Reggie Workman
Reginald "Reggie" Workman is an American avant-garde jazz and hard bop double bassist, recognized for his work with both John Coltrane and Art Blakey. Workman was a member of jazz groups led by Roy Haynes, Wayne Shorter and Red Garland. In 1961, Workman joined the John Coltrane Quartet, he was present for the saxophonist's Live at the Village Vanguard sessions, recorded with a second bassist on the 1961 album, Olé Coltrane. After a European tour, Workman left Coltrane's group at the end of the year. Workman played with James Moody, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, Yusef Lateef, Pharoah Sanders, Herbie Mann and Thelonious Monk, he has recorded with Lee Morgan and David Murray. Workman, with pianist Tommy Flanagan and drummer Joe Chambers, formed The Super Jazz Trio in 1978, he is a professor at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in New York City, is a member of the group, Trio 3, with Oliver Lake and Andrew Cyrille. Workman has been a resident of New Jersey. 1977: Conversation 1978: The Super Jazz Trio 1979: Something Tasty 1980: The Standard 1986: Synthesis 1987: Gaia 1989: Images 1993.
Reminiscin' With Billy Harper Capra Black With Andrew Hill Grass Roots With Takehiro Honda Jodo With Freddie Hubbard Hub-Tones Here to Stay With Bobby Hutcherson Medina Patterns With Elvin Jones Brother John With Clifford Jordan Hello, Hank Jones With Duke Jordan Flight to Jordan With Oliver Lake Again and Again Edge-ing Live in Willisau Encounter Open Ideas Time Being At This Time Refraction – Breakin' Glass Wiring With Yusef Lateef 1984 Psychicemotus A Flat, G Flat and C With Booker Little Booker Little and Friend with Herbie Mann Our Mann Flute Impressions of the Middle East A Mann & A Woman with Tamiko Jones The Beat Goes On The Wailing Dervishes With Ken McIntyre Home With Roscoe Mitchell In Walked Buckner With New York Art Quartet Mohawk With Dave Pike It's Time for Dave Pike With Pharoah Sanders Karma With Wayne Shorter Night Dreamer JuJu Adam's Apple With Sonny Simmons American Jungle With Archie Shepp Archie Shepp – Bill Dixon Quartet The Magic of Ju-Ju With Horace Tapscott Aiee!
The Phantom With Charles Tolliver Live at the Loosdrecht Jazz Festival Impact With Mal Waldron Up Popped the Devil Breaking New Ground Mal Waldron Plays Eric Satie You and the Night and the Music The Git Go - Live at the Village Vanguard The Seagulls of Kristiansund The Super Quartet Live at Sweet Basil Crowd Scene Where Are You? My Dear Family With Cedar Walton Soul Cycle With Tyrone Washington Natural Essence With Richard Williams New Horn in Town With Alice Coltrane Transfiguration, Live With Mulgrew Miller Trio Transition Trio Transition with Special Guest Oliver Lake Reggie Workman's official website; the New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music
George Lewis (trombonist)
George Emanuel Lewis is an American composer, electronic performer, installation artist, trombone player, scholar in the fields of improvisation and experimental music. He has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians since 1971 and is a pioneer of computer music. Born in Chicago, Lewis graduated from Yale University in 1974 with a degree in philosophy. In the 1980s, he succeeded Rhys Chatham as the music director of The Kitchen. Since 2004, he has served as Edward H. Case Professor of American Music at Columbia University in New York City, where he is now Vice-Chair of the Department of Music, he taught at the University of California, San Diego. In 2002, Lewis received a MacArthur Fellowship, he has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a United States Artists Fellowship, the Alpert Award in the Arts, the American Musicological Society's Music in American Culture Award in 2009. He became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2015, a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy in 2016, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2018.
He has recorded or performed with Anthony Braxton, Anthony Davis, Bertram Turetzky, Conny Bauer, Count Basie, David Behrman, David Murray, Derek Bailey, Douglas Ewart, Evan Parker, Fred Anderson, Frederic Rzewski, Gil Evans, Han Bennink, Irène Schweizer, J. D. Parran, James Newton, Joel Ryan, Joëlle Léandre, John Zorn, Karl E. H. Seigfried, Laurie Anderson, Leroy Jenkins, Marina Rosenfeld, Michel Portal, Misha Mengelberg, Miya Masaoka, Muhal Richard Abrams, Nicole Mitchell, Richard Teitelbaum, Roscoe Mitchell, Sam Rivers, Steve Lacy, Wadada Leo Smith, he was a sometime member of Musica Elettronica Viva, the Globe Unity Orchestra, the ICP Orchestra. Lewis has long been active in creating and performing with interactive computer systems, most notably his software called Voyager, which "listens to" and reacts to live performers. Between 1988 and 1990, Lewis collaborated with video artist Don Ritter to create performances of interactive music and interactive video controlled by Lewis's improvised trombone.
