AMM (group)
AMM is a British free improvisation group, founded in London, England, in 1965. The group was composed of Keith Rowe on guitar, Lou Gare on saxophone, Eddie Prévost on drums; the three men shared an interest in exploring music beyond the boundaries of conventional jazz, as in free jazz and free improvisation. AMM has been influential in improvised music. Most of their albums have been released by Matchless Recordings, run by Eddie Prévost. In a 2001 interview, Keith Rowe was asked, he replied, "The letters AMM stand for something, but as you know it's a secret!" AMM was composed of Keith Rowe on guitar, Lou Gare on saxophone and Eddie Prévost on drums. Rowe and Gare were members of Mike Westbrook's band; the three men shared a common interest in exploring music beyond the boundaries of conventional jazz, as part of a larger movement that helped spawn European free jazz and free improvisation. The seeds of AMM were planted in 1965, they had no name, were not a group in the conventional sense a weekend experimental workshop session at the Royal College of Art in London, centred on Gare, Prévost.
Members of the group have come and gone over the years, but Rowe and Prévost have been present for most recordings and performances. Musicians were free to join in, but such collaborations were short-lived if the contributions were lacking the proper spirit: notable jazz saxophonist Steve Lacy sat in with the group but was asked to stop playing. Observers were welcome, provided they didn't disturb the proceedings. American saxophonist Ornette Coleman was asked to leave after he continually talked during one performance; when asked how he liked the music he said. The group settled on a line-up of Prévost, Gare, bassist Lawrence Sheaff and pianist/cellist Cornelius Cardew, and, in early 1966, were calling themselves AMM. However, some early performances were billed as the "Cornelius Cardew Quintet", a mistake which both irked and amused the musicians. After a few paying performances, Cardew bought two amplifiers so the other instruments could compete with the volume of Rowe's guitar. In addition to amplifying their instruments and Gare would apply contact microphones to various common objects to amplify the sounds made by, for example, rubbing a glass jar or striking a coffee tin.
No AMM performance is planned. The musicians vowed; the musicians tend to avoid any conventional melody, harmony or rhythm, seek out an ensemble sound that obscures any individual's role. It is difficult to discern which musical instrument is making which specific sound on an AMM recording, due in part to liberal use of various extended techniques on their instruments. AMM released their first recording, AMMusic 1966, on Elektra Records UK in 1966, it had some initial similarities to free jazz, due in part to Gare's saxophone. One critic has written, that the resemblance was rather slight: "the overall sound of the group in 1966, was so different, so idiosyncratic, that it's not at all surprising that both new jazz and contemporary classical audiences were baffled, if not horrified." Percussionist Christopher Hobbs played with AMM in the late 1960s. The next AMM material to see release were the important The Crypt sessions from 12 June 1968. Though the debut is regarded as a landmark recording, The Crypt was arguably more important in establishing the droning, long-form music that would come to characterise AMM.
Further "out" and less conventional than earlier material, one critic has written of it that "an eerie sensation accompanies each listen to the raw streams of electric noise channeled on AMM's second album and early masterpiece, The Crypt. To ears informed by the twenty-first century, it's the uncanny feeling of listening to three-and-a-half decades of experimental music history as delivered in a chillingly prescient sort of reverse premonition... It's a little unnerving that the only records that seem to describe the brave new soundworld harnessed on The Crypt came into being well after its creation."The Crypt sessions have been issued many times, twice in the 1980s as a double LP, it is still available on a double CD from Matchless Recordings. The Crypt continues to inspire adventurous listeners, it pays not to underestimate the audience. Its continued success has enabled us to release other works. So we felt committed, obliged to keep it available... this music has proved itself not to be ephemeral."Composer Cornelius Cardew joined AMM in 1966, performing on piano and cello.
