1.
Moers Festival
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The Moers Festival is an international jazz festival in Moers, Germany, happening yearly every Whitsun. Many famous musicians have appeared there, including Fred Frith, David Murray, Cecil Taylor, Lester Bowie, Herbie Hancock, Abdullah Ibrahim, Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, and Jan Garbarek. Over the years the festivals music character has changed from free jazz to include world music. Today it includes all kinds of jazz-related music, though still with many experimental, the festival was founded in 1971 by Burkhard Hennen, as initiator and artistic director. The International New Jazz Festival Moers established itself quickly in the national and international jazz scene. In the early years it took place in the yard of the castle. Later, it moved to a park because of the growing audience. After a few years outdoors, it moved to a marquee where it remains now. In 1974 the Germany-based jazz record label Moers Music was created to document performances at the festival, in 1979 the festival was enlarged with several morning projects. The African Dance Night was added as an event in 1985. Well-known musicians such as Mory Kanté, Salif Keita, Cheb Mami, after the artistic director changed in 2005, the event was discontinued. In 2005, after 34 years as director, Burkhard Hennen handed the job over to Reiner Michalke. The festival is now officially named mœrs festival, with lowercase letters, due to financial crisis of the city the festival was shorted to only three days since 2011
2.
St. Matthews, South Carolina
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St. Matthews is a town in Calhoun County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 2,021 at the 2010 census, a decline from 2,107 in 2000 and it is the county seat of Calhoun County. St. Matthews is part of the Columbia, South Carolina Metropolitan Statistical Area, St. Matthews is located in the center of Calhoun County at 33°39′53″N 80°46′44″W. U. S. Route 601 passes through the town, leading northeast 51 miles to Camden, South Carolina Highway 6 crosses US601 in the center of town and leads west 7 miles to Interstate 26 and southeast 22 miles to Interstate 95 near Santee. According to the United States Census Bureau, St. Matthews has an area of 1.93 square miles, of which 1.92 square miles is land and 0.01 square miles. The population density was 1,091.1 people per square mile, there were 913 housing units at an average density of 472.8 per square mile. The racial makeup of the town was 37. 16% White,61. 46% African American,0. 05% Native American,0. 09% Asian,0. 14% Pacific Islander,0. 38% from other races, and 0. 71% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1. 33% of the population,30. 6% of all households were made up of individuals and 14. 9% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.39 and the family size was 3.00. In the town, the population was out with 23. 5% under the age of 18,6. 2% from 18 to 24,23. 3% from 25 to 44,24. 0% from 45 to 64. The median age was 43 years, for every 100 females there were 72.8 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 66.3 males, the median income for a household in the town was $24,969, and the median income for a family was $36,250. Males had an income of $29,760 versus $21,311 for females. The per capita income for the town was $14,911, about 19. 5% of families and 24. 0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 32. 8% of those under age 18 and 21. 4% of those age 65 or over. Media related to St. Matthews, South Carolina at Wikimedia Commons Calhoun County Museum and Cultural Center Information about St. Matthews from the Calhoun County Chamber of Commerce
3.
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
4.
Blues
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Blues is a genre and musical form originated by African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the end of the 19th century. The genre developed from roots in African musical traditions, African-American work songs, spirituals, Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads. Blue notes, usually thirds or fifths flattened in pitch, are also a part of the sound. Blues shuffles or walking bass reinforce the trance-like rhythm and form a repetitive effect known as the groove, Blues as a genre is also characterized by its lyrics, bass lines, and instrumentation. Early traditional blues verses consisted of a single line repeated four times, Early blues frequently took the form of a loose narrative, often relating the troubles experienced in African-American society. Many elements, such as the format and the use of blue notes. The origins of the blues are closely related to the religious music of the Afro-American community. The first appearance of the blues is often dated to after the ending of slavery and, later and it is associated with the newly acquired freedom of the former slaves. Chroniclers began to report about blues music at the dawn of the 20th century, the first publication of blues sheet music was in 1908. Blues has since evolved from unaccompanied vocal music and oral traditions of slaves into a variety of styles and subgenres. Blues subgenres include country blues, such as Delta blues and Piedmont blues, as well as urban blues styles such as Chicago blues, World War II marked the transition from acoustic to electric blues and the progressive opening of blues music to a wider audience, especially white listeners. In the 1960s and 1970s, a form called blues rock evolved. The term blues may have come from blue devils, meaning melancholy and sadness, the phrase blue devils may also have been derived from Britain in the 1600s, when the term referred to the intense visual hallucinations that can accompany severe alcohol withdrawal. As time went on, the phrase lost the reference to devils, by the 1800s in the United States, the term blues was associated with drinking alcohol, a meaning which survives in the phrase blue law, which prohibits the sale of alcohol on Sunday. Though the use of the phrase in African-American music may be older, it has been attested to in print since 1912, in lyrics the phrase is often used to describe a depressed mood. The lyrics of traditional blues verses probably often consisted of a single line repeated four times. Two of the first published songs, Dallas Blues and Saint Louis Blues, were 12-bar blues with the AAB lyric structure. Handy wrote that he adopted this convention to avoid the monotony of lines repeated three times, the lines are often sung following a pattern closer to rhythmic talk than to a melody
5.
Electric blues
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Electric blues refers to any type of blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the late 1930s and John Lee Hooker. Their styles developed into West Coast blues, Detroit blues, and post-World War II Chicago blues, by the early 1950s, Little Walter was a featured soloist on blues harmonica or blues harp using a small hand-held microphone fed into a guitar amplifier. Although it took a longer, the electric bass guitar gradually replaced the stand-up bass by the early 1960s. Electric organs and especially keyboards later became used in electric blues. The blues, like jazz, probably began to be amplified in the late 1930s. After World War II, amplified blues music popular in American cities that had seen widespread African American migration, such as Chicago, Memphis, Detroit, St. Louis. The initial impulse was to be heard above the noise of lively rent parties, playing in small venues, electric blues bands tended to remain modest in size compared with larger jazz bands. In its early electric blues typically used amplified electric guitars, double bass, and harmonica played through a microphone. By the late 1940s several Chicago-based blues artists had begun to use amplification, including John Lee Williamson, early recordings in the new style were made in 1947 and 1948 by musicians such as Johnny Young, Floyd Jones, and Snooky Pryor. The format was perfected by Muddy Waters, who utilized various small groups that provided a strong rhythm section and his I Cant Be Satisfied was followed by a series of ground-breaking recordings. Chicago blues is influenced to an extent by the Mississippi blues style. Howlin Wolf, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon and Jimmy Reed were all born in Mississippi and moved to Chicago during the Great Migration. In addition to guitar, harmonica, and a rhythm section of bass and drums. Lenoirs also used saxophones, largely as a supporting instrument, Muddy Waters and Elmore James were known for their innovative use of slide electric guitar. Howlin Wolf and Muddy Waters were for their deep, gravelly voices, bassist and composer Willie Dixon played a major role on the Chicago blues scene. He composed and wrote many standard blues songs of the period, such as Hoochie Coochie Man, I Just Want to Make Love to You and, Wang Dang Doodle, Spoonful and Back Door Man for Howlin Wolf. Most artists of the Chicago blues style recorded for the Chicago-based Chess Records and Checker Records labels, there were also smaller blues labels in this era including Vee-Jay Records and J. O. B
6.
Gibson Byrdland
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The Byrdland is an electric guitar made by Gibson. Its name derives from the names of guitarists Billy Byrd and Hank Garland for whom Gibson originally custom-built the guitar, the Byrdland is the first of Gibsons Thinline series. Many guitarists did not desire the bulk of an archtop guitar such as Gibsons L-5. The Byrdland, with its depth of 2¼-in, is thinner than the L-5s 3⅜ depth. Gibsons president, Ted McCarty, sought opinions and ideas about new products, the suggestions from Byrd and Garland led to the development of the Byrdland. The Byrdland, first made in 1955, is essentially a custom-built, thinner, later, the two specified a shorter scale and narrower-than-standard neck. Guitarists who had an opportunity to play Gibson samples liked the Byrdlands short scale neck, the Byrdland then became a regular production instrument. One thing which hampered the instruments popularity in the years was the narrow neck width. Gibson developed the ES-350T from the Byrdland using less-costly hardware and detailing, from 1955 to 1960, Gibson made the Byrdland with a rounded Venetian cutaway. From 1961 to 1968, it used the sharp-edged Florentine cutaway, the model was in production from 1955 through early 1969 with the narrow nut width. In 1969, the nut width was changed to the standard 1 11/16, in the mid-1960s, guitarist Ted Nugent began using a Byrdland, an unusual choice considering Nugents high-volume style of music. The hollow-bodied design of the guitar caused feedback at higher levels of gain and volume, making it impractical for hard rock, Nugent, however, controlled this feedback and incorporated it into his playing. British guitar player John McLaughlin used a sunburst Byrdland with a scalloped fretboard, other famous Byrdland players are Anthony Wilson, Louie Shelton, David T. Walker and James Blood Ulmer. The guitar is available as part of Gibsons Custom Series and is made with the Florentine cutaway. In 1976 only, Gibson offered a version, but made fewer than 20. The famous jazz club, Birdland, filed a lawsuit against Gibson over the name, the court dismissed the suit when Gibson showed that the name was made up from the names of two people
7.