Lewis and Ritter performed at venues in North America and Europe, including Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, Verona Jazz Festival, Art Institute of Chicago, The Kitchen, New Music America 1989, The Alternative Museum, A Space, the MIT Media Lab. In 2008, Lewis published a book-length history of the AACM titled A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music; the book received the 2009 American Book Award. Lewis has received three honorary degrees: Doctor of Music from the University of Edinburgh in 2015. In 1992, Lewis collaborated with Canadian artist Stan Douglas on the video installation Hors-champs, featured at documenta 9 in Kassel, Germany; the installation features Lewis in an improvisation of Albert Ayler's "Spirits Rejoice" with musicians Douglas Ewart, Kent Carter and Oliver Johnson. Lewis is featured extensively in Unyazi of the Bushveld, a documentary about the first symposium of electronic music held in Africa, directed by Aryan Kaganof.
Lewis gave an invited keynote lecture and performance at NIME-06, the sixth international conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression, held at IRCAM, Paris, in June 2006. In 2008 his work "Morning Blues for Yvan" was featured on the compilation album Crosstalk: American Speech Music produced by Mendi + Keith Obadike. Solo Trombone Record George Lewis George Lewis Douglas Ewart Homage to Charles Parker Chicago Slow Dance Yankees Change of Season Dutch Masters Sachse, Joe: Berlin Tango News for Lulu with Zorn and Bill Frisell More News for Lulu with Zorn and Frisell Voyager Changing With the Times The Usual Turmoil and Other Duets Conversations Endless Shout The Shadowgraph Series: Compositions for Creative From Saxophone & Trombone Streaming SoundDance George Lewis: Les Exercices Spirituels Sequel Sonic Rivers Elements of Surprise with Anthony Braxton Company, Fables with Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Dave Holland Hook, Drift & Shuffle with Parker, Barry Guy and Paul Lytton Donaueschingen 1976 with Braxton Slideride with Ray Anderson, Craig Harris, Gary Valente Triangulation with Vinny Golia and Bertram Turetzky The Storming of the Winter Palace with Irene Schweizer, Maggie Nicols, Joëlle Léandre, Günter Sommer Transatlantic Visions with Joëlle Léandre Sour Mash with Marina Rosenfeld Metamorphic Rock with Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra With Anthony Braxton The Montreux/Berlin Concerts Creative Orchestra Music 1976 Creative Orchestra 1978 Four Compositions 1983 Dortmund 1976 Ensemble 1988 News from the'70s Quintet 1977 With Anthony Davis Episteme Hemispheres
Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, developed from roots in blues and ragtime. Jazz is seen by many as "America's classical music". Since the 1920s Jazz Age, jazz has become recognized as a major form of musical expression, it emerged in the form of independent traditional and popular musical styles, all linked by the common bonds of African-American and European-American musical parentage with a performance orientation. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes and response vocals and improvisation. Jazz has roots in West African cultural and musical expression, in African-American music traditions including blues and ragtime, as well as European military band music. Intellectuals around the world have hailed jazz as "one of America's original art forms"; as jazz spread around the world, it drew on national and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass-band marches, French quadrilles, biguine and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation.
In the 1930s arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz, a hard-swinging, improvisational style and Gypsy jazz were the prominent styles. Bebop emerged in the 1940s, shifting jazz from danceable popular music toward a more challenging "musician's music", played at faster tempos and used more chord-based improvisation. Cool jazz developed near the end of the 1940s, introducing calmer, smoother sounds and long, linear melodic lines; the 1950s saw the emergence of free jazz, which explored playing without regular meter and formal structures, in the mid-1950s, hard bop emerged, which introduced influences from rhythm and blues and blues in the saxophone and piano playing. 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 music's rhythms, electric instruments, amplified stage sound. In the early 1980s, a commercial form of jazz fusion called smooth jazz became successful, garnering significant radio airplay.