He worked with AMM intermittently until he abandoned his earlier experimental music in the late 1970s. Composer Christian Wolff performed with AMM in 1968. Cardew and Rowe became committed to socialism and to Maoism, thought that AMM's music should reflect their sociopolitical outlook. Prévost accuses the pair of "cultural bullying", there was tension in the group, resulting in some AMM performances being made by alternating duos: Rowe and Cardew, Prévost and Gare; this personal and political tension culminate
Trevor Watts
Trevor Charles Watts is an English jazz and free-improvising alto and soprano saxophonist. He is self-taught, having taken up the cornet at age 12 switched to saxophone at 18. While stationed in Germany with the RAF, he encountered the drummer John Stevens and trombonist Paul Rutherford. After being demobbed he returned to London. In 1965 he and Stevens formed the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, which became one of the crucibles of British free improvisation. Watts left the band to form his own group Amalgam in 1967 returned to SME for another stretch that lasted until the mid-1970s. Another key association was with the bassist Barry Guy and his London Jazz Composers' Orchestra, an association that lasted from the band's inception in the 1970s up to its disbandment in the mid-1990s. Though he was strongly identified with the avant-garde, Watts is a versatile musician who has worked in everything from straight jazz contexts to rock and blues, his own projects have come to focus on blending jazz and African music, notably the Moiré Music ensemble which he has led since 1982 in configurations ranging from large ensembles featuring multiple drummers to more intimate trios.
He has only recorded in freer modes in recent years, notably the CD 6 Dialogues, a duet album with Veryan Weston. A solo album, World Sonic, appeared on Hi4Head Records in 2005. Watts has toured the world over numerous times, run workshops, received grants and commissions, he has collaborated with some of the great jazz musicians including Archie Shepp, Steve Lacy, Don Cherry and Jayne Cortez; as of 2011, he toured North American with Veryan Weston. 1969: Amalgam: Prayer for Peace: Transatlantic Records 1971: Spontaneous Music Ensemble: So, What Do You Think?: Tangent 1971: Spontaneous Music Ensemble: 1.2. Albert Ayler: Affinity 1974: Amalgam: Innovation: Tangent 1976: Amalgam: Another Time: Vinyl 1977: With John Stevens: No Fear: Spotlite 1977: Amalgam: Deep: Vinyl 1977: Amalgam: "Samanna" Vinyl 1978: Cynosure: Ogun 1979: Amalgam: Over the Rainbow.
Drummer
A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drums. Most contemporary western bands that play rock, jazz, or R&B music include a drummer for purposes including timekeeping and embellishing the musical timbre; the drummer's equipment includes a drum kit which includes various drums, cymbals and an assortment of accessory hardware such as pedals, standing support mechanisms, drum sticks. In other genres in the traditional music of many countries, drummers use individual drums of various sizes and designs rather than drum kits; some use only their hands to strike the drums. In larger ensembles, the drummer may be part of a rhythm section with other percussionists playing, for example, marimba or xylophone; these musicians provide the timing and rhythmic foundation which allow the players of melodic instruments, including voices, to coordinate their musical performance. Some famous drummers include: John Bonham, Ginger Baker, Keith Moon, Neil Peart, Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, Tim "Herb" Alexander, Rashied Ali, Carl Allen, Steve White, Craig Blundell, Travis Barker, Tony Royster Jr. Rick Allen.
As well as the primary rhythmic function, in some musical styles, such as world, jazz and electronica, the drummer is called upon to provide solo and lead performances, at times when the main feature of the music is the rhythmic development. There are many tools that a drummer can use for either soloing; these include cymbals, toms, auxiliary percussion and many others. There are single and triple bass pedals for the bass drum. Before motorized transport became widespread, drummers played a key role in military conflicts. Military drummers provided drum cadences that set a steady marching pace and elevated troop morale on the battlefield. In some armies drums assisted in combat by keeping cadence for firing and loading drills with muzzle loading guns. Military drummers were employed on the parade field, when troops passed in review, in various ceremonies including ominous drum rolls accompanying disciplinary punishments. Children served as drummer boys well into the nineteenth century, though less than is popularly assumed.
In modern times, drummers are not employed in battle. Buglers and drummers mass under a sergeant-drummer and during marches alternately perform with the regiment or battalion ensembles. Military-based musical percussion traditions were not limited to the western world; when Emir Osman I was appointed commander of the Turkish army on the Byzantine border in the late 13th century, he was symbolically installed via a handover of musical instruments by the Seldjuk sultan. In the Ottoman Empire, the size of a military band reflected the rank of its commander in chief: the largest band was reserved for the Sultan, it included various percussion instruments adopted in European military music. The pitched bass drum is still known in some languages as the Turkish Drum. Military drumming is the origin of Traditional grip as opposed to Matched grip of drumsticks; the drumline is a type of marching ensemble descended from military drummers, can be arranged as a performance of a drum, a group of drummers, or as a part of a larger marching band.
