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Byron Wallen
Byron Wallen (born July 1969) is a British jazz trumpeter, composer and educator. He was described by '' Jazzwise'' as "one of the most innovative, exciting and original trumpet players alive". As characterised by '' All About Jazz'', "He does not fit into any pigeonhole, however, and is also something of a renaissance man: he has long been involved in cognitive psychology and also travels widely, spending extended periods in South Africa, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, Morocco, Indonesia and Belize (his parents' homeland)." Biography Wallen was born in London, England, to parents from Belize, and was brought up in a musical family – one of his three siblings is composer Errollyn Wallen. After beginning to learn classical piano as a young child, also playing euphonium, he went on to study the trumpet in New York in the mid- to late 1980s with Jimmy Owens, Donald Byrd and Jon Faddis. Wallen graduated from Sussex University with a degree in Psychology, Philosophy and Maths, while ... [...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] |
Courtney Pine
Courtney Pine, (born 18 March 1964), is a British jazz musician, who was the principal founder in the 1980s of the black British band the Jazz Warriors. Although known primarily for his saxophone playing, Pine is a multi-instrumentalist, also playing the flute, clarinet, bass clarinet and keyboards. On his 2011 album, ''Europa'', he plays almost exclusively bass clarinet. Background Pine's parents were Jamaican immigrants, his father a carpenter and his mother a housing manager. As a child, he wanted to be an astronaut. Born in London, Pine lived in the ‘Avenues’ area of Kensal Green in north-west London, before moving to Wembley and attending Kingsbury High School, where he studied classical clarinet, teaching himself the saxophone from the age of 14.Maya Jaggi"Fusion visionary" ''The Guardian'', 30 September 2000. He began his music career playing reggae, touring in 1981 with Clint Eastwood & General Saint. Career In 1986 Pine's debut album '' Journey to the Urge With ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Toumani Diabaté
Toumani Diabaté ( ; born 10 August 1965) is a Malian kora player. In addition to performing the traditional music of Mali, he has also been involved in cross-cultural collaborations with flamenco, blues, jazz, and other international styles. In 2006, the London-based newspaper ''The Independent'' named Diabaté one of the fifty best African artists. Biography Diabaté comes from a long family tradition of kora players, including his father Sidiki Diabaté, who recorded the first-ever kora album in 1970. His family's oral tradition tells of 70 generations of musicians preceding him in a patrilineal line. His cousin Sona Jobarteh is the first female professional kora player to come from a Griot family. His younger brother Mamadou Sidiki Diabaté is also a prominent kora player. In 1987, Diabate made an appearance, on ''Ba Togoma'', an album featuring his father's ensemble. This was his opportunity to be heard outside his homeland. In 1988, he released his first album in the West ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Orbit
William Mark Wainwright (born 15 December 1956),"William Orbit." ''Contemporary Musicians''. Vol. 30. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2000. Retrieved via ''Biography in Context'' database, 7 May 2017. Available onlinvia ''Encyclopedia.com'' known professionally as William Orbit, is a British musician and record producer who has sold 200 million recordings worldwide of his own work, his production and song-writing work. He is a recipient of multiple Grammy Awards, Ivor Novello Awards and other music industry awards. Early life Orbit (Wainwright) was raised in Palmers Green, a suburb of London. His parents were both schoolteachers; he was the elder of two sons. He left school at the age of 16, and subsisted for a number of years in various low-paying jobs, while seeking an outlet for his creativity. Around this time, while rooming with a friend who was trying to start a recording studio, Orbit found his musical calling. Torch Song and Bassomatic In 1980, Orbit teamed up with electro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
George Benson
George Washington Benson (born March 22, 1943) is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He began his professional career at the age of 19 as a jazz guitarist. A former child prodigy, Benson first came to prominence in the 1960s, playing soul jazz with Jack McDuff and others. He then launched a successful solo career, alternating between jazz, pop, R&B singing, and scat singing. His album ''Breezin''' was certified triple-platinum, hitting no. 1 on the ''Billboard'' album chart in 1976. His concerts were well attended through the 1980s, and he still has a large following. Benson has won ten Grammy Awards and has been honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Biography Early career Benson was born and raised in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At the age of seven, he first played the ukulele in a corner drug store, for which he was paid a few dollars. At the age of eight, he played guitar in an unlicensed nightclub on