Charles Burnham (musician)
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Charles Burnham is an American violinist and composer. He has a highly imaginative style that crosses genres, including bluegrass, delta punk, free jazz, blues, classical. He often performs with a wah-wah pedal and he initially became renowned for his work on James Blood Ulmers Odyssey album. The musicians on that later performed and recorded as Odyssey the Band. He was also a member of the String Trio of New York, and currently plays in the 52nd Street Blues Project, Hidden City, We Free StRings, Improvising Chamber Ensemble and he played a musician in the film Junior. He played on the soundtracks for Northfork, Leonard Cohen, Im Your Man, and an episode of the Backyardigans
8.
Soul jazz
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Soul jazz is a development of jazz incorporating strong influences from blues, soul, gospel and rhythm and blues in music for small groups, often an organ trio featuring a Hammond organ. Soul jazz is often associated with hard bop, “Hard bop was an “opening out” in many directions. Gridley, writing for the All Music Guide to Jazz, explains that soul jazz more specifically refers to music with an earthy, bluesy melodic concept and repetitive, dance-like rhythms. Note that some listeners make no distinction between soul-jazz and funky hard bop, and many dont consider soul-jazz to be continuous with hard bop. Roy Carr describes soul jazz as an outgrowth of hard bop, and soul appearing in a jazz context as early as the mid-1950s to describe gospel-informed, down-home, call-and-response blues. Carr also notes the influence of Ray Charles small group recordings with Horace Silver, Art Blakey, Cannonball Adderley and Milt Jackson. ”“F. Scott Fitzgerald famously dubbed the 1920’s the Jazz Age. ”Soul jazz developed in the late 1950s. Cannonball Adderley noted, We were pressured quite heavily by Riverside Records when they discovered there was a word called soul and we became, from an image point of view, soul jazz artists. They kept promoting us that way and I kept deliberately fighting it, while soul jazz was most popular during the mid-to-late 1960s, many soul jazz performers, and elements of the music, remain popular. The Jazz Crusaders, for example, evolved from jazz to soul music. Carr places David Sanborn and Maceo Parker in a line of alto saxophonists that includes Earl Bostic and Tab Smith, with Adderley, followed by Lou Donaldson, as the strongest links in the chain. Les McCann and Eddie Harriss album Swiss Movement was a hit record, as was the accompanying single Compared to What, list of soul-jazz musicians Category, Soul-jazz musicians Soul jazz at AllMusic Soul-Jazz, Where Jazz, Blues And Gospel Meet at NPR Music
9.
Pittsburgh
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Pittsburgh is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States, and is the county seat of Allegheny County. The city proper has a population of 304,391. The metropolitan population of 2,353,045 is the largest in both the Ohio Valley and Appalachia, the second-largest in Pennsylvania, and the 26th-largest in the U. S. The city features 30 skyscrapers, two inclines, a fortification and the Point State Park at the confluence of the rivers. Aside from steel, Pittsburgh has led in manufacturing of aluminum, glass, shipbuilding, petroleum, foods, sports, transportation, computing, autos, and electronics. For part of the 20th century, Pittsburgh was behind only New York and Chicago in corporate headquarters employment, Americas 1980s deindustrialization laid off area blue-collar workers and thousands of downtown white-collar workers when the longtime Pittsburgh-based world headquarters moved out. The area has served also as the federal agency headquarters for cyber defense, software engineering, robotics, energy research. The area is home to 68 colleges and universities, including research and development leaders Carnegie Mellon University, the region is a hub for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, sustainable energy, and energy extraction. Pittsburgh was named in 1758 by General John Forbes, in honor of British statesman William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham. The current pronunciation, which is unusual in English speaking countries, is almost certainly a result of a printing error in some copies of the City Charter of March 18,1816. The error was repeated commonly enough throughout the rest of the 19th century that the pronunciation was lost. After a public campaign the original spelling was restored by the United States Board on Geographic Names in 1911. The area of the Ohio headwaters was long inhabited by the Shawnee, the first known European to enter the region was the French explorer/trader Robert de La Salle from Quebec during his 1669 expedition down the Ohio River. European pioneers, primarily Dutch, followed in the early 18th century, Michael Bezallion was the first to describe the forks of the Ohio in a 1717 manuscript, and later that year European fur traders established area posts and settlements. In 1749, French soldiers from Quebec launched an expedition to the forks to unite Canada with French Louisiana via the rivers, during 1753–54, the British hastily built Fort Prince George before a larger French force drove them off. The French built Fort Duquesne based on LaSalles 1669 claims, the French and Indian War, the North American front of the Seven Years War, began with the future Pittsburgh as its center. British General Edward Braddock was dispatched with Major George Washington as his aide to take Fort Duquesne, the British and colonial force were defeated at Braddocks Field. General John Forbes finally took the forks in 1758, Forbes began construction on Fort Pitt, named after William Pitt the Elder while the settlement was named Pittsborough
10.
Columbus, Ohio
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Columbus is the capital and largest city of the U. S. state of Ohio. It is the 15th-largest city in the United States, with a population of 850,106 as of 2015 estimates and this makes Columbus the fourth-most populous state capital in the United States, and the third-largest city in the Midwestern United States. It is the city of the Columbus, Ohio, Metropolitan Statistical Area. With a population of 2,021,632, it is Ohios third-largest metropolitan area, Columbus is the county seat of Franklin County. The city proper has also expanded and annexed portions of adjoining Delaware County, named for explorer Christopher Columbus, the city was founded in 1812 at the confluence of the Scioto and Olentangy rivers, and assumed the functions of state capital in 1816. As of 2013, the city has the headquarters of five corporations in the U. S, fortune 500, Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, American Electric Power, L Brands, Big Lots, and Cardinal Health. In 2012, Columbus was ranked in BusinessWeeks 50 best cities in America. In 2013, Forbes gave Columbus an A rating as one of the top cities for business in the U. S. and later that included the city on its list of Best Places for Business. Columbus was also ranked as the No.1 up-and-coming tech city in the nation by Forbes in 2008, and the city was ranked a top-ten city by Relocate America in 2010. In 2007, fDi Magazine ranked the city no.3 in the U. S. for cities of the future, and the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium was rated no.1 in 2009 by USA Travel Guide. The area including modern-day Columbus once comprised the Ohio Country, under the control of the French colonial empire through the Viceroyalty of New France from 1663 until 1763. In the 18th century, European traders flocked to the area, the area found itself frequently caught between warring factions, including American Indian and European interests. In the 1740s, Pennsylvania traders overran the territory until the French forcibly evicted them, in the early 1750s, the Ohio Company sent George Washington to the Ohio Country to survey. Fighting for control of the territory in the French and Indian War became part of the international Seven Years War, during this period, the region routinely suffered turmoil, massacres, and battles. The 1763 Treaty of Paris ceded the Ohio Country to the British Empire, after the American Revolution, the Ohio Country became part of the Virginia Military District, under the control of the United States. Colonists from the East Coast moved in, but rather finding a empty frontier, they encountered people of the Miami, Delaware, Wyandot, Shawnee. The tribes resisted expansion by the fledgling United States, leading to years of bitter conflict, the decisive Battle of Fallen Timbers resulted in the Treaty of Greenville, which finally opened the way for new settlements. By 1797, a surveyor from Virginia named Lucas Sullivant had founded a permanent settlement on the west bank of the forks of the Scioto River
11.
