1.
John Hicks (pianist)
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John Josephus Hicks, Jr. was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger. He was leader for more than 30 recordings and played as a sideman on more than 300, after early experiences backing blues musicians, Hicks moved to New York in 1963. He was part of Art Blakeys band for two years, then backed vocalist Betty Carter from 1965 to 1967, before joining Woody Hermans big band, following these largely mainstream jazz experiences, Hicks expanded into freer bands, including those of trumpeters Charles Tolliver and Lester Bowie. He rejoined Carter in 1975, the stay brought him more attention. He continued to play and record extensively in the United States, Hicks was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 21,1941, the oldest of five children. As a child, he moved with his family around the United States, as his father, Rev John Hicks Sr and his family was middle class, I was brought up as a decent human being, where you had aspirations and there were expectations, he commented. He began playing the piano aged six or seven in Los Angeles and his mother, Pollie, was his first piano teacher. He also took lessons, sang in choirs and tried the violin. He began playing the piano in church once he could read music and his development accelerated once his family moved to St. Louis, when Hicks was 14 and he settled on the piano. In St. Louis, he attended Sumner High School, Hicks cited influences from Fats Waller to Thelonious Monk to Methodist church hymns, as well as local pianists. He was initially interested in the compositions of Horace Silver and popular songs such as I Got Rhythm and There Will Never Be Another You. Hicks had summer gigs in the southern United States with blues musicians Little Milton, Hicks studied music in 1958 at Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he shared a room with drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. He also studied for a time at the Berklee School of Music in Boston before moving to New York in 1963. In New York, Hicks first accompanied singer Della Reese and he then played with Joe Farrell and toured with trombonist Al Grey and tenor saxophonist Billy Mitchell. After periods with Kenny Dorham and Joe Henderson, Hicks joined Art Blakeys Jazz Messengers in 1964 and his recording debut was with Blakey in November that year, for the album S Make It. Early in 1965, Hicks toured with Blakey to Japan, France, Switzerland, Blakey encouraged his band members, including Hicks, to compose for the band, although they also played compositions by previous members of the band. He stayed with Blakey for two years and his playing during this time was compared with that of McCoy Tyner, for the level of energy displayed and for some of the intervals that they used. In the period 1965 to 1967 he worked on and off with vocalist Betty Carter and her liking for slow ballads helped Hicks develop his sense of time
2.
Elvin Jones
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Elvin Ray Jones was an American jazz drummer of the post-bop era. He showed an interest in drums at an age, watching the circus bands march by his familys home in Pontiac. He served in the United States Army from 1946 to 1949 and he moved to New York City in 1955 and worked as a sideman for Charles Mingus, Teddy Charles, Bud Powell and Miles Davis. From 1960 to 1966 he was a member of the John Coltrane quartet, following his work with Coltrane, Jones led several small groups, some under the name The Elvin Jones Jazz Machine. His brothers Hank Jones and Thad Jones were also jazz musicians with whom he recorded and he was inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1995. Elvin Jones was born in Pontiac, Michigan to parents Henry and Olivia Jones and his brothers, Hank Jones and Thad Jones, both became important jazz musicians. By age two, he said he knew he held a fascination for drums and he would watch the circus marching band parades go by his home as a boy, particularly fascinated by the drummers. Following his early passion, Elvin joined his high schools marching band. Jones began service in the United States Army in 1946 and he was discharged in 1949, and returned home penniless. Jones said he borrowed thirty-five dollars from his sister when he got back to buy his first drumset, Jones began his professional career in 1949 with a short-lived gig in Detroits Grand River Street club. Eventually he went on to play artists such as Miles Davis. In 1955, after an audition for the Benny Goodman band, he found work in New York City, joining Charles Minguss band. In 1960, he joined the classic John Coltrane Quartet, which included bassist Jimmy Garrison. Jones and Coltrane often played extended duet passages and this band is widely considered to have redefined swing in much the same way that Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, and others did during earlier stages of jazzs development. He stayed with Coltrane until 1966, by that time, Jones was not entirely comfortable with Coltranes new direction and his polyrhythmic style clashed with the multidirectional approach of the groups second drummer, Rashied Ali. Jones remained active after leaving the Coltrane group, and led bands in the late sixties and seventies that are considered highly influential groups. Notable among them was a trio formed with saxophonist and multi-instrumentalist Joe Farrell and bassist Jimmy Garrison, Jones recorded extensively for Blue Note under his own name in the late sixties and early seventies, with groups that featured prominent as well as up and coming greats. The two-volume Live at the Lighthouse showcases a 21- and 26-year-old Steve Grossman and Dave Liebman, Jones played on many significant albums of the modal jazz era, such as The Real McCoy with McCoy Tyner and saxophonist Wayne Shorters Speak No Evil
3.