Their uniforms will have a military style and a fancy hat. In recent times, it is more common to see drummers in parades wearing costumes with an African, Latin, Native American, or tribal look and sound. Various indigenous cultures use the drum to create a sense of unity with others during recreational events; the drum helps in prayers and meditations. List of drummers Drum beat Drum machine Drum tracks Kathleen. "Drum". In Chisholm, Hugh. Encyclopædia Britannica. 8. Cambridge University Press. P. 598
MusicBrainz
MusicBrainz is a project that aims to create an open data music database, similar to the freedb project. MusicBrainz was founded in response to the restrictions placed on the Compact Disc Database, a database for software applications to look up audio CD information on the Internet. MusicBrainz has expanded its goals to reach beyond a compact disc metadata storehouse to become a structured open online database for music. MusicBrainz captures information about artists, their recorded works, the relationships between them. Recorded works entries capture at a minimum the album title, track titles, the length of each track; these entries are maintained by volunteer editors. Recorded works can store information about the release date and country, the CD ID, cover art, acoustic fingerprint, free-form annotation text and other metadata; as of 21 September 2018, MusicBrainz contained information about 1.4 million artists, 2 million releases, 19 million recordings. End-users can use software that communicates with MusicBrainz to add metadata tags to their digital media files, such as FLAC, MP3, Ogg Vorbis or AAC.
MusicBrainz allows contributors to upload cover art images of releases to the database. Internet Archive provides the bandwidth and legal protection for hosting the images, while MusicBrainz stores metadata and provides public access through the web and via an API for third parties to use; as with other contributions, the MusicBrainz community is in charge of maintaining and reviewing the data. Cover art is provided for items on sale at Amazon.com and some other online resources, but CAA is now preferred because it gives the community more control and flexibility for managing the images. Besides collecting metadata about music, MusicBrainz allows looking up recordings by their acoustic fingerprint. A separate application, such as MusicBrainz Picard, must be used for this. In 2000, MusicBrainz started using Relatable's patented TRM for acoustic fingerprint matching; this feature allowed the database to grow quickly. However, by 2005 TRM was showing scalability issues as the number of tracks in the database had reached into the millions.
This issue was resolved in May 2006 when MusicBrainz partnered with MusicIP, replacing TRM with MusicDNS. TRMs were phased out and replaced by MusicDNS in November 2008. In October 2009 MusicIP was acquired by AmpliFIND; some time after the acquisition, the MusicDNS service began having intermittent problems. Since the future of the free identification service was uncertain, a replacement for it was sought; the Chromaprint acoustic fingerprinting algorithm, the basis for AcoustID identification service, was started in February 2010 by a long-time MusicBrainz contributor Lukáš Lalinský. While AcoustID and Chromaprint are not MusicBrainz projects, they are tied with each other and both are open source. Chromaprint works by analyzing the first two minutes of a track, detecting the strength in each of 12 pitch classes, storing these 8 times per second. Additional post-processing is applied to compress this fingerprint while retaining patterns; the AcoustID search server searches from the database of fingerprints by similarity and returns the AcoustID identifier along with MusicBrainz recording identifiers if known.
Since 2003, MusicBrainz's core data are in the public domain, additional content, including moderation data, is placed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0 license. The relational database management system is PostgreSQL; the server software is covered by the GNU General Public License. The MusicBrainz client software library, libmusicbrainz, is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License, which allows use of the code by proprietary software products. In December 2004, the MusicBrainz project was turned over to the MetaBrainz Foundation, a non-profit group, by its creator Robert Kaye. On 20 January 2006, the first commercial venture to use MusicBrainz data was the Barcelona, Spain-based Linkara in their Linkara Música service. On 28 June 2007, BBC announced that it has licensed MusicBrainz's live data feed to augment their music Web pages; the BBC online music editors will join the MusicBrainz community to contribute their knowledge to the database. On 28 July 2008, the beta of the new BBC Music site was launched, which publishes a page for each MusicBrainz artist.