Art Blakey
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Arthur Art Blakey was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. He was known as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina after he became a Muslim, Blakey made a name for himself in the 1940s in the big bands of Fletcher Henderson and Billy Eckstine. He worked with bebop musicians Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, in the mid-1950s Horace Silver and Blakey formed the Jazz Messengers, a group that the drummer was associated with for the next 35 years. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz calls the Jazz Messengers the archetypal hard bop group of the late 50s and he was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame, the Grammy Hall of Fame, and was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005. He was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1991, Blakey was born on October 11,1919 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to a single mother, who died shortly after his birth. According to Leslie Gourses biography, the mother figure was Annie Peron. The stories related by family and friends, and by Blakey himself, are contradictory as to how long he spent with the Peron family, equally clouded by contradiction are stories of Blakeys early music career. He switched from piano to drums at a date in the early 1930s. An oft-quoted account of the event states that Blakey was forced at gunpoint to move from piano to drums by a club owner, the veracity of this story is called into question in the Gourse biography, as Blakey himself gives other accounts in addition to this one. The style Blakey assumed was the swing style of Chick Webb, Sid Catlett. From 1939-44, Blakey played with fellow Pittsburgh native Mary Lou Williams, while sources differ on the timing, most agree that he traveled to New York with Williams in 1942 before joining Henderson a year later. While playing in Hendersons band, Blakey got into a scuffle with Georgia police and he then led his own band at the Tic Toc Club in Boston for a short time. From 1944-47, Blakey worked with Billy Eckstines big band, after the Eckstine band broke up, Blakey states that he traveled to Africa for a time, In 1947, after the Eckstine band broke up, we -- took a trip to Africa. I was supposed to stay three months and I stayed two years because I wanted to live among the people and find out just how they lived. Blakey is known to have recorded in 1947,1948 and 1949, Blakey toured with Buddy DeFranco from 1951 to 1953 in a band that also included Kenny Drew. On December 17,1947, Blakey led a group known as Art Blakeys Messengers in his first recording session as a leader, the records were released as 78 rpm records at the time, and two of the songs were released on the New Sounds 10 LP compilation. The octet included Kenny Dorham, Sahib Shihab, Musa Kaleem, around the same time, or 1949 he led a big band called Seventeen Messengers. The band proved to be unstable and broke up soon after
12.
Joe Henderson
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Joe Henderson was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. In a career spanning more than 40 years Henderson played with many of the leading American players of his day and recorded for several prominent labels, including Blue Note. From a family with five sisters and nine brothers, Henderson was born in Lima, Ohio and he dedicated his first album to them for being so understanding and tolerant during his formative years. Early musical interests included drums, piano, saxophone and composition, according to Kenny Dorham, two local piano teachers who went to school with Hendersons brothers and sisters, Richard Patterson and Don Hurless, gave him a knowledge of the piano. He was particularly enamored of his brothers record collection and it seems that a hometown drummer, John Jarette, advised Henderson to listen to musicians like Lester Young, Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon and Charlie Parker. He also liked Flip Phillips, Lee Konitz and the Jazz at the Philharmonic recordings, however, Parker became his greatest inspiration. His first approach to the saxophone was under the tutelage of Herbert Murphy in high school, in this period of time, he wrote several scores for the school band and rock groups. By eighteen, Henderson was active on the Detroit jazz scene of the mid-1950s, in late 1959, he formed his first group. By the time he arrived at Wayne State University, he had transcribed and memorized so many Lester Young solos that his professors believed he had perfect pitch, classmates Yusef Lateef, Barry Harris and Donald Byrd undoubtedly provided additional inspiration. He also studied music at Kentucky State College, while in Paris, he met Kenny Drew and Kenny Clarke. Then he was sent to Maryland to conclude his draft, in 1962, he was finally discharged and promptly moved to New York. He first met trumpeter Kenny Dorham, a guidance for him. That very evening, they went see Dexter Gordon playing at Birdland, Henderson was asked by Gordon himself to play something with his rhythm section, needless to say, he happily accepted. Although Hendersons earliest recordings were marked by a strong influence, his playing encompassed not only the bebop tradition. He soon joined Horace Silvers band and provided a solo on the jukebox hit Song for My Father. After leaving Silvers band in 1966, Henderson resumed freelancing and also co-led a big band with Dorham and his arrangements for the band went unrecorded until the release of Joe Henderson Big Band in 1996. From 1963 to 1968, Henderson appeared on nearly 30 albums for Blue Note, the recordings ranged from relatively conservative hard-bop sessions to more explorative sessions. In 1967, there was an association with Miles Daviss quintet featuring Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter and Tony Williams
13.
Paul Bley
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Bley was a long-time resident of the United States. His music has been described by Ben Ratliff of the New York Times as deeply original, Bleys prolific output includes influential recordings from the 1950s through to his solo piano records of the 2000s. Bley was born in Montreal, Quebec, on November 10,1932 and his adoptive parents were Betty Marcovitch, an immigrant from Romania, and Joe Bley, owner of an embroidery factory. However, in 1993 a relative from the New York branch of the Bley family walked into Sweet Basil in NYC, at age five Bley studied violin, but at age seven he decided to switch to the piano. By eleven he received a diploma from the McGill Conservatory in Montreal. At thirteen he formed a band played at summer resorts in Ste. As a teenager he played with touring American bands, including Al Cowans Tramp Band, in 1949, when Bley was starting his senior year of high school, Oscar Peterson asked Bley to fulfill his contract at the Alberta Lounge in Montreal. The next year Bley left Montreal for New York City and Juilliard, in the 1951, on a return trip to Montreal, Bley organized the Jazz Workshop with a group of Montreal musicians. In 1953 Bley invited the bebop alto saxophonist and composer Charlie Parker to the Jazz Workshop, when Bley returned to New York City he hired Jackie McLean, Al Levitt and Doug Watkins to play an extended gig at the Copa City on Long Island. In 1953 the Shaw Agency booked Bley and his trio to tour with Lester Young, billed as Lester Young and he also performed with tenor saxophonist Ben Webster at that time. He then conducted for bassist Charles Mingus on the Charles Mingus, additionally, in 1953, Mingus produced the Introducing Paul Bley album for his label, Debut Records with Mingus on bass and drummer Art Blakey. In 1954 Bley received a call from Chet Baker inviting him to play opposite Bakers quintet at Jazz City in Hollywood and this was followed by a tour with singer Dakota Staton. Down Beat Magazine interviewed Bley for its July 13,1955 issue, the prescient title of the article read, PAUL BLEY, Jazz Is Just About Ready For Another Revolution. The article, reprinted in Down Beats 50th Anniversary edition, quoted Bley as saying, Id like to write longer forms, Bleys trio with Hal Gaylor and Lennie McBrowne toured across the US in 1956, including a club in Juarez. The tour culminated with an invitation to play a 1956 New Years Eve gig at Lucile Ball and Desi Arnezs home in Palm Springs. During the evening, Bley collapsed on the bandstand with a bleeding ulcer and Lucy immediately took him to the Palm Springs hospital where she proceeded to pay for all of his medical care. Bley, who had met Karen Borg while she was working as a girl at Birdland in NYC, married her after she came out to meet him in Los Angeles. In 1957 Bley stayed in Los Angeles where he had the band at the Hillcrest Club
14.
Rashied Ali
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Rashied Ali, born Robert Patterson was an American free jazz and avant-garde jazz drummer best known for playing with John Coltrane in the last years of Coltranes life. Patterson was born and grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, his family was musical and his brother, Muhammad Ali, is also a drummer, who played with Albert Ayler, among others. Ali, along with his father and brother, converted to Islam, starting off as a pianist he eventually took up the drums, via trumpet and trombone. He joined the United States Army, and played with military bands during the Korean War, after his military service he returned home and studied with Philly Joe Jones. Ali moved to New York in 1963 and worked in groups with Bill Dixon and Paul Bley. In addition, Ali was scheduled to be the drummer, alongside Elvin Jones, on John Coltranes landmark free jazz album Ascension. Coltrane did not replace him, and settled for one drummer, Ali began to record with Coltrane from Meditations in November 1965 onwards. Among his credits are the last recorded work of John Coltranes life and Interstellar Space, Ali became important in stimulating the most avant-garde kinds of jazz activities. Following Coltranes death Ali played with his widow, Alice, and during the early 1970s, he ran Alis Alley and he spent some time as a visiting artist at Wesleyan University, sponsored by Clifford Thornton. Ali also briefly formed a project called Purple Trap with Japanese experimental guitarist Keiji Haino. Their double-CD album, Decided. Already the Motionless Heart of Tranquility, in the 1980s, he was member of Phalanx, a group with guitarist James Blood Ulmer, tenor saxophonist George Adams, and bassist Sirone. From 1997 –2003 he played extensively with Tisziji Munoz, in a group usually also included Pharoah Sanders. In the last years of his life, Rashied Ali led his own eponymous quintet, a double CD entitled Judgment Day was recorded in February 2005 and features Jumaane Smith on trumpet, Lawrence Clark on tenor sax, Greg Murphy on piano and Joris Teepe on bass. This album was recorded at Alis own Survival Studio, which has been in existence since the 1970s, in addition to his performance activities Ali served as mentor to numerous young drummers including Matt Smith. In 2007, Ali recorded Going to the Ritual in duo with bassist/violinist Henry Grimes, Ali and Grimes also played five duo concerts together between 2007 and 2009, and a sixth concert in June 2007 with pianist Marilyn Crispell. Ali is the drummer on Azar Lawrences album Mystic Journey, recorded in April 2009. Rashied Ali died at age 76 in a Manhattan hospital after suffering a heart attack and he is survived by wife Patricia and three children. Y. 2009 – Eddie Jefferson at Alis Alley with Eddie Jefferson 2009 – Configurations,2010 – Spirits Aloft with bassist Henry Grimes With Gary Bartz Home
15.
