock. An only child, Sanders began his career accompanying church hymns on clarinet. His initial artistic accomplishments were in art, but when he was at Scipio Jones High School in North Little Rock, the band director, Jimmy Cannon, was also a saxophone player and introduced Sanders to jazz. When Cannon left Scipio Jones High School, Sanders took over as the director until a permanent director could be found. During the late 1950s, Sanders would often sneak into African-American clubs in downtown Little Rock to play with acts that were passing through. At the time, Little Rock was part of the route through Memphis, Tennessee. Sanders found himself limited by the segregation and the R&B. After finishing high school in 1959, Sanders moved to Oakland, California and he briefly attended Oakland Junior College and studied art and music. Once outside the Jim Crow South, Sanders could play in black and white clubs. His Arkansas connection stuck with him in the Bay Area with the nickname of “Little Rock. ”It was also during this time that he met, Pharoah Sanders began his professional career playing tenor saxophone in Oakland, California. He moved to New York City in 1961 after playing with rhythm and he received his nickname Pharoah from bandleader Sun Ra, with whom he was performing. After moving to New York, Sanders had been destitute, He was often living on the streets, under stairs, where ever he could find to stay, his clothes in tatters. Sun Ra gave him a place to stay, bought him a new pair of pants with yellow stripes, encouraged him to use the name Pharoah. Sanders came to prominence playing with John Coltranes band, starting in 1965, as Coltrane began adopting the avant-garde jazz of Albert Ayler, Sun Ra. Sanders first performed with Coltrane on Ascension, then on their dual-tenor recording Meditations, after this Sanders joined Coltranes final quintet, usually performing very lengthy, dissonant solos
7.
Sun Ra
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Sun Ra was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his experimental music, cosmic philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led The Arkestra, an ensemble with an ever-changing name, born and raised in Alabama, Blount would eventually become involved in the 1940s Chicago jazz scene. From the mid-1950s until his death, Ra led the musical collective The Arkestra and its performances often included dancers and musicians dressed in elaborate, futuristic costumes inspired by ancient Egyptian attire and the space age. He is now considered an innovator, among his distinctions are his pioneering work in free improvisation and modal jazz. Following Sun Ras death in 1993, the Arkestra continues to perform and he was born Herman Blount on May 22,1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, as discovered by his biographer, John F. Szwed, and published in his 1998 book. He was named after the popular stage magician Black Herman. He was nicknamed Sonny from his childhood, had a sister and half-brother. For decades, very little was known about Sun Ras early life, as a self-invented person, he routinely gave evasive, contradictory or seemingly nonsensical answers to personal questions, and denied his birth name. He speculated, only half in jest, that he was related to Elijah Poole, later famous as Elijah Muhammed. His birthday for years remained unknown, as he claimed it for years ranging from 1910 to 1918, only a few years before his death, the date of Sun Ras birth was still a mystery. Jim Macnies notes for Blue Delight said that Sun Ra was believed to be about 75 years old, but Szwed was able to uncover a wealth of information about his early life and confirmed a birth date of May 22,1914. As a child, Herman was a skilled pianist, by the age of 11 or 12, he was composing and sight reading music. Birmingham was an important stop for touring musicians and he saw famous musicians such as Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, and Fats Waller, along with others who were quite talented but never made the big time. Sun Ra once said, The world let down a lot of good musicians, by his mid-teens, Blount was performing semi-professionally as a solo pianist, or as a member of various ad hoc jazz and R&B groups. Though deeply religious, his family was not formally associated with any Christian church or sect, Blount had few or no close friends in high school but was remembered as kind-natured and quiet, an honor roll student, and a voracious reader. He took advantage of the Black Masonic Lodge as one of the few places in Birmingham where African Americans had unlimited access to books and its collection on Freemasonry and other esoteric concepts made a strong impression on him. By his teens, Blount suffered from cryptorchidism and it left him with a nearly constant discomfort that sometimes flared into severe pain. Szwed suggests that Blount felt shame about it and the condition contributed to his isolation, in 1934 Blount was offered his first full-time musical job by Ethel Harper—his biology teacher from the high school, who had organized a band to pursue a career as a singer
8.
Marshall Allen
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Marshall Belford Allen is an American free jazz and avant-garde jazz alto saxophone player. He also performs on flute, oboe, piccolo, and EVI, Allen is best known for his work with eccentric keyboardist/bandleader Sun Ra, having recorded and performed mostly in this context since the late 1950s, and having led Sun Ras Arkestra since 1993. Critic Jason Ankeny describes Marshall as one of the most distinctive, Marshall Allen was born in Louisville, Kentucky. During the Second World War he enlisted in the 92nd Infantry Division and was stationed in France, Allen studied alto saxophone in Paris and played in Europe with Art Simmons and James Moody. He is best known for his mastery of pyrotechnic effects on the alto - he has said that he wanted to play on a sound basis rather than on chords. Critic Scott Yanow has described Allens playing as Johnny Hodges from another dimension, since the departure of Sun Ra and John Gilmore, Allen has led the Arkestra, and has recorded two albums as their bandleader. In May 2004, Allen celebrated his 80th birthday on stage with the Arkestra, Allen gave another performance on his birthday in 2008 at Sullivan Hall in New York City. With Dave Soldier The Eighth Hour of Amduat Official website of the Sun Ra Arkestra under the direction of Marshall Allen Marshall Allen discography, forum, and marketplace at Discogs
9.
Jazz by Sun Ra
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Jazz By Sun Ra is the debut album to be released by Sun Ra. The record label for the first pressing says 07-12-56, presumably when it was recorded, the LP originally appeared on Tom Wilsons short-lived Transition Records. In the mid-1960s it was purchased by Delmark Records owner Bob Koester, when originally released, it came with an extensive booklet featuring words and photos of Sun Ra and his Arkestra. The LP featured original compositions by Sun Ra along with one by Arkestral bassist Richard Evans, another composition by Arkestra member Julian Priester has been included in reissues from the session, and additional unreleased tracks are known to survive. Earlier home recordings by Ra, including one dating from 1948 or 1949, were released with tracks from 1973 on the album Deep Purple
10.
The Nubians of Plutonia
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The Nubians of Plutonia is an album recorded by Sun Ra and his Myth Science Arkestra c.1958 -1959 and released c.1966 on his own Saturn label. Originally released in a blank sleeve under the title The Lady With The Golden Stockings, the album had gained its current title, in common with most releases by Sun Ra at the time, the record was printed in extremely limited numbers and primarily available at concerts and mail-order. The record was reissued by Impulse. in 1974, and on CD by Evidence in 1993, backed with the contemporaneous album Angels, Evidence an Arkestra moving into ever looser, more abstract ground. The percussion becomes more varied and moves closer to the foreground. The Golden Lady seduces with a swaying groove created by a combination of parts, hi-hat, cow bell, wood blocks, rolling floor toms. Ra then sets up a melodic theme, and then the Arkestra proceeds to weave a series of jaunty. Nubia, Africa and Aiethopia continue this excursion into more mystical, the Arkestra utilizes the same ominous, simmering percussion beds, now augmented by more exotic instruments like Pat Patricks space lute, which gives a playfully sinister sound to Africa. This powerful, multi-faceted music is a place to start if you are just beginning to travel with Sun Ra. Mathew Wuethrich All songs were written by Sun Ra, recorded in rehearsal, Chicago, either 1958 or 1959. Lucious Randolph recalled recording Aiethopia in a club with bad acoustics, the mike was on the other end
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