Other styles and genres abound in the 2000s, such as Afro-Cuban jazz. The origin of the word "jazz" has resulted in considerable research, its history is well documented, it is believed to be related to "jasm", a slang term dating back to 1860 meaning "pep, energy". The earliest written record of the word is in a 1912 article in the Los Angeles Times in which a minor league baseball pitcher described a pitch which he called a "jazz ball" "because it wobbles and you can't do anything with it"; the use of the word in a musical context was documented as early as 1915 in the Chicago Daily Tribune. Its first documented use in a musical 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, they called it'J-A-Z-Z', it wasn't called that. It was spelled'J-A-S-S'; that was dirty, if you knew what it was, you wouldn't say it in front of ladies."
The American Dialect Society named it the Word of the Twentieth Century. Jazz is difficult to define because it encompasses a wide range of music spanning a period of over 100 years, from ragtime to the rock-infused fusion. Attempts have been made to define jazz from the perspective of other musical traditions, such as European music history or African music, but critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt argues that its terms of reference and its definition should be broader, defining jazz as a "form of art music which originated in the United States through the confrontation of the Negro with European music" and arguing that it differs from European music in that jazz has a "special relationship to time defined as'swing'". Jazz involves "a spontaneity and vitality of musical production in which improvisation plays a role" and contains a "sonority and manner of phrasing which mirror the individuality of the performing jazz musician". In the opinion of Robert Christgau, "most of us would say that inventing meaning while letting loose is the essence and promise of jazz".
A broader definition that encompasses different eras of jazz has been proposed by Travis Jackson: "it is music that includes qualities such as swing, group interaction, developing an'individual voice', being open to different musical possibilities". Krin Gibbard argued that "jazz is a construct" which designates "a number of musics with enough in common to be understood as part of a coherent tradition". In contrast to commentators who have argued for excluding types of jazz, musicians are sometimes reluctant to define the music they play. Duke Ellington, one of jazz's most famous figures, said, "It's all music." Although jazz is considered difficult to define, in part because it contains many subgenres, improvisation is one of its defining elements. The centrality of improvisation is attributed to the influence of earlier forms of music such as blues, a form of folk music which arose in part from the work songs and field hollers of African-American slaves on plantations; these work songs were structured around a repetitive call-and-response pattern, but early blues was improvisational.
Classical music performance is evaluated more by its fidelity to the musical score, with less attention given to interpretation and accompaniment. The classical performer's goal is to play the composition. In contrast, jazz is characterized by the product of i
Tabla
The tabla is a membranophone percussion instrument originating from the Indian subcontinent, consisting of a pair of drums, used in traditional, classical and folk music. It has been a important instrument in Hindustani classical music since the 18th century, remains in use in India, Afghanistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka; the name tabla comes from tabl, the Persian and Arabic word for drum. However, the ultimate origin of the musical instrument is contested by scholars, some tracing it to West Asia, others tracing it to the evolution of indigenous musical instruments of the Indian subcontinent; some famous Tablists include Ustad Zakir Hussain, Ustad Allah Rakha Qureshi, Pandit Yogesh Samsi, Pandit Swapan Chaudhary, Pandit Suresh Talwalkar and Pandit Anindo Chatterjee. The tabla consists of two single headed, barrel shaped small drums of different size and shapes: daya called dahina meaning right, baya called bahina meaning left; the daya tabla is played by the musician's right hand, is about 15 centimetres in diameter and 25 centimetres high.
The baya tabla is a bit bigger and deep kettledrum shaped, about 20 centimetres in diameter and 25 centimetres in height. Each is made of hollowed out wood or clay or brass, the daya drum laced with hoops and wooden dowels on its sides; the dowels and hoops are used to tighten the tension of the membrane. The daya is tuned to the ground note of the raga called Sa; the baya construction and tuning is about a fifth to an octave below that of the daya drum. The musician uses his hand's heel pressure to change the pitch and tone colour of each drum during a performance; the playing technique is complex and involves extensive use of the fingers and palms in various configurations to create a wide variety of different sounds and rhythms, reflected in mnemonic syllables. In the Hindustani style tabla is played in two ways: band khula bol. In the sense of classical music it is termed "tali" and "khali", it is one of the main qawali instrument used by Sufi musicians of Bangladesh and India. The tabla is an important instrument in the bhakti devotional traditions of Hinduism and Sikhism, such as during bhajan and kirtan singing.
