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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] |
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] |
Okka Disk
Okka Disk is an independent American jazz record company and label founded in Chicago by Bruno Johnson in 1994. Okka began as a rock music label, but Johnson soon changed direction to record free jazz.Bruno Johnson interview at Delmark Records at NPR '' Vintage Duets'' are the unreleased tapes recorded in 1980 by saxophonist Fred Anderson with drummer Steve McCall, and '' |
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] |
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] |
Solid Action (Ken Vandermark Album)
''Solid Action'' is an album by the American jazz reedist Ken Vandermark, recorded in 1994 and released on Platypus. It was the second record by the Vandermark Quartet, which includes bassist Kent Kessler, drummer Michael Zerang and multi-instrumentalist Daniel Scanlan replacing former guitarist Todd Colburn.Original Liner Notes by John Corbett Reception In his review for AllMusic, Thom Jurek states: "Listening to this music now is breathtaking; it feels shamanic and brave and it engages the listener immediately with the force of both conviction and humor." '' The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' claims that "''Solid Action'' is Vandermark's first shot at greatness, with Scanlan a tremendously exciting figure on all of three of his instruments." The ''DownBeat'' review by Bill Shoemaker states: "This band's second outing is a persuasive statement of Vandermark's ability to harness rock's gut-rending intensity to post-Coleman jazz's quest for liberating new structures."Shoemaker, Bill. ' ... [...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 (album), NRG Ensemble'' (Nessa, 1981) # ''Generation (Hal Russell album), Generati ... [...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] |
DownBeat
' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chicago, Illinois. It is named after the " downbeat" in music, also called "beat one", or the first beat of a musical measure. ''DownBeat'' publishes results of annual surveys of both its readers and critics in a variety of categories. The ''DownBeat'' Jazz Hall of Fame includes winners from both the readers' and critics' poll. The results of the readers' poll are published in the December issue, those of the critics' poll in the August issue. Popular features of ''DownBeat'' magazine include its "Reviews" section where jazz critics, using a '1-Star to 5-Star' maximum rating system, rate the latest musical recordings, vintage recordings, and books; articles on individual musicians and music forms; and its famous "Blindfold Test" column, in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television are named), it remains the most-read daily newspaper in the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region. It had the sixth-highest circulation for American newspapers in 2017. In the 1850s, under Joseph Medill, the ''Chicago Tribune'' became closely associated with the Illinois politician Abraham Lincoln, and the Republican Party's progressive wing. In the 20th century under Medill's grandson, Robert R. McCormick, it achieved a reputation as a crusading paper with a decidedly more American-conservative anti-New Deal outlook, and its writing reached other markets through family and corporate relationships at the ''New York Daily News'' and the ''Washington Times-Herald.'' The 1960s saw its corporate parent owner, Tribune Company, rea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboard, which is a row of keys (small levers) that the performer presses down or strikes with the fingers and thumbs of both hands to cause the hammers to strike the strings. It was invented in Italy by Bartolomeo Cristofori around the year 1700. Description The word "piano" is a shortened form of ''pianoforte'', the Italian term for the early 1700s versions of the instrument, which in turn derives from ''clavicembalo col piano e forte'' (key cimbalom with quiet and loud)Pollens (1995, 238) and ''fortepiano''. The Italian musical terms ''piano'' and ''forte'' indicate "soft" and "loud" respectively, in this context referring to the variations in volume (i.e., loudness) produced in response to a pianist's touch or pressure on the keys: the grea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