Amarok – KDE audio player Banshee – multi-platform audio player Beets – automatic CLI music tagger/organiser for Unix-like systems Clementine – multi-platform audio player CDex – Microsoft Windows CD ripper Demlo – a dynamic and extensible music manager using a CLI iEatBrainz – Mac OS X deprecated foo_musicbrainz component for foobar2000 – Music Library/Audio Player Jaikoz – Java mass tag editor Max – Mac OS X CD ripper and audio transcoder Mp3tag – Windows metadata editor and music organizer MusicBrainz Picard – cross-platform album-oriented tag editor MusicBrainz Tagger – deprecated Microsoft Windows tag editor puddletag – a tag editor for PyQt under the GPLv3 Rhythmbox music player – an audio player for Unix-like systems Sound Juicer – GNOME CD ripper Zortam Mp3 Media Studio – Windows music organizer and ID3 Tag Editor. Freedb clients can access MusicBrainz data through the freedb protocol by using the MusicBrainz to FreeDB gateway service, mb2freedb. List of online music databases Making Metadata: The Case of Mus
Kent Carter
Kent Carter is an American jazz bassist. His father, Alan Carter, founded the Vermont Symphony Orchestra, he is the grandson of American artist, Rockwell Kent. He worked in Steve Lacy's group, played on the two Jazz Composer's Orchestra albums and released albums for Emanem Records. Beauvais Cathedral Lost in June Regeneration The Willisau Suites The Juillaguet Collection Intersections Summer Works 2009 Oratorios and Songs With Paul Bley Touching With the Jazz Composer's Orchestra Communication The Jazz Composer's Orchestra With Steve Lacy Disposability Journey Without End with Mal Waldron Mal Waldron with the Steve Lacy Quintet Trickles Troubles Stamps The Way With Gianni Lenoci Secret Garden With the Spontaneous Music Ensemble Quintessence With Un Drame Musical Instantané A Travail égal salaire égal "Summer Works 2009" review
NME
New Musical Express is a British music journalism website and former magazine, published since 1952. It was the first British paper to include a singles chart, in the edition of 14 November 1952. In the 1970s it became the best-selling British music newspaper. During the period 1972 to 1976, it was associated with gonzo journalism became associated with punk rock through the writings of Julie Burchill, Paul Morley and Tony Parsons, it started as a music newspaper, moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s and 1990s, changing from newsprint in 1998. An online version, NME.com, was launched in 1996. It became the world's biggest standalone music site, with over sixteen million users per month. With newsstand sales falling across the UK magazine sector, the magazine's paid circulation in the first half of 2014 was 15,830. In 2013, the list of NME's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time and the way it was conceived was criticized by the media; the printed magazine NME was relaunched in September 2015 to be distributed nationally as a free publication.
The first average circulation published in February 2016 of 307,217 copies per week was the highest in the brand's history, beating the previous best of 306,881, recorded in 1964 at the height of the Beatles' fame. By December 2017, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations, average distribution of NME had fallen to 289,432 copies a week, although its publisher Time Inc. UK claimed to have more than 13m global unique users per month, including 3m in the UK. In March 2018, the publisher announced that the print edition of NME would cease publication after 66 years, leaving it as an online-only title. NME's headquarters are in Southwark, England; the brand's current editor is Charlotte Gunn, replacing Mike Williams, who stepped down in February 2018. The paper was established in 1952; the Accordion Times and Musical Express was bought by London music promoter Maurice Kinn, for the sum of £1,000, just 15 minutes before it was due to be closed. It was relaunched as the New Musical Express, was published in a non-glossy tabloid format on standard newsprint.
On 14 November 1952, taking its cue from the US magazine Billboard, it created the first UK Singles Chart, a list of the Top Twelve best-selling singles. The first of these was, in contrast to more recent charts, a top twelve sourced by the magazine itself from sales in regional stores around the UK; the first number one was "Here in My Heart" by Al Martino. During the 1960s the paper championed the new British groups emerging at the time; the NME circulation peaked under Andy Gray with a figure of 306,881 for the period from January to June 1964. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were featured on the front cover; these and other artists appeared at the NME Poll Winners' Concert, an awards event that featured artists voted as most popular by the paper's readers. The concert featured a ceremony where the poll winners would collect their awards; the NME Poll Winners' Concerts took place between 1959 and 1972. From 1964 onwards they were filmed and transmitted on British television a few weeks after they had taken place.
In the mid-1960s, the NME was dedicated to pop while its older rival, Melody Maker, was known for its more serious coverage of music. Other competing titles included Record Mirror, which led the way in championing American rhythm and blues, Disc, which focused on chart news; the latter part of the decade saw the paper chart the rise of psychedelia and the continued dominance of British groups of the time. During this period some sections of pop music began to be designated as rock; the paper became engaged in a sometimes tense rivalry with Melody Maker. By the early 1970s, NME had lost ground to Melody Maker, as its coverage of music had failed to keep place with the development of rock music during the early years of psychedelia and progressive rock. In early 1972 the paper found itself on the verge of closure by its owner IPC. According to Nick Kent: After sales had plummeted to 60,000 and a review of guitar instrumentalist Duane Eddy had been printed which began with the immortal words "On this, his 35th album, we find Duane in as good as voice as ever," the NME had been told to rethink its policies or die on the vine.