Ornette Coleman
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Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer. He was one of the innovators of the free jazz movement of the 1960s. His Broadway Blues has become a standard and has cited as a key work in the free jazz movement. He was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1994 and his album Sound Grammar received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for music. Coleman was born in 1930 in Fort Worth, Texas, where he was also raised and he attended I. M. Terrell High School, where he participated in band until he was dismissed for improvising during The Washington Post. He began performing R&B and bebop initially on tenor saxophone, and started a band, the Jam Jivers, with some fellow students including Prince Lasha and Charles Moffett. Seeking a way to work his way out of his town, he took a job in 1949 with a Silas Green from New Orleans traveling show and then with touring rhythm. After a show in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, he was assaulted and he switched to alto saxophone, which remained his primary instrument, first playing it in New Orleans after the Baton Rouge incident. He then joined the band of Pee Wee Crayton and travelled with them to Los Angeles and he worked at various jobs, including as an elevator operator, while continuing to pursue his musical career. From the beginning of his career, Colemans music and playing were in many ways unorthodox and his raw, highly vocalized sound and penchant for playing in the cracks of the scale led many Los Angeles jazz musicians to regard Colemans playing as out-of-tune. He sometimes had difficulty finding like-minded musicians with whom to perform, nevertheless, pianist Paul Bley was an early supporter and musical collaborator. In 1958, Coleman led his first recording session for Contemporary, the session also featured trumpeter Don Cherry, drummer Billy Higgins, bassist Don Payne and Walter Norris on piano. 1959 was a productive year for Coleman. His last release on Contemporary was Tomorrow Is the Question, a quartet album, with Shelly Manne on drums, and excluding the piano, which he would not use again until the 1990s. Next Coleman brought double bassist Charlie Haden – one of a handful of his most important collaborators – into a group with Cherry. He signed a contract with Atlantic Records, who released The Shape of Jazz to Come in 1959. While definitely – if somewhat loosely – blues-based and often quite melodic, some musicians and critics saw Coleman as an iconoclast, others, including conductor Leonard Bernstein and composer Virgil Thomson regarded him as a genius and an innovator. Jazzwise listed it #3 on their list of the 100 best jazz albums of all time, Colemans quartet received a lengthy – and sometimes controversial – engagement at New York Citys famed Five Spot jazz club
16.
Jazz fusion
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Jazz fusion is a musical genre that developed in the late 1960s when musicians combined aspects of jazz harmony and improvisation with styles such as funk, rock, rhythm and blues, and Latin jazz. During this time many jazz musicians began experimenting with electric instruments and amplified sound for the first time, as well as electronic effects, many of the developments during the late 1960s and early 1970s have since become established elements of jazz fusion musical practice. Fusion arrangements vary in complexity—some employ groove-based vamps fixed to a key, or even a single chord. Others can feature odd or shifting time signatures with elaborate chord progressions, melodies, typically, these arrangements, whether simple or complex, will feature extended improvised sections that can vary in length. As with jazz, fusion often employs brass and woodwind instruments such as trumpet and saxophone as melody and soloing instruments, the rhythm section typically consists of electric bass, electric guitar, electric piano/synthesizer and drums. As with traditional jazz improvisation, fusion instrumentalists generally require a level of technical proficiency. The term jazz-rock is often used as a synonym for jazz fusion as well as for music performed by late 1960s, experimentation continued in the 1990s and 2000s. Fusion albums, even those that are made by the group or artist. Rather than being a musical style, fusion can be viewed as a musical tradition or approach. Afro-Cuban jazz, one the earliest form of Latin jazz, is a fusion of Afro-Cuban clave-based rhythms with jazz harmonies and techniques of improvisation. Afro-Cuban jazz first emerged in the early 1940s with the Cuban musicians Mario Bauza and Frank Grillo Machito in the band Machito and his Afro-Cubans, based in New York City. Early combinations of jazz with Cuban music, such as Dizzys and Pozos Manteca and Charlie Parkers and Machitos Mangó Mangüé, were referred to as Cubop. During its first decades, the Afro-Cuban jazz movement was stronger in the United States than in Cuba itself, allmusic Guide states that until around 1967, the worlds of jazz and rock were nearly completely separate. One of the earliest releases from Pink Floyd, London 66–67 incorporated jazz-influenced improvisation to their psychedelic compositions, nevertheless, these developments made little impact in the United States. Jazz vibraphonist Gary Burton was an innovator in the 1960s, in 1967, Burton worked with electric guitarist Larry Coryell and recorded Duster, which is considered one of the first fusion records. Texas-born guitarist Coryell was also a pioneer of jazz in the same era. Trumpeter and composer Miles Davis had a influence on the development of jazz fusion with his 1968 album Miles in the Sky. It is the first of Davis albums to incorporate electric instruments, with Herbie Hancock and Ron Carter playing electric piano and bass guitar, respectively
17.
Arthur Blythe
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Arthur Murray Blythe was an American jazz alto saxophonist and composer. His instrumental voice had a vibrato and was within the subgenre of jazz. Born in Los Angeles, Blythe lived in San Diego, returning to Los Angeles when he was 19 years old and he took up the alto saxophone at the age of nine, playing R&B until his mid-teens when he discovered jazz. In the mid-1960s, Blythe was part of The Underground Musicians and Artists Association, founded by Horace Tapscott, after moving to New York in the mid-70s, Blythe worked as a security guard before being offered a place as sideman for Chico Hamilton. He subsequently played with Gil Evans Orchestra, Lester Bowie, Jack DeJohnette, blythes group – John Hicks, Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall – played Carnegie Hall and the Village Vanguard in 1979. Blythe began to record as a leader in 1977 for the India Navigation label, albums such as The Grip and Metamorphosis offered capable, highly refined jazz fare with a free angle which seemed out there. Blythe played on many albums of the 1980s, among them Jack DeJohnettes Special Edition on ECM. Blythe was a member of the jazz group The Leaders and, after the departure of Julius Hemphill. Beginning in 2000 he made recordings on Savant Records which included Exhale with John Hicks, Bob Stewart, Blythe died from complications of Parkinsons disease in Lancaster, California, at the age of 76. With Synthesis Six by Six, with Olu Dara, a. o, segments, with Olu Dara, David Murray, a. o.1 &2 Priestess Sting and Gil Evans – Strange Fruit, three tracks with Blythe rec. With Julius Hemphill Coon Bidness With Azar Lawrence Bridge into the New Age With the Music Revelation Ensemble In the Name of
18.
Lenox Avenue Breakdown
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Lenox Avenue Breakdown is an album by jazz saxophonist Arthur Blythe. It was released by Columbia Records in 1979 and reissued by Koch Jazz in 1998, the album reached No.35 on the Billboard Jazz Albums chart in 1979. The Penguin Guide to Jazz included Lenox Avenue Breakdown in its Core Collection, Penguin editors Richard Cook and Brian Morton called the album one of the lost masterpieces of modern jazz, owing to its long period of unavailability before the 1998 CD release. Cook and Morton noted that Stewarts long tuba solo on the title-piece is one of the few genuinely important tuba statements in jazz, a nimble sermon that promises storms and sunshine. Thom Jurek, writing for allmusic, notes that this group lays like a band that had been together for years, not the period it took them to rehearse. Over 20 years later, Lenox Avenue Breakdown still sounds new and different and ranks among the three finest albums in his catalog
19.