The history of tabla is unclear, there are multiple theories regarding its origins. There are two groups of theories, one that traces its origins to Muslim and Moghul invaders of the Indian subcontinent, the other traces it to indigenous origins. One example of the latter theory is carvings in Bhaje caves. However, clear pictorial evidence of the drum emerges only from about 1745, the drum continued to develop in shape until the early 1800s; the first theory common during the colonial period scholarship, is based on the etymological links of the word tabla to Arabic word tabl which means "drum". Beyond the root of the word, this proposal points to the abundant documentary evidence that the Muslim armies, as they invaded the Indian subcontinent, had hundreds of soldiers on camels and horses carrying paired drums, they would beat these drums to scare the residents, the non-Muslim armies, their elephants and chariots, that they intended to attack. Babur, the Turk founder of the Mughal Empire, is known to have used these paired drums carrying battalions in their military campaigns.
However, this theory has had the flaw that the war drums did not look or sound anything like tabla, they were large paired drums and were called naqqara. The second version of the Arab theory is that Amir Khusraw, a musician patronized by Sultan Alauddin Khalji invented the tabla when he cut an Awaj drum, which used to be hourglass shaped; this is, unlikely, as no painting or sculpture or document dated to his period supports it with evidence. If tabla had arrived, or had been invented under Arabic influence from the root word tabl, it would be in the list of musical instruments that were written down by Muslim historians, but such evidence is absent. For example, Abul Fazi included a long list of musical instruments in his Ain-i-akbari written in the time of the 16th century Mughal Emperor Akbar, the generous patron of music. Abul Fazi's list makes no mention of tabla; the third version of the Arab theory credits the invention of tabla to the 18th century musician, with a similar sounding name Amir Khusru, where he is suggested to have cut a Pakhawaj into two to create tabla.
This is not an unreasonable theory, miniature paintings of this era show instruments that sort of look like tabla, but this would mean that tabla emerged from within the Muslim community of Indian subcontinent and were not an Arabian import. However, scholars such as Neil Sorrell and Ram Narayan state that this legend of cutting a pakhawaj drum into two to make tabla drums "cannot be given any credence"; the Indian theory traces the origin of tabla to indigenous ancient civilization. This version states that this musical instrument acquired a new Arabic name during the Islamic rule, but it is an evolution of the ancient Indian puskara drums; the evidence of the hand held puskara is founded in many temple carvings, such as at the 6th and 7th century Muktesvara and Bhuvaneswara temples in India. These arts show drummers who are sitting, with two or three separate small drums, with their palm and fingers in a position as if they are playing those drums. However, it is not apparent in these carvings that those drums were made of the same material and skin, or played the same music, as the modern tabla.
The textual evidence for similar material and methods of construction as tabla comes from Sanskrit texts. The earliest discussion of tabla-like musical instrument building methods, including paste-patches
Herbie Hancock
Herbert Jeffrey Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and actor. Hancock started his career with Donald Byrd, he shortly thereafter joined the Miles Davis Quintet where he helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the post-bop sound. In the 1970s, Hancock experimented with jazz fusion and electro styles. Hancock's best-known compositions include "Cantaloupe Island", "Watermelon Man", "Maiden Voyage", "Chameleon", the singles "I Thought It Was You" and "Rockit", his 2007 tribute album River: The Joni Letters won the 2008 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, only the second jazz album to win the award, after Getz/Gilberto in 1965. Hancock was born in Chicago, the son of Winnie Belle, a secretary, Wayman Edward Hancock, a government meat inspector, his parents named him after actor Herb Jeffries. He attended the Hyde Park Academy. Like many jazz pianists, Hancock started with a classical music education, he studied from age seven, his talent was recognized early.
Considered a child prodigy, he played the first movement of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 26 in D Major, K. 537 at a young people's concert on February 5, 1952, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the age of 11. Through his teens, Hancock never developed his ear and sense of harmony, he was influenced by records of the vocal group the Hi-Lo's. He reported that:"...by the time I heard the Hi-Lo's, I started picking that stuff out. I could hear stuff and that's when I learned some much farther-out voicings – like the harmonies I used on Speak Like a Child – just being able to do that. I got that from Clare Fischer's arrangements for the Hi-Lo's. Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept...he and Bill Evans, Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that's where it came from." In 1960, he heard Chris Anderson play just once, begged him to accept him as a student. Hancock mentions Anderson as his harmonic guru. Hancock left Grinnell College, moved to Chicago and began working with Donald Byrd and Coleman Hawkins, during which period he took courses at Roosevelt University.
