Bill Mays
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Bill Mays
William Allen Mays (born February 5, 1944), known professionally as Bill Mays, is an American jazz pianist from Sacramento, California. Biography Mays came from a musical family and at the age of 15 became interested in jazz at an Earl Hines concert. From 1969 to the early 1980s Mays worked as a studio session musician in Los Angeles. He has been an accompanist to singers Al Jarreau, Peggy Lee, Anita O'Day, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan and Dionne Warwick, and also worked with artists such as Don Ellis, Mel Lewis, Barry Manilow, Shelly Manne, Bob Mintzer, Red Mitchell, Gerry Mulligan, Art Pepper, Bud Shank, Bobby Shew, Sonny Stitt, Paul Winter, Phil Woods and Frank Zappa. In 1984, he moved to New York City and began to do more work as a bandleader, composer, and arranger. He has recorded over three dozen albums under his own name, and has been heard on hundreds more by others. Discography As leader * ''A Musical Cocktail: The Music of Cole Porter'' (MCR, 1976) * ''Two of a Mind' ...
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Concord Jazz
Concord Jazz is a record company and label founded in 1973 by Carl Jefferson, the former owner of Jefferson Motors Lincoln Mercury dealership in Concord, California. The label was named after the city in the East San Francisco Bay area, and the jazz festival which Jefferson also began. The label issued recordings by Art Blakey, Cannonball Adderley, Stan Getz, Ray Brown, Rosemary Clooney, Chick Corea, Eliane Elias, and Kurt Elling. It is owned by Concord. Artists * Cannonball Adderley *Howard Alden *Herb Alpert *Monty Alexander *Steve Allen *Eden Atwood * George Barnes * Ray Barretto *Count Basie *Art Blakey *Terence Blanchard *Willie Bobo *Ruby Braff *Randy Brecker *Butcher Brown * Ray Brown * Dave Brubeck * Charlie Byrd *Frank Capp * Betty Carter *Ray Charles *Rosemary Clooney * John Collins *Bing Crosby *Jorge Dalto *Buddy DeFranco *Kurt Elling * Herb Ellis * Chris Flory * Stan Getz * Scott Hamilton *Gene Harris *Donald Harrison *Barney Kessel *Henry Mancini *Tania Maria *Ro ...
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Gerry Mulligan
Gerald Joseph Mulligan (April 6, 1927 – January 20, 1996), also known as Jeru, was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, composer and arranger. Though primarily known as one of the leading jazz baritone saxophonists—playing the instrument with a light and airy tone in the era of cool jazz—Mulligan was also a significant arranger, working with Claude Thornhill, Miles Davis, Stan Kenton, and others. His pianoless quartet of the early 1950s with trumpeter Chet Baker is still regarded as one of the best cool jazz groups. Mulligan was also a skilled pianist and played several other reed instruments. Several of his compositions, such as "Walkin' Shoes" and "Five Brothers", have become standards. Biography Early life and career Gerry Mulligan was born in Queens Village, Queens, New York, United States, the son of George and Louise Mulligan. His father was a Wilmington, Delaware native of Irish descent; his mother a Philadelphia native of half-Irish and half-German desce ...
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Elliot Goldenthal
Elliot Goldenthal (born May 2, 1954) is an American composer of contemporary classical music and film and theatrical scores. A student of Aaron Copland and John Corigliano, he is best known for his distinctive style and ability to blend various musical styles and techniques in original and inventive ways. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Score in 2002 for his score to the motion picture ''Frida'', directed by his longtime partner Julie Taymor. Early life and education Goldenthal was born on May 2, 1954, the youngest son of a Jewish housepainter father and a Catholic seamstress mother in Brooklyn, New York City, where he was influenced from an early age by music from all cultures and genres. Both pairs of Goldenthal's grandparents emigrated to the United States from Bucharest and Iași, Romania. Goldenthal lived in a multi-cultural part of town, and this is reflected in his works. He attended John Dewey High School in Brooklyn where, at the age of 14, he had his very fi ...