Free Lancing
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Free Lancing is an album by American guitarist James Blood Ulmer recorded in 1981 and released on the Columbia label. It was Ulmers first of three recorded for a major label. Trouser Press described both Free Lancing and the subsequent Black Rock as technical masterpieces, making up in precision what they lack in emotion, working to expand his audience, Ulmer concentrates more on electric guitar flash, and actual melodies can be discerned from the improvised song structures. All compositions by James Blood Ulmer Timeless -4,22 Pleasure Control -5,00 Night Lover -5,22 Where Did All the Girls Come From. -4,38 High Time -4,00 Hijack - Free Lancing -4,42 Stand Up to Yourself -4,37 Rush Hour -5,32 Happy Time -5,11 James Blood Ulmer - electric guitar, vocals Amin Ali - electric bass G
20.
Black Rock (James Blood Ulmer album)
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Black Rock is an album by American guitarist James Blood Ulmer recorded in 1982 and released on the Columbia label. It was Ulmers second of three recorded for a major label. The Allmusic review by Thom Jurek awarded the album 4½ stars, as tough as Are You Glad to Be in America. And the Music Revelation Ensembles No Wave, yet more accessible than either and this is a fitting introduction to Blood Ulmers unique, knotty, and truly original guitar and composition style. Black Rock is all funk, rock, jazz, and punk, indivisible, trouser Press described both Black Rock and the previous Free Lancing as technical masterpieces, making up in precision what they lack in emotion. Working to expand his audience, Ulmer concentrates more on electric guitar flash, and actual melodies can be discerned from the improvised song structures
21.
Odyssey (James Blood Ulmer album)
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Odyssey is an album by American guitarist James Blood Ulmer, recorded in 1983 and released on the Columbia label. It was Ulmers final of three recorded for a major label. The musicians on this album later re-united as The Odyssey Band, all the pieces come together to produce not only Ulmers finest album, but a certified classic of the modern jazz avant-garde. The album was listed as part of a core collection by the Penguin Guide to Jazz. All compositions by James Blood Ulmer Church –4,54 Little Red House –4,45 Love Dance –5,05 Are You Glad to Be in America
22.
Washtub bass
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The washtub bass, or gutbucket, is a stringed instrument used in American folk music that uses a metal washtub as a resonator. The washtub bass was used in jug bands that were popular in some African American communities in the early 1900s. In the 1950s, British skiffle bands used a variant called a tea chest bass, variations on the basic design are found around the world, particularly in the choice of resonator. As a result, there are different names for the instrument including the gas-tank bass, barrel bass, box bass, bush bass, babatoni, tingotalango, tulòn, laundrophone. The hallmarks of the design are simplicity, very low cost and do-it-yourself construction. Ethnomusicologists trace the origins of the instrument to the ground harp - a version that uses a piece of bark or a skin stretched over a pit as a resonator. The washtub bass is used in a jug band, often accompanied by a washboard as a percussion instrument. Jug bands, first known as bands, were popular especially among African-Americans around 1900 in New Orleans. At about the time, European-Americans of Appalachia were using the instrument in old-timey folk music. A musical style known as gut-bucket blues came out of the jug band scene, according to Willie The Lion Smiths autobiography, the term gutbucket comes from Negro families who all owned their own pail, or bucket, and would get it filled with the makings for chitterlings. The term gutbucket came from playing a style of music. In English skiffle bands, Australian and New Zealand bush bands and South African kwela bands, before the Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartneys band, The Quarrymen, featured a tea-chest bass, as did many young bands around 1956. A folk music revival in the U. S. in the early 1960s re-ignited interest in the washtub bass, bands included Mother McCrees Uptown Jug Champions which later became The Grateful Dead, and, the Jim Kweskin Jug Band featuring Fritz Richmond on bass. A tea chest bass is a variation of the bass that uses a tea chest as the resonator for an upright stringed bass. The instrument is made from a pole, traditionally a broomstick, one or more strings are stretched along the pole and plucked. In Europe, particularly England and Germany, the instrument is associated with skiffle bands, in Australia it was traditionally used to provide deep sounds for bush bands, though most such groups today use electric bass or double bass. It was commonly called a bush bass, Fritz Richmond has performed on numerous recordings from America and Japan. One of his washtub basses is in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution, Donald Kachamba and Moya Aliya, one-string box players with the influential Malawi group Kachamba Brothers Band
23.
Skip James
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Nehemiah Curtis Skip James was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter. His guitar playing is noted for its dark, minor-key sound, James first recorded for Paramount Records in 1931, but these recordings sold poorly, having been released during the Great Depression, and he drifted into obscurity. After a long absence from the eye, James was rediscovered in 1964 by three blues enthusiasts, helping further the blues and folk music revival of the 1950s and early 1960s. During this period, James appeared at folk and blues festivals, gave concerts around the country and he has been hailed as one of the seminal figures of the blues. James was born near Bentonia, Mississippi and his father was a converted bootlegger turned preacher. As a youth, James heard local musicians, such as Henry Stuckey, from whom he learned to play the guitar, James began playing the organ in his teens. He worked on construction and levee-building crews in Mississippi in the early 1920s and wrote what is perhaps his earliest song, Illinois Blues. He began playing the guitar in open D-minor tuning, in early 1931, James auditioned for the record shop owner and talent scout H. C. Speir placed blues performers with various labels, including Paramount Records. On the strength of this audition, James traveled to Grafton, Wisconsin and his 1931 records are considered idiosyncratic among prewar blues recordings and formed the basis of his reputation as a musician. As was typical of his era, James recorded various styles of music – blues, spirituals, cover versions and original compositions – frequently blurring the lines between genres and sources. For example, Im So Glad was derived from a 1927 song, So Tired, by Art Sizemore and George A. Little, recorded in 1928 by Gene Austin and by Lonnie Johnson. Several other recordings from the Grafton session, such as Hard Time Killing Floor Blues, Devil Got My Woman, Jesus Is a Mighty Good Leader, very few original copies of Jamess Paramount 78-RPM records have survived. The Great Depression struck just as Jamess recordings were hitting the market, sales were poor as a result, and he gave up performing the blues to become the choir director in his fathers church. James was later a minister in Baptist and Methodist churches. For the next thirty years, James recorded nothing and performed sporadically and he was virtually unknown to listeners until about 1960. In 1964 three blues enthusiasts, John Fahey, Bill Barth, and Henry Vestine, found him in a hospital in Tunica, Mississippi. According to Calt, the rediscovery of both James and Son House at virtually the same time was the start of the revival in the United States
24.
Albert Ayler
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Albert Ayler was an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist, singer and composer. After early experience playing R&B and bebop, Ayler began recording music during the jazz era of the 1960s. However, some argue that while Aylers style is undeniably original and unorthodox. In fact, Aylers style is difficult to categorize in any way and his innovations have inspired subsequent jazz musicians. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, Ayler was first taught alto saxophone by his father Edward, Edward and Albert played alto saxophone duets in church and often listened to jazz records together, including swing era jazz and then-new bop albums. Ayler attended John Adams High School on Clevelands East Side, and he later studied at the Academy of Music in Cleveland with jazz saxophonist Benny Miller. Ayler also played the oboe in high school, as a teenager, Ayler’s understanding of bebop style and mastery of standard repertoire earned him the nickname of “Little Bird, after Charlie “Bird” Parker, in the small Cleveland jazz scene. In 1952, at the age of 16, Ayler began playing bar-walking, honking, R&B-style tenor with blues singer and harmonica player Little Walter, Ayler also played in the regiment band. In 1959 he was stationed in France, where he was exposed to the martial music that would be a core influence on his later work. In 1963, Ayler returned to the US and settled in New York City,1964 was the most well-documented year of Ayler’s career, during which he recorded many albums, the first of which was Witches and Devils in March of that year. Ayler also began his relationship with ESP-Disk Records in 1964. ESP-Disk came to play an role in recording and disseminating free jazz. Spiritual Unity featured the trio that Ayler had just assembled that summer, including bassist Gary Peacock, the liner notes of Spiritual Unity include a brief description of the musicians on that day, July 10,1964, in the Variety Arts Recording Studio. Just before 1 PM, Sunny Murray arrived, a large, genial walrus. …Gary Peacock was next, tall, thin, ascetic looking, and soft spoken. …Albert Ayler was last, small, wary, and laconic. Ayler produced three albums for ESP in 1964, Spirits Rejoice, Bells, and New York Eye. During this time, Ayler began to some attention from critics. Ayler recorded Bells on May 1,1965 and it is a ferociously-paced 20-minute improvisation featuring his signature military-march influenced melodies. Spirits Rejoice was recorded on September 23,1965 at Judson Hall in New York City, and features a much larger band than the sparse trio of his earlier album Spiritual Unity
25.