Byrd was attending the Manhattan School of Music in New York at the time and suggested that Hancock study composition with Vittorio Giannini, which he did for a short time in 1960. The pianist earned a reputation, played subsequent sessions with Oliver Nelson and Phil Woods, he recorded his first solo album Takin' Off for Blue Note Records in 1962. "Watermelon Man" was to provide Mongo Santamaría with a hit single, but more for Hancock, Takin' Off caught the attention of Miles Davis, at that time assembling a new band. Hancock was introduced to Davis by a member of the new band. Hancock received considerable attention. Davis sought out Hancock, whom he saw as one of the most promising talents in jazz; the rhythm section Davis organized was young but effective, comprising bassist Ron Carter, 17-year-old drummer Williams, Hancock on piano. After George Coleman and Sam Rivers each took a turn at the saxophone spot, the quintet gelled with Wayne Shorter on tenor saxophone; this quintet is regarded as one of the finest jazz ensembles yet.
While in Davis's band, Hancock found time to record dozens of sessions for the Blue Note label, both under his own name and as a sideman with other musicians such as Shorter, Grant Green, Bobby Hutcherson, Byrd, Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard. Hancock recorded several less-well-known but still critically acclaimed albums with larger ensembles – My Point of View, Speak Like a Child and The Prisoner featured flugelhorn, alto flute and bass trombone. 1963's Inventions and Dimensions was an album of entirely improvised music, teaming Hancock with bassist Paul Chambers and two Latin percussionists, Willie Bobo and Osvaldo "Chihuahua" Martinez. During this period, Hancock composed the score to Michelangelo Antonioni's film Blowup, the first of many film soundtracks he recorded in his career; as well as feature film soundtracks, Hancock recorded a number of musical themes used on American television commercials for such well known products as Pillsbury's Space Food Sticks, Standard Oil, Tab diet cola and Virginia Slims cigarettes.
Hancock wrote and conducted a spy type theme for a series of F. William Free commercials for Silva Thins cigarettes. Hancock liked it so much he wished to record it as a song but the ad agency would not let him, he rewrote the harmony and tone and recorded the piece as the track "He Who Lives in Fear" from his The Prisoner album of 1969. Davis had begun incorporating elements of rock and popular music into his recordings by the end of Hancock's tenure with the band. Despite some initial reluctance, Hancock began doubling on electric keyboards including the Fender Rhodes electric piano at Davis's insistence. Hancock adapted to the new instruments, which proved to be important in his future artistic endeavors. Under the pretext that he had returned late from a honeymoon in Brazil, Hancock was dismissed from Davis's band. In the summer of 1968 Hancock formed his own sextet. However, although Davis soon disbanded his quintet to search for a new sound, despite his departur
Joe McPhee
Joe McPhee is an American jazz multi-instrumentalist born in Miami, Florida, a player of tenor and soprano saxophone, the trumpet and valve trombone. McPhee grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York, is most notable for his free jazz work done from the late 1960s to the present day. McPhee was born in Miami, Florida, on November 3, 1939, he began. He played in various high school and military bands before starting his recording career, his first recording came in 1967, when he appeared on the Clifford Thornton album entitled Freedom and Unity. McPhee taught himself saxophone at the age of 32 after experiencing the music of John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, McPhee lectured on jazz music at Vassar College. In 1975, Werner Uehlinger started the Swiss label Hathut Records with the specific intent of showcasing McPhee's music. In the 1980s, McPhee met Pauline Oliveros, began studying her musical theories, worked with her Deep Listening Band, he has not yet signed with any major label in his native United States, was better known throughout Europe than his native country until the 1990s.