Friday and Saturday ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Learson Marsalis (born October 18, 1961) is an American trumpeter, composer, teacher, and artistic director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has promoted classical and jazz music, often to young audiences. Marsalis has won nine Grammy Awards, and his ''Blood on the Fields'' was the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music. He is the only musician to win a Grammy Award in both jazz and classical during the same year. Early years Marsalis was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on October 18, 1961, and grew up in the suburb of Kenner. He is the second of six sons born to Dolores Ferdinand Marsalis and Ellis Marsalis Jr., a pianist and music teacher.Stated on ''Finding Your Roots'', PBS, March 25, 2012 He was named for jazz pianist Wynton Kelly. Branford Marsalis is his older brother and Jason Marsalis and Delfeayo Marsalis are younger. All three are jazz musicians. While sitting at a table with trumpeters Al Hirt, Miles Davis, and Clark Terry, his father jokin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eddie Henderson (musician)
Eddie Henderson (born October 26, 1940) is an American jazz trumpet and flugelhorn player. He came to prominence in the early 1970s as a member of pianist Herbie Hancock's Mwandishi band, going on to lead his own electric/fusion groups through the decade. Henderson earned his medical degree and worked a parallel career as a psychiatrist and musician, turning back to acoustic jazz by the 1990s. Family influence and early music history Henderson was born in New York City on October 26, 1940. At the age of nine he was given an informal lesson by Louis Armstrong, and he continued to study the instrument as a teenager in San Francisco, where he grew up, after his family moved there in 1954, at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Henderson was influenced by the early fusion work of jazz musician Miles Davis, who was a friend of his parents. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hugh Masekela
Hugh Ramapolo Masekela (4 April 1939 – 23 January 2018) was a South African trumpeter, flugelhornist, cornetist, singer and composer who was described as "the father of South African jazz". Masekela was known for his jazz compositions and for writing well-known anti-apartheid songs such as "Soweto Blues" and " Bring Him Back Home". He also had a number-one US pop hit in 1968 with his version of "Grazing in the Grass". Early life Hugh Ramapolo Masekela was born in the township of KwaGuqa in Witbank (now called Emalahleni), South Africa, to Thomas Selena Masekela, who was a health inspector and sculptor and his wife, Pauline Bowers Masekela, a social worker. His younger sister Barbara Masekela is a poet, educator and ANC activist. As a child, he began singing and playing piano and was largely raised by his grandmother, who ran an illegal bar for miners. At the age of 14, after seeing the 1950 film '' Young Man with a Horn'' (in which Kirk Douglas plays a character modelled on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Billy Higgins
Billy Higgins (October 11, 1936 – May 3, 2001) was an American jazz drummer. He played mainly free jazz and hard bop. Biography Higgins was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. Higgins played on Ornette Coleman's first records, beginning in 1958. He then freelanced extensively with hard bop and other post- bop players, including Donald Byrd, Dexter Gordon, Grant Green, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson, Don Cherry, Paul Horn, Milt Jackson, Jackie McLean, Pat Metheny, Hank Mobley, Thelonious Monk, Lee Morgan, David Murray, Art Pepper, Sonny Rollins, Mal Waldron, and Cedar Walton. He was one of the house drummers for Blue Note Records and played on dozens of Blue Note albums of the 1960s. He also collaborated with composer La Monte Young and guitarist Sandy Bull. In his career, he played on over 700 recordings, including recordings of rock and funk. He appeared as a jazz drummer in the 2001 movie, ''Southlander''. In 1989, Higgins cofounded a cultural cente ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Butch Morris
Lawrence Douglas "Butch" Morris (February 10, 1947 – January 29, 2013) was an American cornetist, composer and conductor. He was known for pioneering his structural improvisation method, ''Conduction'', which he utilized on many recordings. Biography Morris was born in Long Beach, California, United States. Before beginning his musical career, he served in the U.S. Army as a medic in Germany, Japan and Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Morris came to attention with saxophonist David Murray's groups in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Morris's brother, double bassist Wilber Morris, sometimes performed and recorded with Murray during this period. Morris led a group called Orchestra SLANG. The group features Drummer Kenny Wollesen, alto saxophonist Jonathon Haffner, trumpeter Kirk Knuffke and others. He performed and presented regularly as part of the Festival of New Trumpet Music, held annually in New York City. Morris wrote most of the incidental music for the 1989 TV show, '' A M ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