Mississippi Delta
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The Mississippi Delta is the distinctive northwest section of the U. S. state of Mississippi which lies between the Mississippi and Yazoo Rivers. The region has been called The Most Southern Place on Earth, because of its racial, cultural. It is two hundred miles long and seventy miles across at its widest point, encompassing circa 4,415,000 acres, or, some 7,000 square miles of alluvial floodplain. Originally covered in hardwood forest across the bottomlands, it was developed as one of the richest cotton-growing areas in the nation before the American Civil War. As the riverfront areas were developed first and railroads were slow to be constructed, both black and white migrants flowed into Mississippi, using their labor to clear land and sell timber in order to buy land. By the end of the 19th century, black farmers made up two-thirds of the independent farmers in the Mississippi Delta, in 1890 the white-dominated state legislature passed a new state constitution effectively disenfranchising most blacks in the state. In the next three decades, most blacks lost their lands due to credit and political oppression. African Americans had to resort to sharecropping and tenant farming to survive and their political exclusion was maintained by the whites until after the gains of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s. African Americans developed the forms of blues and jazz. As the agricultural economy does not support many jobs or businesses, lumbering is important and new crops such as soybeans have been cultivated in the area by the largest industrial farmers. At times, the region has suffered heavy flooding from the Mississippi River, despite the name, this region is not part of the delta of the Mississippi River. Rather, it is part of a plain, created by regular flooding of the Mississippi. The land is flat and contains some of the most fertile soil in the world and it is two hundred miles long and seventy miles across at its widest point, encompassing circa 4,415,000 acres, or, some 7,000 square miles of alluvial floodplain. On the east, it is bounded by extending beyond the Yazoo River. The shifting river delta at the mouth of the Mississippi on the Gulf Coast lies some 300 miles south of this area, the two should not be confused. The Delta is strongly associated as the place where several genres of music originated, including the Delta blues and rock. The mostly black sharecroppers and tenant farmers had lives marked by poverty and hardship but they expressed their struggles in music became the beat, rhythm and songs of cities. Gussow examines the conflict between blues musicians and black ministers in the region between 1920 and 1942, the ministers condemned blues music as devils music
26.
David Murray (saxophonist)
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David Murray is an American jazz musician who plays tenor saxophone and bass clarinet mainly. He has recorded prolifically for many record labels since the mid-1970s, Murray was born in Oakland, California, USA. He was initially influenced by jazz musicians such as Albert Ayler. He gradually evolved a more style in his playing and compositions. Despite this, he recorded a tribute to Coltrane, Octet Plays Trane and he played a set with the Grateful Dead at a show on September 22,1993, at Madison Square Garden in New York City. His 1996 tribute to the Grateful Dead, Dark Star, was critically well received. Murray was a member of the World Saxophone Quartet with Oliver Lake, Julius Hemphill. David Murrays use of the breathing technique has enabled him to play astonishingly long phrases. He is currently living in Sines, Portugal, and participates yearly in its FMM Music festival, in 1980 David Murray was named Village Voice Musician of the Decade. Murray was honoured with the Bird Award in 1986 and he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1989. David Murray and his band earned a Grammy Award in 1989 in the Best Jazz Instrumental Group Performance category for Blues for Coltrane, in 1991 he was honoured with the Danish Jazzpar Prize. Newsday named him Musician of the Year in 1993, official David Murray for management and publishing David Murray Fans website Unofficial David Murray website -commentaires de CBS2007 sur bordeauxsalsa. com David Murray interview at allaboutjazz. com
27.
Sam Rivers
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Samuel Carthorne Rivers was an American jazz musician and composer. He performed on soprano and tenor saxophones, bass clarinet, flute, harmonica, active in jazz since the early 1950s, he earned wider attention during the mid-1960s spread of free jazz. With a thorough command of music theory, orchestration and composition, Rivers was an influential, Rivers was born in El Reno, Oklahoma. His father was a musician who had sung with the Fisk Jubilee Singers. His grandfather was Marshall W. Taylor, a leader from Kentucky. Rivers was stationed in California in the 1940s during a stint in the Navy, here he performed semi-regularly with blues singer Jimmy Witherspoon. Rivers moved to Boston, Massachusetts in 1947, where he studied at the Boston Conservatory with Alan Hovhaness and he performed with Quincy Jones, Herb Pomeroy, Tadd Dameron and others. In 1959 Rivers began performing with 13-year-old drummer Tony Williams, Rivers was briefly a member of the Miles Davis Quintet in 1964, partly on Williamss recommendation. This edition of the released a single live album, Miles in Tokyo. Rivers tenure with the quintet was brief, he had engagements in Boston, Rivers was signed by Blue Note Records, for whom he recorded four albums as leader and made several sideman appearances. Among noted sidemen on his own Blue Note albums were Jaki Byard and he appeared on Blue Note recordings by Tony Williams, Andrew Hill and Larry Young. Rivers derived his music from bebop, but he was an adventurous player, the first of his Blue Note albums, Fuchsia Swing Song, adopts an approach sometimes called inside-outside. Here the performer frequently obliterates the explicit harmonic framework but retains a hidden link so as to be able to return to it in a seamless fashion. His powers as a composer were also in evidence in this period, for instance, it is the first cut on Joe Hendersons 1985 The State of the Tenor, Vols. 1 &2, and Stan Getz recorded it during the 1989 sessions eventually issued as Bossas & Ballads – The Lost Sessions, during the 1970s, Rivers and his wife, Bea, ran a jazz loft called Studio Rivbea in New York Citys NoHo district. It was located on Bond Street in Lower Manhattan and was opened as a public performance space as part of the first New York Musicians Festival in 1970. Critic John Litweiler has written that In New York Loft Jazz meant Free Jazz in the Seventies, the loft was important in the development of jazz because it was an example of artists creating their own performance spaces and taking responsibility for presenting music to the public. This allowed for music to be free of concerns that would be present in a nightclub or concert hall situation
28.
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
29.
John Zorn
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He incorporates diverse styles in his compositions which he identifies as avant-garde or experimental. Zorn was described by Down Beat as one of our most important composers and he attracted further attention worldwide with the release of Spillane in 1987, and Naked City in 1989. After spending almost a decade travelling between Japan and the US he made New York his permanent base and established his own label, Tzadik. Zorn has undertaken tours of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, often performing at festivals with many other musicians. Zorns compositions cross many genres and he has stated All the various styles are organically connected to one another, im an additive person—the entire storehouse of my knowledge informs everything I do. People are so obsessed with the surface that they cant see the connections, for Zorn Composing is more than just imagining music—its knowing how to communicate it to musicians. And you dont give a music thats completely written out. Im interested in speaking to musicians in their own languages, on their own terms, to challenge them and excite them. John Zorn was born in New York City and learned piano, guitar and he attended the United Nations International School from kindergarten to high school associating with school friends from many different cultures. Zorn spent his teenage years exploring classical music, film music, Zorn acquired an interest in experimental and avant-garde music after buying a record by Mauricio Kagel in 1968 at the age of fifteen. He taught himself orchestration and counterpoint by transcribing scores and studied composition under Leonardo Balada, Zorn immersed himself in the underground art scene, assisting Jack Smith with his performances and attending plays by Richard Foreman. Zorns early major compositions included several game pieces described as complex systems harnessing improvisers in flexible compositional formats and these compositions involved strict rules, role playing, prompters with flashcards, all in the name of melding structure and improvisation in a seamless fashion. His most enduring game piece is Cobra, composed in 1984 and first released on album in 1987 and in subsequent versions in 1992,1994 and 2002, and revisited in performance many times. Zorns first solo recordings were originally released in two volumes as The Classic Guide to Strategy in 1983 and 1986 on the Lumina label. Ganryu Island featured a series of duets by Zorn with Satoh Michihiro on shamisen, Zorn has subsequently released these recordings as CDs on Tzadik making them more widely available than the original vinyl pressings. The Big Gundown was endorsed by Morricone, who is quoted as saying, This is a record that has fresh, good and it is realization on a high level, a work done by a maestro with great science-fantasy and creativity. Many people have done versions of my pieces, but no one has done them like this and this method of combining composition and improvisation involved Zorn writing descriptions or ideas on file-cards and arranging them to form the piece. Zorn described the process in 2003, I write in moments, in disparate sound blocks, if you move too fast, people tend to stop hearing the individual moments as complete in themselves and more as elements of a sort of cloud effect
30.