His 1996 album As Serious As Your Life, which takes its title from the jazz book by Val Wilmer, is "arguably the finest of his solo recordings", according to the AllMusic review. Jazz musicians with whom McPhee has recorded or performed include Ken Vandermark, Peter Brötzmann, Evan Parker, Mats Gustafsson, Jeb Bishop, The Thing, Clifton Hyde, Jérôme Bourdellon, Raymond Boni, Joe Giardullo. Since 1998, McPhee, Dominic Duval, Jay Rosen have performed and recorded as Trio X. In the 1990s Dominique Eade and McPhee had a jazz ensemble called Naima. McPhee has written reviews and commentary for Cadence. In 2005, McPhee was awarded the Resounding Vision Award by Nameless Sound. Underground Railroad Nation Time Black Magic Man At WBAI's Free Music Store, 1971 Trinity with Harold E. Smith and Mike Kull Pieces of Light with John Snyder The Willisau Concert featuring John Snyder and Makaya Ntshoko Tenor – rereleased as Tenor & Fallen Angels in 2000 Rotation Graphics Variations on a Blue Line Glasses MFG in Minnesota with Milo Fine and Steve Gnitka Old Eyes – rereleased as Old Eyes and Mysteries in 1992 Tales and Prophecies with André Jaume Topology Oleo – rereleased as Oleo & A Future Retrospective in 1993 Visitation with the Bill Smith Ensemble Songs and Dances with André Jaume and Raymond Boni Linear B Élan • Impulse with Daunik Lazro Impressions of Jimmy Giuffre Sweet Freedom - Now What? with Lisle Ellis and Paul Plimley McPhee/Parker/Lazro with Evan Parker and Daunik Lazro Common Threads A Meeting in Chicago with Ken Vandermark and Kent Kessler As Serious As Your Life Legend Street One Legend Street Two Inside Out with David Prentice Finger Wrigglers with Michael Bisio Specific Gravity with Joe Giardullo The Brass City with Jeb Bishop Chicago Tenor Duets with Evan Parker Zebulon with Michael Bisio The Dream Book with Dominic Duval Soprano In the Spirit No Greater Love Emancipation Proclamation: A Real Statement of Freedom with Hamid Drake Grand Marquis with Johnny McLellan Manhattan Tango with Jérôme Bourdellon Port of Saints with Michael Bisio, Raymond Boni and Dominic Duval Voices & Dreams with Raymond Boni Angels, Devils & Haints with Michael Bisio, Dominic Duval, Claude Tchamitian and Paul Rogers Mister Peabody Goes to Baltimore Remembrance with Michael Bisio, Raymond Boni and Paul Harding Tales Out of Time with Peter Brötzmann A Parallax View with Paul Hession Between with Sato Makoto Everything Happens for a Reason In Finland with Matthew Shipp and Dominic Duval Next To You with Raymond Boni, Daunik Lazro and Claude Tchamitchian Guts with Peter Brötzmann, Kent Kessler and Michael Zerang The Open Door with Dominic Duval Voices: 10 Improvisations with John Heward Red Morocco Tomorrow Came Today with Paal Nilssen-Love Alto Magic with Mikołaj Trzaska, Dominic Duval and Jay Rosen The Damage Is Done with Peter Brötzmann, Kent Kessler and Michael Zerang Blue Chicago Blues with Ingebrigt Håker Flaten Creole Gardens with Michael Zerang Brooklyn DNA with Ingebrigt Håker Flaten What/If/They Both Could Fly with Evan Parker Red Sky with Paal Nilssen-Love Sonic Elements Rapture The Watermelon Suite On Tour In Black and White Journey The Sugar Hill Suite Moods: Playing with the Elements Roulette at Location One Air: Above and Beyond (CIMP
Bill Laswell
William Otis Laswell is an American bass guitarist, record producer, record label owner. He has been involved in thousands of recordings with many collaborators from all over the world, his music draws from funk, world music, jazz and ambient styles. According to music critic Chris Brazier, "Laswell's pet concept is'collision music' which involves bringing together musicians from wildly divergent but complementary spheres and seeing what comes out." The credo of one record label run by Laswell which typifies much of his work is "Nothing Is True, Everything Is Permitted". Although his bands may be credited under the same name and feature the same roster of musicians, the styles and themes explored on different albums can vary dramatically. Material began as a noisy dance music band, but albums concentrated on hip hop, jazz, or spoken word readings by William S. Burroughs. Most versions of the band Praxis have included guitarist Buckethead, but they have explored different permutations on albums.
