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Big Head Eddie
''Big Head Eddie'' is the debut album by American jazz reedist Ken Vandermark, which was recorded in 1993 and released on Platypus. Background After moving to Chicago in 1989, Vandermark performed with Hal Russell, whom he replaced in punk jazz band The Flying Luttenbachers and free jazz NRG Ensemble. The Vandermark Quartet, with guitarist Todd Colburn, bassist Kent Kessler and drummer Michael Zerang, was his first major group. Kessler was the bassist on the NRG Ensemble since 1985.Original Liner Notes by Rick Reger ''Big Head Eddie'' was Vandermark's first CD as a leader after some obscure recordings with Fourth Stream, Lombard Street and the duo with Curt Newton ''Concert for Jimmy Lyons'', only released on cassette. Reception In his review for AllMusic, Thom Jurek states: "This is a stunning debut, and a high sign that musically everything was about to get very interesting." '' The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' notes that "''Big Head Eddie'' is a nifty set of tunes, sparked by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ken Vandermark
Ken Vandermark (born September 22, 1964) is an American composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist. A fixture on the Chicago-area music scene since the 1990s, Vandermark has earned wide critical praise for his playing and his multilayered compositions, which typically balance intricate orchestration with passionate improvisation. He has led or been a member of many groups, has collaborated with many other musicians, and was awarded a 1999 MacArthur Fellowship. He plays tenor saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, and baritone saxophone. He was also a member of NRG Ensemble. Biography Boston and Montreal Vandermark grew up in Massachusetts, graduating from Natick High School. His father, Stu Vandermark, was the Boston correspondent for ''Cadence Magazine'' and currently is a noted essayist on jazz, primarily concerned with improvisation. Vandermark led a jazz trio, the Fourth Stream, in Montreal while he was an undergraduate at McGill University. He graduated in 1986 with a deg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1 = State , subdivision_type2 = Counties , subdivision_name1 = Illinois , subdivision_name2 = Cook and DuPage , established_title = Settled , established_date = , established_title2 = Incorporated (city) , established_date2 = , founder = Jean Baptiste Point du Sable , government_type = Mayor–council , governing_body = Chicago City Council , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Lori Lightfoot ( D) , leader_title1 = City Clerk , leader_name1 = Anna Valencia ( D) , unit_pref = Imperial , area_footnotes = , area_tot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. Jazz has roots in European harmony and African rhythmic rituals. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. But jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, Kansas City jazz (a hard-swinging, bluesy, improvisationa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caffeine (album)
''Caffeine'' is the eponymous debut album by the free improvisation trio consisting of Jim Baker on piano, Steve Hunt on percussion and Ken Vandermark on reeds. It was recorded in 1993 and released on Okka Disk. By the time of recording, Vandermark and Hunt were members of the NRG Ensemble.''Caffeine'' at Reception In his review for AllMusic, Alain Drouot states that "the music is extremely dense, despite the fact that the session only involves a trio and the musicians avidly seek to fill all the spaces ... Despite its shortcomings, ''Caffeine'' manages to sustain the listener's interest due to, in particular, Hun ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hal Russell
Hal Russell (born Harold Russell Luttenbacher, August 28, 1926 – September 5, 1992) was an American free jazz composer, band leader and multi-instrumentalist who performed mainly on saxophone and drums but occasionally on trumpet or vibraphone.Clarke, D.Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music: Hal Russell Donaldclarkemusicbox.com, accessed May 6, 2014 Russel's fiery music was marked by significant humor, not unlike much of Dutch drummer Han Bennink's output. His music was so accessible that ''People'' magazine hailed ''The Finnish Swiss Tour'' on ECM as one of its top 5 albums of the year. Russell set the table for the free improv and free jazz scene which exploded later in the 1990s in Chicago. Biography Born in Detroit, Michigan, United States, and raised in Chicago, Illinois, from the eighth grade, Russell began playing drums at age four, but majored in trumpet at college; he subsequently drummed in several big bands, including those of Woody Herman and Boyd Raebur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Flying Luttenbachers
The Flying Luttenbachers is an American instrumental unit led by multi-instrumentalist/composer/improviser/ producer Weasel Walter. The Flying Luttenbachers have created a body of work focused on musical extremity and dissonance. Over the course of the band, the personnel has shifted numerous times around the artistic leadership of Walter. The music ranges from intense, all-acoustic free improvisation, to complex, modernistic rock composition; electronic noise to punk-inspired jazz. Walter has been quoted as drawing inspiration from the fields of punk, death metal, free jazz, and no wave. Walter moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 2003, where he reformed The Flying Luttenbachers with the addition of bassist Mike Green, guitarist Ed Rodriguez, and later Mick Barr. The Flying Luttenbachers officially disbanded in 2007. In 2017, after a ten-year hiatus, an incarnation of The Flying Luttenbachers with Walter on drums, joined by guitarist Chris Welcome and bassist Tim Dahl, play ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NRG Ensemble