George Adams (musician)
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George Rufus Adams was an American jazz musician who played tenor saxophone, flute and bass clarinet. He is best known for his work with Charles Mingus, Gil Evans, Roy Haynes and in the quartet he co-led with pianist Don Pullen, featuring bassist Cameron Brown and he was also known for his idiosyncratic singing. George Adams was born in Covington, Georgia on April 29,1940 and he first started playing piano at the age of eleven and switched to tenor saxophone in high school. Later on, he went study at the Clark College and got lessons on flute by Wayman Carver, as a teenager, George Adams frequently gained performance experience by playing with local funk bands. In 1961, he accompanied singer Sam Cooke on a tour, at this point, Adams was based out of Cleveland where he spent a great deal of time studying and working with organ trios alongside pianist and organist Bill Doggett. The two men played a form of music that rhythm and blues with jazz. In 1968, he decided to expand his career and move to New York City to participate in the growing jazz scene. A year later, George Adams toured with Roy Haynes, playing with him until 1973, shortly after, he performed with Art Blakey before joining Charles Mingus band. His partnership with Mingus would last until 1976, George Adams first appearance with Mingus was on Mingus Moves with Ronald Hampton, Dannie Richmond, and Don Pullen in 1973. Later on, Adams went to perform in Mingus at Carnegie Hall, Changes One and he also appeared in Mingus Whee and other albums. 1975, while touring Europe with Mingus, he made his first recordings under his own name with Don Pullen, Dannie Richmond, Adams also began a working relationship with Gil Evans that lasted until 1978 that same year. Adams first appearance with Evans was on his album The Gil Evans Orchestra Plays the Music of Jimi Hendrix, the album features orchestral versions of songs such as Angel, Castles Made of Sand and Voodoo Child. George Adams continued to record with Gil Evans throughout 1975 by contributing to his album There Comes a Time, in 1976, Adams began to performing on and off with pianist McCoy Tyner until the late 1980s. The following year, George performed with trumpeter Marvin Hannibal Peterson at the Antibes Jazz Festival in Antibes and he appeared on Tyners album The Greeting in 1978 alongside bassist Charles Fambrough and drummer Sonship. In 1979, Adams and Pullen began to co-lead a quartet with Dannie Richmond, in December 1979, George recorded the album Paradise Space Shuttle with his personal quintet that featured pianist Ron Burton, drummer Al Foster, bassist Don Pate and percussionist Azzedin Weston. Adams contributions to his ensemble were best heard on Paradise Space Shuttles title track, after a brief introduction, he enters the arrangement playing a disjointed and primal melody. He then plays a more traditional bebop figure before supplementing it with a strident motive and he continues to utilize several different textures throughout the song, such as multiphonics, blues riffs and phrased melodic devices. The result of all this is a performance that includes a multitude of saxophone history into four, in 1980, Adams and Dannie Richmond recorded the album Hand to Hand for the Soul Note label
31.
Vernon Reid
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Vernon Alphonsus Reid is an English-born American guitarist, songwriter, composer, and bandleader. Reid was born in London, England, to Caribbean parents and he attended the prestigious math-science-engineering Brooklyn Technical High School, then New York University. He first came to prominence in the 1980s in the band of drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, 1984s Smash & Scatteration was a duo record with guitarist Bill Frisell. In 1985, Reid co-founded the Black Rock Coalition with journalist Greg Tate, Reid is best known for leading Living Colour. Early versions of the formed in New York City in 1983, but the personnel solidified in 1985–86. Living Colour broke up in 1995 but eventually reformed in 2000, since then, they have released two more albums, Collideøscope in October 2003 on Sanctuary Records and The Chair in the Doorway in September 2009 on Megaforce Records. Living Colours music has had a cultural impact, especially the song Cult of Personality. Cult of Personality has maintained constant radio airplay since its release, the song is known not just for its music, but its lyrical commentary on the phenomenon of cult of personality. Brooks and WWEs use of the song culminated in 2013, when Reid, in addition to his work with Living Colour, Reid has been engaged in a number of other projects. He released Mistaken Identity, his first solo album, in 1996 and has collaborated with the choreographers Bill T. Jones on Still/Here and Donald Byrd on Jazztrain. He performed Party Til The End of Time at the Brooklyn Academy of Music with The Roots and he also composed and performed Bring Your Beats a childrens program for BAM. Ulmers subsequent albums, No Escape from the Blues, The Electric Lady Sessions, Birthright, Reid also appears on Guitar Oblique with guitarists David Torn and Elliott Sharp. Reid composed the score for the film Paid in Full, directed by Charles Stone III, Reid also composed the score for the celebrated documentary Ghosts of Attica, which aired on Court TV in the fall of 2001 and has been featured at several film festivals. He composed the score for another documentary directed by Lichtenstein, Almost Home, Reid and DJ Logic, calling themselves Yohimbe Brothers, released an album in September 2002 entitled Front End Lifter. The Yohimbe Brothers have been touring on and off since the release of the album, Reid was also the music supervisor for the film Mr.3000, starring Bernie Mac and directed by Charles Stone III, the film was released in September 2004. Reid has a prolific output in a variety of contexts. Jesus, B. B. King, Madeleine Peyroux, Meridiem, Jack Bruce, Terry Bozzio, Black Sugar Transmission and DJ Spooky among many others. Reid played at Americas Millennium Gala, New Years Eve 31 December 1999, among those in the audience were President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton
32.
DownBeat
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Down Beat is an American magazine devoted to jazz, blues and beyond, the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois and it is named after the downbeat in music also called beat one or the first beat of a musical measure. Down Beat publishes results of surveys of both its readers and critics in a variety of categories. The Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame includes winners from both the readers and critics poll, the results of the readers poll are published in the December issue, those of the critics poll in the August issue. In April 1979, Down Beat went to a schedule for the first time since 1939. The DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame is maintained at Universal Studios City Jazz club in Orlando, current membership, by year, is listed in the following table. The critics poll was not initiated until 1961, so winners before then were all chosen by readers polls, in 2010, the Veterans Committee Hall of Fame began electing deserving, deceased musicians of bygone eras
33.
Jimi Hendrix
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James Marshall Jimi Hendrix was an American rock guitarist, singer, and songwriter. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as arguably the greatest instrumentalist in the history of rock music, born in Seattle, Washington, Hendrix began playing guitar at the age of 15. In 1961, he enlisted in the U. S. Army and trained as a paratrooper in the 101st Airborne Division, within months, Hendrix had earned three UK top ten hits with the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Hey Joe, Purple Haze, and The Wind Cries Mary. Hendrix was inspired musically by American rock and roll and electric blues and he favored overdriven amplifiers with high volume and gain, and was instrumental in utilizing the previously undesirable sounds caused by guitar amplifier feedback. He helped to popularize the use of a pedal in mainstream rock. Holly George-Warren of Rolling Stone commented, Hendrix pioneered the use of the instrument as a sound source. Hendrix was the recipient of several awards during his lifetime. In 1967, readers of Melody Maker voted him the Pop Musician of the Year, disc and Music Echo honored him with the World Top Musician of 1969 and in 1970, Guitar Player named him the Rock Guitarist of the Year. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, Jimi Hendrix was of African American descent. Both his mother Lucille and father Al were African Americans and his paternal grandmother, Zenora Nora Rose Moore, was African American and one-quarter Cherokee. On June 10,1919, Hendrix and Moore had a son they named James Allen Ross Hendrix, in 1941, Al met Lucille Jeter at a dance in Seattle, they married on March 31,1942. Al, who had been drafted by the U. S. Army to serve in World War II, Johnny Allen Hendrix was born on November 27,1942, in Seattle, he was the first of Lucilles five children. In 1946, Johnnys parents changed his name to James Marshall Hendrix, in honor of Al and he spent two months locked up without trial, and while in the stockade received a telegram announcing his sons birth. During Als three-year absence, Lucille struggled to raise their son, when Al was away, Hendrix was mostly cared for by family members and friends, especially Lucilles sister Delores Hall and her friend Dorothy Harding. Al received a discharge from the U. S. Army on September 1,1945. After returning from service, Al reunited with Lucille, but his inability to find steady work left the family impoverished and they both struggled with alcohol, and often fought when intoxicated. The violence sometimes drove Hendrix to withdraw and hide in a closet in their home and his relationship with his brother Leon was close but precarious, with Leon in and out of foster care, they lived with an almost constant threat of fraternal separation. In addition to Leon, Hendrix had three siblings, Joseph, born in 1949, Kathy in 1950, and Pamela,1951, all of whom Al and Lucille gave up to foster care
34.
