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Defunkt
Defunkt is an American musical group founded by the trombonist and singer Joseph Bowie in 1978 in New York City. Their music touches on elements of punk rock, funk, and jazz. Career Joseph Bowie is the brother of big band musician Byron Bowie and Art Ensemble of Chicago co-founder Lester Bowie. Joseph, who had previously worked as a sideman for various 1970s jazz musicians, founded Defunkt in 1978 with members of a band that had backed James Chance. The new group's original focus was on danceable jazz music. Joseph Bowie remains the only consistent member of the group over its history; he has been noted for displaying the influence of far-ranging musicians like Ornette Coleman, James Brown, and Joe Strummer. The first incarnation of the group was active in New York City's " No Wave" radical underground music scene, which also included fusion-oriented groups like Material and Sonic Youth. Joseph's saxophonist brother Bryon, bassist Melvin Gibbs and future Living Colour guitar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joseph Bowie
Joseph Bowie (born October 17, 1953) is an American jazz trombonist and vocalist. The brother of trumpeter Lester Bowie, Joseph is known for leading the jazz-punk group Defunkt and for membership in the Ethnic Heritage Ensemble. Career Bowie was greatly influenced by his older brothers, saxophonist Byron Bowie and trumpeter Lester Bowie. His first international tour was with Oliver Lake of the Black Artists Group in 1971. During this time in Paris, he worked with Alan Silva, Frank Wright, and Bobby Few. He also worked with Dr. John in Montreaux in 1973. He moved to New York City, and with the help of Off Broadway Theater impresario Ellen Stewart he established La Mama children's theater. He performed with Cecil Taylor, Human Arts Ensemble, Nona Hendryx, Leroy Jenkins, Vernon Reid, Stanley Cowell, Sam Rivers, Philippe Gaillot, Dominique Gaumont and Ornette Coleman. In 1976 he moved to Chicago, where he led bands for Tyrone Davis and other R&B artists. Returning to Ne ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thermonuclear Sweat
''Thermonuclear Sweat'' is an album by the American jazz group Defunkt. It was released in 1982 via Hannibal Records. The group broke up after the release of the album, reforming in 1986. Production The album was produced by Joe Boyd. Aside from the leader and trombonist Joseph Bowie, the guitar player Kelvyn Bell was the only other member who had played on the debut. Vernon Reid played guitar on six of the album's tracks. Critical reception ''The Washington Post'' wrote: "As a dance band, Defunkt is best at break-neck rhythms—'Illusion', the tongue-in- cheek, feet-firmly-in-the-groove 'Avoid the Funk', and the boppish escapade and tribute to Charlie Parker, 'Big Bird (Au Private)' on which the band's jazz roots are well displayed." ''Trouser Press'' called the album "sweeter-sounding and jazzier" than the group's debut. Robert Christgau lamented that the group's cover of "For the Love of Money" "sounds like slumming, especially from a guy who couldn't outsing Kenny Gamble in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melvin Gibbs
Melvin Gibbs is an American bass guitarist who has appeared on close to 200 albums in diverse genres of music. Among others, Gibbs is known for working in jazz with drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson and guitarist Sonny Sharrock, and in rock music with Rollins Band and Arto Lindsay. Career A native of Brooklyn, New York, Gibbs attended Medgar Evers College and the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music. After graduating from Berklee College of Music, Gibbs first came to public notice as a member of the group Defunkt, which was a mainstay of the early 1980s downtown New York scene. Throughout most of the 1980s, he played in drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society with guitarist Vernon Reid and with guitarist Sonny Sharrock and saxophonist John Zorn. With Jackson and guitarist Bill Frisell he was a member of the group Power Tools. Gibbs co-led the band Eye and I with D.K. Dyson who also co-founded the Black Rock Coalition of which he is an original member. Gibbs took on the role ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lester Bowie
Lester Bowie (October 11, 1941 – November 8, 1999) was an American jazz trumpet player and composer. He was a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and co-founded the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Biography Born in the historic village of Bartonsville in Frederick County, Maryland, United States, Bowie grew up in St Louis, Missouri. At the age of five he started studying the trumpet with his father, a professional musician. He played with blues musicians such as Little Milton and Albert King, and rhythm and blues stars such as Solomon Burke, Joe Tex, and Rufus Thomas. In 1965, he became Fontella Bass's musical director and husband. He was a co-founder of Black Artists Group (BAG) in St Louis. In 1966, he moved to Chicago, where he worked as a studio musician, and met Muhal Richard Abrams and Roscoe Mitchell and became a member of the AACM. In 1968, he founded the Art Ensemble of Chicago with Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, and Malachi Favors. He rema ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James White And The Blacks
James Chance, also known as James White (born James Siegfried, April 20, 1953), is an American saxophonist, keyboard player, and singer. A key figure in no wave, Chance has been playing a combination of improvisational jazz-like music and punk in the New York music scene since the late 1970s, in such bands as Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, James Chance and the Contortions, James White and the Blacks (as he appeared in the film ''Downtown 81''), The Flaming Demonics, James Chance & the Sardonic Symphonics, James Chance and Terminal City, and James Chance and Les Contortions. Biography Born and raised in Milwaukee and Brookfield, Wisconsin, Chance attended Michigan State University, then the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee. There, Chance joined a band named Death, which performed covers of the Stooges and the Velvet Underground before moving toward original songs. At the end of 1975, Chance dropped out and moved to New York City after the dissolution of the band and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Chance