The Jimi Hendrix Experience
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The Jimi Hendrix Experience was an American-English rock band that formed in Westminster, London, in September 1966. Singer, songwriter, and guitarist Jimi Hendrix, bassist and backing vocalist Noel Redding, and drummer Mitch Mitchell comprised the group, during this time, they released three studio albums and became one of the most popular acts in rock. In April 1970, Hendrix, Mitchell, and bassist Billy Cox performed and recorded until Hendrixs death on September 18,1970 and this later trio was sometimes billed as the Jimi Hendrix Experience, but the title was never formalized. Highly influential in the popularization of hard rock and psychedelic rock, the Experience was best known for the skill, style, in 1992, the Jimi Hendrix Experience was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Jimi Hendrix arrived in England on September 24,1966, and with his new manager and former Animals bassist, Chas Chandler, formed a band with bassist Noel Redding. Mitchell was a seasoned London drummer formerly with Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, Hendrix chose Redding because of his attitude towards music and his hairstyle. Redding had been a player until that time, but played bass in the band. The name The Jimi Hendrix Experience was coined by their business manager Michael Jeffery, the first official appearance of The Jimi Hendrix Experience was at the Novelty in Évreux, France, on October 13,1966. Six days later the band played their first UK gig at a showcase at the Scotch of St James. Though conceived as back-up band for Hendrix, the Experience, as a unit, gained fame and critical acclaim. Following the lead of Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience was one of the first groups to popularize the power trio format, which limited a rock bands line-up to guitar, bass and drums. Hendrix combined lead and rhythm guitar styles and used special effects to modify his guitar such as feedback. Mitchell sometimes utilized jazz-influenced grooves, while Redding played simple bass lines that helped to anchor the bands sound, visually, they set the trend in psychedelic clothes and hairstyles. The Whos Pete Townshend admitted, changed the sound of electric guitar. Clapton agreed, after Pete Townshend and I went to see him play, I thought that was it, the group came to prominence in the US after the June 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, one of the first major rock music festivals. The bands performance ended with Hendrix famously setting his psychedelically painted Fender Stratocaster on fire, after the festival they toured with the Monkees, but left the tour two weeks later, reportedly due to lack of audience response. By April 1969, however, Hendrixs deteriorating relations with Redding were coming to a head, the original group held together long enough to fulfill their existing engagements, culminating in the Denver Pop Festival on June 29,1969. After hearing that Hendrix was planning to expand the Experience lineup without first consulting him, Redding quit the group, Hendrix and Mitchell experimented with a larger ensemble that included bassist Billy Cox
4.
Rock and roll
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While elements of rock and roll can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until the 1950s. For the purpose of differentiation, this deals with the first definition. The beat is essentially a blues rhythm with an accentuated backbeat, classic rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars, a double bass or string bass or an electric bass guitar, and a drum kit. Beyond simply a style, rock and roll, as seen in movies and on television, influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes. In addition, rock and roll may have contributed to the civil rights movement because both African-American and white American teens enjoyed the music and it went on to spawn various genres, often without the initially characteristic backbeat, that are now more commonly called simply rock music or rock. The term rock and roll now has at least two different meanings, both in common usage, the American Heritage Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary both define rock and roll as synonymous with rock music. Encyclopædia Britannica, on the hand, regards it as the music that originated in the mid-1950s. In 1934, the song Rock and Roll by the Boswell Sisters appeared in the film Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round, in 1942, Billboard magazine columnist Maurie Orodenker started to use the term rock-and-roll to describe upbeat recordings such as Rock Me by Sister Rosetta Tharpe. By 1943, the Rock and Roll Inn in South Merchantville, in 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing this music style while popularizing the phrase to describe it. The origins of rock and roll have been debated by commentators. The migration of former slaves and their descendants to major urban centers such as St. The immediate roots of rock and roll lay in the rhythm and blues, then called race music, particularly significant influences were jazz, blues, gospel, country, and folk. The 1940s saw the use of blaring horns, shouted lyrics. In the same period, particularly on the West Coast and in the Midwest, similarly, country boogie and Chicago electric blues supplied many of the elements that would be seen as characteristic of rock and roll. Rock and roll arrived at a time of technological change, soon after the development of the electric guitar, amplifier and microphone. It was the realization that relatively affluent white teenagers were listening to music that led to the development of what was to be defined as rock. Because the development of rock and roll was a process, no single record can be identified as unambiguously the first rock. Other artists with rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis
5.