A (musical note)
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La or A is the sixth note of the fixed-Do solfège. Its enharmonic equivalents are B which is a semitone above A♭. A is generally used as a standard for tuning, when the orchestra tunes, the oboe plays an A and the rest of the instruments tune to match that pitch. Every string instrument in the orchestra has an A string, from each player can tune the rest of their instrument. A is also used in combination with a number to label the pitch standard, the number designates the frequency in hertz. A lower number equals a lower pitch, by an international treaty signed in 1939, modern pitch is standardized at A-440. However, tuning has varied over time, geographical region, or instrument maker, in 17th-century Europe, tunings ranged from about A-374 to A-403, approximately two to three semitones below A-440. Historical examples exist of instruments, tuning forks, or standards ranging from A-309 to A-455.3, although the official standard today is A-440, some orchestral groups and chamber groups prefer to tune a little higher, at A-442 or even A-444. Baroque pitch is usually cited as A-415, which is a lower than modern pitch. A0 is the lowest note on the standard piano, the octaves follow A1, A2, etc. A7 is a few pitches lower than C8, the highest note on the standard piano. The note A is not considered to be a milestone or mark to hit with voice as, for example, Tenor C is
35.
James Carter (musician)
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James Carter is an American jazz musician. He is the cousin of jazz violinist Regina Carter, Carter was born in Detroit, Michigan, and learned to play under the tutelage of Donald Washington, becoming a member of his youth jazz ensemble Bird-Trane-Sco-NOW. As a young man, Carter attended Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp and he first toured Europe with the International Jazz Band in 1985 at the age of 16. This was pivotal in Carters career, putting him in contact with the world. He has been prominent as a performer and recording artist on the scene since the late 1980s, playing saxophones, flute. On his album Chasin the Gypsy, he recorded with his cousin Regina Carter, Carter has won Down Beat magazines Critics and Readers Choice award for baritone saxophone several years in a row. Carter is an authority on vintage horns, and he owns a collection of them. Cool T. D. Moore Edutain-The James Carter Discography James Carter Interview at allaboutjazz. com James Carter Organ Trio review, Bimhuis Amsterdam, in Dutch, free Review of At the Crossroads CD The James Carter Interview by Marissa Dodge, Jazz History Online. Kelly Bucheger, James Carter Ruined My Life, Harder Bop, April 12,2011
36.
Nicholas Payton
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Nicholas Payton is an American trumpet player and multi-instrumentalist. A Grammy Award winner, he is from New Orleans, Louisiana and he is also a prolific and provocative writer who comments on a multitude of subjects, including music, race, politics, and life in America. The son of bassist and sousaphonist Walter Payton, he took up the trumpet at the age of four and by age nine was sitting in with the Young Tuxedo Brass Band alongside his father. He began his career at ten years old as a member of James Andrews All-Star Brass and was given his first steady gig by guitarist Danny Barker at The Famous Door on Bourbon Street. He enrolled at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and then at the University of New Orleans, after touring with Marcus Roberts and Elvin Jones in the early 90s, Payton signed a contract with Verve Records, his first album, From This Moment, appeared in 1994. In 1996 he performed on the soundtrack of the movie Kansas City, after seven albums on Verve, Payton signed with Warner Bros. Records, releasing Sonic Trance, his first album on the new label, in 2004, he became a founding member of the SFJAZZ Collective. In 2008, he joined The Blue Note 7, a septet formed in honor of the 70th anniversary of Blue Note Records, in 2011, he formed a 21-piece big band ensemble called the Television Studio Orchestra. In 2011, he recorded and released Bitches, a love narrative on which he played every instrument, sang. In 2012 the Czech National Symphony Orchestra commissioned and debuted his first full orchestral work, from 2011 to 2013, Payton was a Distinguished Artist and Visiting Lecturer at Tulane University and belongs to a growing group of race scholars and activists committed to social justice. In the case of American society, evidence of this can be framed as institutionalized racism, paytons writings are provocative for other reasons, too. One of his most notable pieces to date, On Why Jazz isnt Cool Anymore describes the effects of colonization on music. The article quickly earned his website 150,000 page views and sparked international press attention and debate
37.
Blue Note Jazz Club
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Blue Note Jazz Club is a jazz club and restaurant located at 131 West 3rd Street in Greenwich Village, New York City. The club was opened on September 30,1981, by owner and founder Danny Bensusan, with the Nat Adderley Quintet being the featured performers for the night. The club’s performance schedule features shows every evening at 8,00 pm and 10,30 pm, the club currently maintains locations in Japan, Italy, United States, China, and Slovakia. Bensusans belief was that if he brought big acts into a environment with great food. Bensusan booked Ray Charles for a week every year. It is still considered one of the world’s most famous venues and one of the best known. Half Note Records is the Blue Notes live record label, founded in 2001, since its founding in 1998, the label has also expanded its scope to include studio releases, including McCoy Tyners 2008 album Guitars and Kenny Werners 2010 release, No Beginning, No End. The annual, month-long event features artists who have been integral to the history, including Chris Botti, Dave Brubeck, McCoy Tyner, Nancy Wilson. Official website Blue Note Napa website
38.
Tales of Captain Black
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The album was remastered and rereleased on CD with a new mix by Joe Ferla approved and co-produced by Ulmer on the Japanese DIW label in 1996. Captain Black marks the beginning of Ulmers career as a leader. It has been a bumpy, restless ride since that time with creative and professional ups and downs. Records like this one make him the most visionary and brilliant electric guitarist in a generation, trouser Press wrote, Ulmers debut finds him heavily indebted to the saxophonist. Tales of Captain Black offers Ulmers trademark knotted, choked phrasing as a foil to Colemans pure, free melodocism. New York City, December 5,1978, james Blood Ulmer - guitar Ornette Coleman – alto saxophone Jamaaladeen Tacuma - electric bass Denardo Coleman - drums
39.
Are You Glad to Be in America?
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Are You Glad to Be in America. A remixed version, credited to Ulmer and Bob Blank, was released by the Artists House label in the US in 1981, the album was released on CD with a new third mix by Joe Ferla, approved by Ulmer, on the Japanese DIW label in 1999. The Allmusic review by Nathan Bush awarded the album 4 stars and states Shards of jazz, rock, funk, at times the rhythms are too rigid and the results sound like an experiment from which the musicians are trying to break free. At best, the individuals lose themselves in a highly charged dialogue, trouser Press describes Are You Glad to Be in America. As an exceptionally fine album that reveals a staggering understanding of the roots of jazz, dance music, Eastern polyrhythms and harmolodic textures in a lively sound mix. All compositions by James Blood Ulmer Layout -5,02 Pressure -3,48 Interview -3,06 Jazz Is the Teacher -4,19 See-Through -3,50 Time Out -5,19 T. V. Blues -4,32 Light Eyed -3,56 Revelation March -3,18 Are You Glad to Be in America, -4,37 Recorded at RCA Studios, New York City on January 17,1980
40.
Columbia Records
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Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, Inc. the United States division of Sony Corporation. It was founded in 1887, evolving from an enterprise named the American Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the sound business. Columbia Records went on to release records by an array of singers, instrumentalists. It is one of Sony Musics three flagship record labels alongside RCA Records and Epic Records, rather, as above, it was connected to CBS, a broadcasting media company which had purchased the company in 1938, and had been co-founded in 1927 by Columbia Records itself. Though Arista Records was sold to Bertelsmann Music Group, it would become a sister label of Columbia Records through its mutual connection to Sony Music. The Columbia Phonograph Company was founded in 1887 by stenographer, lawyer and New Jersey native Edward Easton and it derived its name from the District of Columbia, where it was headquartered. At first it had a monopoly on sales and service of Edison phonographs and phonograph cylinders in Washington. As was the custom of some of the regional companies, Columbia produced many commercial cylinder recordings of its own. Columbias ties to Edison and the North American Phonograph Company were severed in 1894 with the North American Phonograph Companys breakup, thereafter it sold only records and phonographs of its own manufacture. In 1902, Columbia introduced the XP record, a brown wax record. According to Gracyk, the molded brown waxes may have sold to Sears for distribution. Columbia began selling records and phonographs in addition to the cylinder system in 1901, preceded only by their Toy Graphophone of 1899. For a decade, Columbia competed with both the Edison Phonograph Company cylinders and the Victor Talking Machine Company disc records as one of the top three names in American recorded sound. In order to add prestige to its catalog of artists. The firm also introduced the internal-horn Grafonola to compete with the extremely popular Victrola sold by the rival Victor Talking Machine Company, during this era, Columbia used the famous Magic Notes logo—a pair of sixteenth notes in a circle—both in the United States and overseas. Columbia was split into two companies, one to make records and one to make players, Columbia Phonograph was moved to Connecticut, and Ed Easton went with it. Eventually it was renamed the Dictaphone Corporation, in late 1923, Columbia went into receivership