James Chance, also known as James White (born James Siegfried, April 20, 1953), is an American saxophonist, keyboard player, and singer. A key figure in no wave, Chance has been playing a combination of improvisational jazz-like music and punk in the New York music scene since the late 1970s, in such bands as Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, James Chance and the Contortions, James White and the Blacks (as he appeared in the film ''Downtown 81''), The Flaming Demonics, James Chance & the Sardonic Symphonics, James Chance and Terminal City, and James Chance and Les Contortions. Biography Born and raised in Milwaukee and Brookfield, Wisconsin, Chance attended Michigan State University, then the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee. There, Chance joined a band named Death, which performed covers of the Stooges and the Velvet Underground before moving toward original songs. At the end of 1975, Chance dropped out and moved to New York City after the dissolution of the band ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vernon Reid
Vernon Alphonsus Reid (born 22 August 1958) is an English-born American guitarist and songwriter. Reid is the founder and primary songwriter of the rock band Living Colour, Reid was named No. 66 on ''Rolling Stone'' magazine's 2003 list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. Critic Steve Huey writes, " eid'srampant eclecticism encompasses everything from heavy metal and punk to funk, R&B and avant-garde jazz, and his anarchic, lightning-fast solos have become something of a hallmark as well." Early life Born in London, England to Caribbean parents, Reid was raised in New York City. He attended Brooklyn Technical High School, then New York University. Career Early career He first came to prominence in the 1980s in the band of drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson. 1984's '' Smash & Scatteration'' was a duo record with guitarist Bill Frisell. In 1985, Reid co-founded the Black Rock Coalition with journalist Greg Tate and producer Konda Mason. Living Colour Reid is best known ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kelvyn Bell
Kelvyn Bell (born June 19, 1956, St. Louis) is an American guitarist and vocalist who plays in jazz and funk idioms. Bell studied guitar under Oliver Lake and, through Lake, became a member of the Black Artists Group, meeting musicians such as Hamiett Bluiett, Lester Bowie, and Joseph Bowie. He attended University of Missouri and Southern Illinois University, then relocated to New York City, where he played with Lester Bowie, Charles "Bobo" Shaw, and Arthur Blythe (with whom he would play until the 1990s). He became a member of Defunkt, Joseph Bowie's ensemble, from 1980 to 1988, concomitantly leading his own band, Kelvynator (featuring Eric Person). During the 1980s, he also worked with Steve Coleman, Michele Rosewoman, Jean-Paul Bourelly, and Bob Stewart. He was a member of the group GX4 alongside Elliott Sharp, David Fiuczynski, and Marc Ribot late in the 1980s. His associations in the 1990s included Lester Bowie, Craig Harris, and Cassandra Wilson. He became a jazz educa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dance-punk
Dance-punk (also known as disco-punk, punk-funk or techno-punk) is a post-punk subgenre that emerged in the late 1970s, and is closely associated with the disco, post-disco and new wave movements.Rip It Up and Start Again: Post Punk 1978-1984. Simon Reynolds.Faber and Faber Ltd, April 2005, (U.S. Edition: Penguin, February 2006, ) Predecessors Many groups in the post-punk era adopted a more danceable style. These bands were influenced by funk, disco, new wave, and other dance music popular at the time (as well as being anticipated by some artists from 1970s including Sparks and Iggy Pop). Influential bands from the 1980s included Talking Heads, Public Image Ltd.,Swaminathan, Nikhil (25 December 2003) �Dance-punk ends scenester dormancy New Order, Gang of Four, Pigbag, the Clash, the Pop Group, Maximum Joy, Minutemen, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. New York City dance-punk included Defunkt, Material, James Chance and the Contortions, Cristina Monet, Bush Tetras, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avant-funk
Avant-funk (also called mutant disco in the early 1980s) is a music style in which artists combine funk and disco rhythms with an avant-garde or art rock mentality. Its most prominent era occurred in the late 1970s and 1980s among post-punk and no wave acts who embraced black dance music. Characteristics Artists described as "avant-funk" or "mutant disco" have blended elements from styles such as funk, punk, disco, freeform jazz and dub. Some motifs of the style in the 1970s and 1980s included "neurotic slap-bass" and "guttural pseudo-sinister vocals," as well as " Eurodisco rhythms; synthesizers used to generate not pristine, hygienic textures, but poisonous, noisome filth; Burroughs’ cut-up technique applied to found voices." According to critic Simon Reynolds, the movement was animated by the notion that "rock's hopes of enjoying a future beyond mere antiquarianism depends on assimilating the latest rhythmic innovations from black dance music." Musicologist Simon Fr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the mid-20th century. It de-emphasizes melody and chord progressions and focuses on a strong rhythmic groove of a bassline played by an electric bassist and a drum part played by a percussionist, often at slower tempos than other popular music. Funk typically consists of a complex percussive groove with rhythm instruments playing interlocking grooves that create a "hypnotic" and "danceable" feel. Funk uses the same richly colored extended chords found in bebop jazz, such as minor chords with added sevenths and elevenths, or dominant seventh chords with altered ninths and thirteenths. Funk originated in the mid-1960s, with James Brown's development of a signature groove that emphasized the downbeat—with a heavy emphasis on the first b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Living Colour
Living Colour is an American rock band from New York City, formed in 1984. The band currently consists of guitarist Vernon Reid, lead vocalist Corey Glover, drummer Will Calhoun and bassist Doug Wimbish (who replaced Muzz Skillings in 1992). Stylistically, their music is a creative fusion influenced by heavy metal, funk, jazz, hip hop, punk, and alternative rock. The band's lyrics range from the personal to the political, including social commentary on racism in the United States. Living Colour has released six studio albums so far. The band rose to fame with their debut album '' Vivid'' in 1988. Although they scored a number of hits, Living Colour is best known for their signature anthem "Cult of Personality", which won a Grammy Award for Best Hard Rock Performance in 1990. They were also named Best New Artist at the 1989 MTV Video Music Awards and won their second Grammy Award for their follow-up album '' Time's Up'' (1990). Their third album, ''Stain'' (1993), was also wel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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