Electric guitar
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The vibrations of the strings are sensed by a pickup, of which the most common type is the magnetic pickup, which uses the principle of direct electromagnetic induction. The signal generated by a guitar is too weak to drive a loudspeaker, so it is plugged into a guitar amplifier before being sent to a loudspeaker. The output of a guitar is an electric signal. Invented in 1931, the electric guitar was adopted by jazz guitarists. Early proponents of the guitar on record included Les Paul, Lonnie Johnson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, T-Bone Walker. During the 1950s and 1960s, the guitar became the most important instrument in pop music. It has evolved into an instrument that is capable of a multitude of sounds and styles in genres ranging from pop and rock to country music, blues and jazz. It served as a component in the development of electric blues, rock and roll, rock music, heavy metal music. Electric guitar design and construction vary greatly in the shape of the body and the configuration of the neck, bridge, Guitars may have a fixed bridge or a spring-loaded hinged bridge that lets players bend the pitch of notes or chords up or down or perform vibrato effects. The sound of a guitar can be modified by new playing techniques such as string bending, tapping, hammering on, using audio feedback, in a small group, such as a power trio, one guitarist switches between both roles. In larger rock and metal bands, there is often a rhythm guitarist, many experiments at electrically amplifying the vibrations of a string instrument were made dating back to the early part of the 20th century. Patents from the 1910s show telephone transmitters were adapted and placed inside violins, hobbyists in the 1920s used carbon button microphones attached to the bridge, however, these detected vibration from the bridge on top of the instrument, resulting in a weak signal. With numerous people experimenting with electrical instruments in the 1920s and early 1930s, Electric guitars were originally designed by acoustic guitar makers and instrument manufacturers. Some of the earliest electric guitars adapted hollow-bodied acoustic instruments and used tungsten pickups, the first electrically amplified guitar was designed in 1931 by George Beauchamp, the general manager of the National Guitar Corporation, with Paul Barth, who was vice president. The maple body prototype for the one-piece cast aluminum frying pan was built by Harry Watson, commercial production began in late summer of 1932 by the Ro-Pat-In Corporation, in Los Angeles, a partnership of Beauchamp, Adolph Rickenbacker, and Paul Barth. In 1934, the company was renamed the Rickenbacker Electro Stringed Instrument Company, in that year Beauchamp applied for a United States patent for an Electrical Stringed Musical Instrument and the patent was issued in 1937. The Electro-Spanish Ken Roberts provided players a full 25 scale, with 17 frets free of the fretboard and it is estimated that fewer than 50 Electro-Spanish Ken Roberts were constructed between 1933 and 1937, fewer than 10 are known to survive today. The need for the guitar became apparent during the big band era as orchestras increased in size, particularly when acoustic guitars had to compete with large
6.
Bass guitar
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The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb, by plucking, slapping, popping, strumming, tapping, thumping, or picking with a plectrum, often known as a pick. The bass guitar is similar in appearance and construction to a guitar, but with a longer neck and scale length. The four-string bass, by far the most common, is tuned the same as the double bass. The bass guitar is an instrument, as it is notated in bass clef an octave higher than it sounds to avoid excessive ledger lines. Like the electric guitar, the guitar has pickups and it is plugged into an amplifier and speaker on stage, or into a larger PA system using a DI unit. Since the 1960s, the guitar has largely replaced the double bass in popular music as the bass instrument in the rhythm section. While types of basslines vary widely from one style of music to another, many styles of music utilise the bass guitar, including rock, heavy metal, pop, punk rock, country, reggae, gospel, blues, symphonic rock, and jazz. It is often a solo instrument in jazz, jazz fusion, Latin, funk, progressive rock and other rock, the adoption of a guitar form made the instrument easier to hold and transport than any of the existing stringed bass instruments. The addition of frets enabled bassists to play in more easily than on acoustic or electric upright basses. Around 100 of these instruments were made during this period, around 1947, Tutmarcs son, Bud, began marketing a similar bass under the Serenader brand name, prominently advertised in the nationally distributed L. D. Heater Music Company wholesale jobber catalogue of 1948, however, the Tutmarc family inventions did not achieve market success. In the 1950s, Leo Fender, with the help of his employee George Fullerton and his Fender Precision Bass, which began production in October 1951, became a widely copied industry standard. This split pickup, introduced in 1957, appears to have been two mandolin pickups, the pole pieces and leads of the coils were reversed with respect to each other, producing a humbucking effect. Humbucking is a design that electrically cancels the effect of any AC hum, the Fender Bass was a revolutionary new instrument, which could be easily transported, and which was less prone to feedback when amplified than acoustic bass instruments. Monk Montgomery was the first bass player to tour with the Fender bass guitar, roy Johnson, and Shifty Henry with Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five, were other early Fender bass pioneers. Bill Black, playing with Elvis Presley, switched from bass to the Fender Precision Bass around 1957. The bass guitar was intended to appeal to guitarists as well as upright bass players, following Fenders lead, in 1953, Gibson released the first short scale violin-shaped electric bass with extendable end pin, allowing it to be played upright or horizontally. In 1959 these were followed by the more conventional-looking EB-0 Bass, the EB-0 was very similar to a Gibson SG in appearance
7.