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Carter Burwell
Carter Benedict Burwell (born November 18, 1954) is an American film composer. He has consistently collaborated with the Coen brothers, having scored most of their films. Burwell has also scored three of Todd Haynes's films, three of Spike Jonze's films, and all the films of Martin McDonagh. He has received Academy Awards nominations for Best Original Score for Haynes's '' Carol'' (2015) and McDonagh's '' Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri'' (2017). Early life and education Burwell was born in New York City, the son of Natalie (née Benedict), a math teacher, and Charles Burwell, who founded Thaibok Fabrics, Ltd. He graduated from King School in Stamford, Connecticut with George Hofecker and other notables and Harvard College, where he was a cartoonist for ''The Harvard Lampoon''. Career As a film composer, Burwell has had a long-working relationship with the Coen brothers, providing music for every film they have made (except for ''O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' and '' I ...
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Neil Swainson
Neil James Sinclair Swainson (born November 15, 1955) is a Canadian jazz bassist. Swainson started his career in Victoria, British Columbia, when he supported visiting American musicians such as Herb Ellis, Barney Kessell, and Sonny Stitt. In 1976 he moved to Vancouver after playing with the Paul Horn Quintet and leading a band for two years. He moved to Toronto in 1977. Music career Swainson has become a leading Canadian jazz player since the 1980s when he started playing with famous local and visiting acts which include, Tommy Flanagan, Rob McConnell, Ed Bickert, Slide Hampton, James Moody, Jay McShann, Moe Koffman, Lee Konitz, Joe Farrell, George Coleman, and Woody Shaw. He went on to collaborate with Woody Shaw appearing on two of Woody Shaw's recordings: ''In My Own Sweet Way'' (In & Out 7003) and ''Solid'' (Muse 5329). He also toured with Shaw often in New York and on many European tours. A collaboration between Swainson and pianist George Shearing would form in 198 ...
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Marvin Stamm
Marvin Louis Stamm (born May 23, 1939) is an American jazz trumpeter. Career Stamm was born in Memphis, Tennessee, United States. Stamm began on trumpet at age twelve. He attended North Texas State University, where he was a member of the One O'Clock Lab Band. He was a member of Stan Kenton's Mellophonium Orchestra from 1961 to 1963, then worked with Woody Herman from 1965 to 1966. Following this he was with The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra from 1966 to 1972 and with Benny Goodman from 1974 to 1975. In the 1970s, he began a decades-long career as a prolific studio and session musician. In the studio he has recorded with Paul McCartney, Average White Band, Bill Evans, Quincy Jones, Donald Fagen, Oliver Nelson, Duke Pearson, Wes Montgomery, Freddie Hubbard, Stanley Turrentine, Grover Washington, Jr., Patrick Williams, Michel Legrand, Lena Horne, Frank Foster, Paul Desmond, Frankie Valli, Deodato, Les DeMerle, and George Benson. He played the flugelhorn solo on "Uncle Alber ...
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Ed Bickert
Edward Isaac Bickert, (November 29, 1932 – February 28, 2019) was a Canadian guitarist who played mainstream jazz and swing music. Bickert worked professionally from the mid-1950s to 2000, mainly in the Toronto area. His international reputation grew steadily from the mid-1970s onward as he recorded albums both as a bandleader and as a backing musician for Paul Desmond, Rosemary Clooney, and other artists, with whom he toured in North America, Europe and Japan. Early life Bickert was born in the small Plautdietsch-speaking Mennonite village of Hochfeld, Manitoba to Harry Bickert, a Russian Mennonite immigrant from Molotschna colony and Helen Dyck of Plum Coulee, Manitoba. Bickert's parents were semi-professional musicians, his father playing fiddle and his mother playing piano. As a child, Bickert and his family moved to Vernon, British Columbia where his parents operated a chicken farm and had a small country dance band. When he was ten years old, Bickert started playing a g ...