Laswell got his earliest professional experience as a bass guitarist in R&B and funk bands in Detroit and Ann Arbor, Michigan. He saw shows that combined genres, such as Iggy and the Stooges, MC5, Funkadelic, he was influenced by jazz musicians John Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Miles Davis. In the late 1970s Laswell moved to New York City, immersing himself in the thriving New York music scene, he moved into producer Giorgio Gomelsky's loft and became part of a group of musicians that would become the first version of Material. Material became the backing band for New York Gong; the band consisted of Laswell, keyboardist Michael Beinhorn, drummer Fred Maher. They were supplemented by guitarists Cliff Cultreri or Robert Quine, he worked with Brian Eno, Fred Frith, John Zorn, Daniel Ponce, Ginger Baker, Peter Brötzmann, Kip Hanrahan, Sonny Sharrock, with musicians in no wave, a genre that combined avant-garde jazz and punk. He met Jean Karakos, owner of Celluloid Records. Under the Material name Laswell became the de facto house producer for Celluloid until the label was sold in the 1980s.
He recorded music, experimental, combining jazz, pop, R&B, by musicians such as Whitney Houston, Sonny Sharrock, Archie Shepp, Henry Threadgill, the band Massacre with Fred Frith and Fred Maher. His association with Celluloid allowed his first forays into "collision music", a term coined by British writer Chris May of Black Music & Jazz Review. Recordings with the Golden Palominos and production on albums by Shango, Toure Kunda, Fela Kuti appeared on the label. Celluloid was an early advocate of hip hop, producing albums by Fab 5 Freddy, GrandMixer D. ST, Phase II, Afrika Bambaataa; the album World Destruction paired John Lydon with Afrika Bambaataa years before Aerosmith and Run–D. M. C. Collaborated on their rock/hip hop version of "Walk This Way". In 1982, Laswell released his solo debut album. A year he had a breakthrough with "Rockit", a song he co-wrote and produced for Herbie Hancock's album Future Shock, he played bass guitar and co-wrote other songs on the album, leading to collaborations with Hancock through the 2000s.
He won a Grammy Award for producing Sound-System. He became a member of the band Last Exit in 1986 with Peter Brötzmann, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Sonny Sharrock. Aside from one album that Laswell cobbled together in the studio, the band was a live one, showing up at gigs with no rehearsal; the first time the four members played together was on stage at their first show. Laswell produced albums for Sly and Robbie, Mick Jagger, PiL, Motörhead, Iggy Pop and Yoko Ono. Many of these bands afforded Laswell the opportunity to hire his working crew to record on more mainstream records. Sly and Robbie hired him to produce their 1985 album 1987 album Rhythm Killers. Chris Blackwell, founder of Island Records, gave him the opportunity to begin a label with the backing of Island, thus Axiom Records was started in 1990. In addition to albums by Material that included Sly and Robbie, William S. Burroughs, Bootsy Collins, Wayne Shorter, Bernie Worrell, he produced and released albums by Ginger Baker, Ronald Shannon Jackson, Sonny Sharrock, Nicky Skopelitis, Umar Bin Hassan.
Among the studio-based albums, Palestinian oud and violinist Simon Shaheen recorded an album of music by Egyptian composer Mohammed Abdel Wahab. Gambian virtuoso Foday Musa Suso recorded an album of dance music with his electric Kora, Turkish saz master Talip Oezkan recorded an album. Master Musicians of Jajouka recorded an album in their village in the Rif Mountains. There were albums by Mandinka and Fulani recorded at Suso's family compound in Gambia and Gnawa music from Morocco. Praxis featured guitarist Buckethead on Transmutation with Bootsy Collins, Bryan Mantia, Bernie Worrell, Afrika Baby Bam from the Jungle Brothers; the album blended funk heavy metal riffs with many tracks co-written by Laswell. The band spawned other releases, never with the same line-up, though consisting of the core trio of Laswell and Mantia. Funkcronomicon included released tracks by Praxis and Skopelitis and tracks with members of Parliament-Funkadelic. George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, the last recordings of Eddie Hazel are featured prominently.
The album includes Umar Bin Hassan, Abiodun Oyewole and Torture. Laswell remixed the Axiom catalog for Axiom Ambient, blending disparate tracks, releasing some of the music for Sample Material – International Free Zone, a sample library for other musicians to use as material. Subharmonic, conceived by Laswell and ex-Celluloid A&R Robert Soares, though not owned by Laswell