Drum kit
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A drum kit consists of a mix of drums and idiophones most significantly cymbals but also including the woodblock and cowbell. In the 2000s, some also include electronic instruments and both hybrid and entirely electronic kits are used. If some or all of them are replaced by electronic drums, the drum kit is usually played while seated on a drum stool or throne. The drum kit differs from instruments that can be used to produce pitched melodies or chords, even though drums are often placed musically alongside others that do, such as the piano or guitar. The drum kit is part of the rhythm section used in many types of popular and traditional music styles ranging from rock and pop to blues. Other standard instruments used in the section include the electric bass, electric guitar. Many drummers extend their kits from this pattern, adding more drums, more cymbals. Some performers, such as some rockabilly drummers, use small kits that omit elements from the basic setup, some drum kit players may have other roles in the band, such as providing backup vocals, or less commonly, lead vocals. Thus, in an early 1800s orchestra piece, if the called for bass drum, triangle and cymbals. In the 1840s, percussionists began to experiment with foot pedals as a way to them to play more than one instrument. In the 1860s, percussionists started combining multiple drums into a set, the bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, and other percussion instruments were all played using hand-held drum sticks. Double-drumming was developed to one person to play the bass and snare with sticks. With this approach, the drum was usually played on beats one. This resulted in a swing and dance feel. The drum set was referred to as a trap set. By the 1870s, drummers were using an overhang pedal, most drummers in the 1870s preferred to do double drumming without any pedal to play multiple drums, rather than use an overhang pedal. Companies patented their pedal systems such as Dee Dee Chandler of New Orleans 1904–05, liberating the hands for the first time, this evolution saw the bass drum played with the foot of a standing percussionist. The bass drum became the central piece around which every other percussion instrument would later revolve and it was the golden age of drum building for many famous drum companies, with Ludwig introducing
8.
Rhythm guitar
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Therefore, the basic technique of rhythm guitar is to hold down a series of chords with the fretting hand while strumming rhythmically with the other hand. More developed rhythm techniques include arpeggios, damping, riffs, chord solos, in big band music, the guitarist is considered part of the rhythm section, alongside bass and drums. In some musical situations, such as a solo singer-guitarist, the guitar accompaniment provides all the rhythmic drive, in the most commercially available and consumed genres, electric guitars tend to dominate their acoustic cousins in both the recording studio and the live venue. However the acoustic guitar remains a popular choice in country, western and especially bluegrass music, most rhythms in rock and blues are based on 4/4 time with a backbeat, however, many variations are possible. A backbeat is a syncopated accentuation on the off beat, in a simple 4/4 rhythm these are beats 2 and 4. This requires rhythm guitarists to have a knowledge of how to use chord voicings, riffs. Three-chord progressions are common in pop and rock, using various combinations of the I, IV and V chords. Minor and modal chord progressions feature in popular music. One departure from the basic strummed chord technique is to play arpeggios, if this is done rapidly enough, listeners will still hear the sequence as harmony rather than melody. Arpeggiation is often used in folk, country, and heavy metal and it is also prominent in 1960s pop, such as The Animals House of the Rising Sun, and jangle pop from the 1980s onwards. Rhythm guitarists who use arpeggio often favor semi-acoustic guitars and twelve string guitars to get bright, the Soukous band TPOK Jazz additionally featured the unique role of mi-solo, guitarist, playing arpeggio patterns and filling a role between the lead and rhythm guitars. In some cases, the progression is implied with a simplified sequence of two or three notes, sometimes called a riff, that is repeated throughout the composition. In heavy metal music, this is expanded to more complex sequences comprising a combination of chords, single notes. The rhythm guitar part in compositions performed by more technically oriented bands often include riffs employing complex lead guitar techniques, in bands with two or more guitarists, the guitarists may exchange or even duplicate roles for different songs or different sections within a song. In those with a single guitarist, the guitarist may play lead and rhythm at different times or simultaneously, some rhythm techniques cross over into lead guitar playing. In guitar-bass-and-drums power trios guitarists must double up between rhythm and lead, for instance Jimi Hendrix combined full chords with solo licks, double stops and arpeggios. A recent innovation is the use of a pedal to record a chord sequence or riff over which the lead line can then be played. As a result, rhythm and lead players may use different guitars and amplifiers, Rhythm guitarists may employ an electric acoustic guitar or a humbucker-equipped electric guitar for a richer and fatter output