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Ray Drummond
Ray Drummond (born November 23, 1946 in Brookline, Massachusetts) is an American jazz bassist and teacher. He also has an MBA from Stanford University, hence his linkage to the Stanford Jazz Workshop. He can be heard on hundreds of albums and co-leads ''The Drummonds'' with Renee Rosnes and (not related) Billy Drummond. Drummond has been a resident of Teaneck, New Jersey, since 1980 with his wife, Susan, and his daughter, Maya. He is the elder brother of David Drummond, who served as senior vice president, corporate development and chief legal officer of Google Inc., until his retirement in 2020. Discography As leaderJazzdisco: Ray Drummond catalog - album index
accessed May 11, 2018

* 1984: ''Susanita'' (
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Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa (December 21, 1940 – December 4, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and bandleader. His work is characterized by wikt:nonconformity, nonconformity, Free improvisation, free-form improvisation, sound experiments, Virtuoso, musical virtuosity and satire of American culture. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa composed Rock music, rock, Pop music, pop, jazz, jazz fusion, orchestral and ''musique concrète'' works, and produced almost all of the 60-plus albums that he released with his band the Mothers of Invention and as a solo artist. Zappa also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed album covers. He is considered one of the most innovative and stylistically diverse musicians of his generation. As a self-taught composer and performer, Zappa had diverse musical influences that led him to create music that was sometimes difficult to categorize. While in his teens, he acquired a taste for 20th-century classica ...
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Phil Woods
Philip Wells Woods (November 2, 1931 – September 29, 2015) was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader, and composer. Biography Woods was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. After inheriting a saxophone at age 12, he began taking lessons at a local music shop. His heroes on the alto saxophone included Benny Carter and Johnny Hodges. He studied music with Lennie Tristano at the Manhattan School of Music and at the Juilliard School. His friend, Joe Lopes, coached him on clarinet as there was no saxophone major at Juilliard at the time and received a bachelor’s degree in 1952. Although he did not copy Charlie Parker, Woods was known as the New Bird, a nickname also given to other alto saxophone players such as Sonny Stitt and Cannonball Adderley. In the 1950s, Woods began to lead his own bands. Quincy Jones invited him to accompany Dizzy Gillespie on a world tour sponsored by the U.S. State Department. A few years later he toured Europe with Jones, and in 19 ...
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Paul Winter
Paul Winter (born August 31, 1939) is an American saxophonist, composer, and bandleader. He is a pioneer of world music and earth music, which interweaves the voices of the wild with instrumental voices from classical, jazz and world music. The music is often improvised and recorded in nature to reflect the qualities brought into play by the environment. Early life Winter was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, United States. He studied piano and clarinet, then fell in love with saxophone in the fourth grade. He started the Little German Band with his schoolmates when he was twelve, then a Dixieland band, and a nine-piece dance band known as The Silver Liners. He became enthralled by big bands and bebop bands of the 1950s. After graduating from Altoona Area High School in 1957, he spent the summer on a tour of state fairs in the Midwest with the conductor and members of the Ringling Brothers Circus Band. Paul Winter Sextet At Northwestern University, he majored in English and vi ...
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Sonny Stitt
Edward Hammond Boatner Jr. (February 2, 1924 – July 22, 1982), known professionally as Sonny Stitt, was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. Known for his warm tone, he was one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording more than 100 albums. He was nicknamed the "Lone Wolf" by jazz critic Dan Morgenstern because of his relentless touring and devotion to jazz yet rarely worked with the same musicians for long. Stitt was sometimes viewed as a Charlie Parker mimic, especially earlier in his career, but gradually came to develop his own sound and style, particularly when performing on tenor saxophone and even occasionally baritone saxophone. Early life Edward Hammond Boatner, Jr. was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in Saginaw, Michigan. He had a musical background: his father, Edward Boatner, was a baritone singer, composer, and college music professor; his brother was a classically trained pianist, and his mother was a pian ...
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