NRG Ensemble was an American free jazz ensemble founded in the late 1970s by saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist Hal Russell.Margasak, PeterThe Undiminished Power of Hal Russell's NRG Ensemble''at Chicago Reader'' The group's personnel was somewhat fluid, but included a core of drummer Steve Hunt, saxophonist Mars Williams, guitarist/trumpeter Brian Sandstrom, and bassist Kent Kessler. Their music kept free jazz alive in Chicago throughout the 1980s, when it had largely disappeared from the jazz landscape. Russell was the primary composer, but the other musicians contributed songs as well. Their punning song and album titles (''Conserving NRG, Hal on Earth'') reflected the humor that permeated Russell's music. After Russell's death in 1992, the NRG Ensemble recruited saxophonist Ken Vandermark as a replacement, recording three more albums under the leadership of Williams. Discography # ''NRG Ensemble'' (Nessa, 1981) # ''Generation'' (Nessa, 1982) - with Charles Tyler # '' Conservi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kent Kessler
Kent Kessler (born January 28, 1957) is an American jazz double-bassist. Career Although born in Crawfordsville, Indiana, Kessler grew up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. He began playing trombone at age ten. When he was thirteen, he moved with his family to Chicago and a few years later became interested in jazz. While attending St. Mary Center for Learning High School, he took lessons in bass guitar and jazz theory from Kestutis Stanciauskas. In 1977 he formed Neutrino Orchestra with percussionist Michael Zerang and guitarists Dan Scanlan and Norbert Funk. He spent three months in Brazil during 1980–81 and intermittently attended Roosevelt University in Chicago. He and Michael Zerang also formed a group called Musica Menta, which played routinely at Link's Hall. Kessler began playing double bass in the 1980s. It became his primary instrument in 1985 when he was asked to join the NRG Ensemble, which toured Europe and recorded for ECM under the leadership of Hal Russell until his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Guide' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Penguin Guide To Jazz
''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled by Richard Cook and Brian Morton, two chroniclers of jazz resident in the United Kingdom. History The first edition was published in Britain by Penguin Books in 1992. Every subsequent two years, through 2010, a new edition was published with updated entries. The eighth and ninth editions, published in 2006 and 2008, respectively, each included 2,000 new CD listings. The title took on different forms over the lifetime of the work, as audio technology changed. The seventh edition was known as ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD'' while subsequent editions were titled ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings''. The earliest edition had the title ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, LP and Cassette''. Richard Cook died in 2007, prior to the comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reed (instrument)
A reed (or lamella) is a thin strip of material that vibrates to produce a sound on a musical instrument. Most woodwind instrument reeds are made from ''Arundo donax'' ("Giant cane") or synthetic material. Tuned reeds (as in harmonicas and accordions) are made of metal or synthetics. Musical instruments are classified according to the type and number of reeds. The earliest types of single-reed instruments used idioglottal reeds, where the vibrating reed is a tongue cut and shaped on the tube of cane. Much later, single-reed instruments started using heteroglottal reeds, where a reed is cut and separated from the tube of cane and attached to a mouthpiece of some sort. By contrast, in an uncapped double reed instrument (such as the oboe and bassoon), there is no mouthpiece; the two parts of the reed vibrate against one another. Single reeds Single reeds are used on the mouthpieces of clarinets and saxophones. The back of the reed is flat and is placed against the mouthpiece. These ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A plectrum or individual finger picks may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant chamber on the instrument, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier. The guitar is classified as a chordophone – meaning the sound is produced by a vibrating string stretched between two fixed points. Historically, a guitar was constructed from wood with its strings made of catgut. Steel guitar strings were introduced near the end of the nineteenth century in the United States; nylon strings came in the 1940s. The guitar's ancestors include the gittern, the vihuela, the four- course Renaissance guitar, and the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