Alan Smith was made editor in 1972, was told by IPC to turn things around or face closure. To achieve this and his assistant editor Nick Logan raided the underground press for writers such as Charles Shaar Murray and Nick Kent, recruited other writers such as Tony Tyler, Ian MacDonald and Californian Danny Holloway. According to The Economist, the New Musical Express "started to champion underground, up-and-coming music.... NME became the gateway to a more rebellious world. First came glamrock, bands such as T. Rex, came punk....by 1977 it had become the place to keep in touch with a cultural revolution, enthralling the nation's listless youth. Bands such as Sex Pistols, X-Ray Spex and Generation X were regular cover stars, eulogised by writers such as Julie Burchill and Tony Parsons, whose nihilistic tone narrated the punk years perfectly." By the time Smith handed the editor's chair to Logan in mid-1973, the paper was selling nearly 300,000 copies per week and was outstripping Melody Maker, Record Mirror and Sounds.
According to MacDonald: I think all the other papers knew by 1974 that NME had become the best music paper in Britain. We had most of the best writers and photographers, the best layouts
Peter Kowald
Peter Kowald was a German free jazz double bassist and tubist. A member of the Globe Unity Orchestra, a touring double-bass player, Kowald collaborated with a large number of European free jazz and American free-jazz players during his career, including Peter Brötzmann, Irène Schweizer, Karl Berger, Fred Anderson, Hamid Drake, Karl E. H. Seigfried, Conny Bauer, Jeffrey Morgan, Wadada Leo Smith, Günter Sommer, William Parker, Barre Phillips, Joëlle Léandre, Alfred Harth, Lauren Newton and Evan Parker, he recorded a number of solo double-bass albums, was a member of the London Jazz Composer's Orchestra until 1985. He recorded a number of pioneering double bass duets with Maarten Altena, Barry Guy, Joëlle Léandre, Barre Phillips, William Parker, Damon Smith and Peter Jacquemyn. In addition, Kowald collaborated extensively with poets and artists and with the dancers Gerlinde Lambeck, Anne Martin, Tadashi Endo, Patricia Parker, Maria Mitchell, Sally Silvers, Cheryl Banks, Arnette de Mille, Sayonara Pereira, Kazuo Ohno.
Specific works included Die Klage der Kaiserin with Pina Bausch, short pieces with Jean Sasportes, The spirit of adventure with Anastasia Lyra, Wasser in der Hand with Christine Brunel, Futan no sentaku/The burden of choice with Min Tanaka and Butch Morris. Besides his duo work with singers such as Jeanne Lee, Diamanda Galás, Anna Homler or Sainkho Namtchylak, Peter was interested in his international improvising ensemble Global Village with musicians from different cultural regions of the world: China, Near East, South Europe and South America, he died of a heart attack in New York City in 2002. Die Jungen: Random Generators with Barre Phillips Two Making a Triangle with Maarten Altena If You Want the Kernels You Have to Break the Shells with Leo Smith and Günter Sommer Paintings with Barry Guy Open Secrets Duos: Europa · America · Japan When The Sun Is Out You Don't See Stars with Werner Lüdi, Butch Morris and Sainkho Namtchylak Was Da Ist Cuts with Ort Ensemble Wuppertal, Evan Parker, Lê Quan Ninh and Carlos Zingaro Bass Duets – compilation Mirrors – Broken But no Dust 1966 Alexander Schlippenbach: Globe Unity 1967: Peter Brotzmann: For Adolphe Sax 1968: The Peter Brotzmann Octet: Machine Gun 1973: Globe Unity Orchestra – Live in Wuppertal 1979: Leo Smith/Kowald/Sommer: Touch the Earth 1986: Global Village Suite 1986: Wadada Leo Smith: Human Rights 1987: Bill Dixon: Thoughts 1996/2003: Duos 1 / Duos 2 1998: Fred Anderson Trio – Live at the Velvet Lounge 2003: Global Village Kowald's FMP releases Biography and discography
