Jazz Composers Orchestra
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Jazz Composers Orchestra
The Jazz Composer's Orchestra was an American jazz group, founded by Carla Bley and Michael Mantler in 1965, to perform orchestral avant-garde jazz. Its origins lay in the Jazz Composers Guild, an organization founded by Bill Dixon which grew out of the series of 1964 concerts in New York, known as the "October Revolution in Jazz" and subsequent regular performance settings. A big band, formed by Bley and Mantler, became known as the Jazz Composers Guild Orchestra, which made its first record in April 1965. After the demise of the Guild, the big band continued as the Jazz Composer's Orchestra. A non-profit organisation was established in 1966, the Jazz Composers Orchestra Association Inc. (JCOA). The Orchestra's first release was ''Communication'' in 1965. Their 1968 double-album '' The Jazz Composer's Orchestra'' featured soloists Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Roswell Rudd, Pharoah Sanders, Larry Coryell, and Gato Barbieri. JCOA Records was founded for releases from the Orchestra an ...
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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 ...
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Clifford Thornton
Clifford Edward Thornton III (September 6, 1936 – November 25, 1989) was an American jazz trumpeter, trombonist, activist, and educator. He played free jazz and avant-garde jazz in the 1960s and '70s. Career Clifford was born in Philadelphia. The year of his birth has been reported as early as 1934 or as late as 1939. He briefly attended Morgan State University and Temple University. Jazz pianist Jimmy Golden was his uncle, while his cousin, drummer J. C. Moses, had a jazz career that was cut short by failing health. Clifford began piano lessons when he was seven-years-old. Several biographers report that Clifford studied with trumpeter Donald Byrd during 1957, after Byrd had left Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and also that he worked with 17-year-old tuba player Ray Draper and Webster Young. Following a late 1950s stint in the U.S. Army bands Thornton moved to New York City. Clifford's political and musical motivations are epitomized by his statement: "For a lot of brothers l ...
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Jazz Record Labels
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, improvisational sty ...
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Experimental Big Bands
An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a particular factor is manipulated. Experiments vary greatly in goal and scale but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results. There also exist natural experimental studies. A child may carry out basic experiments to understand how things fall to the ground, while teams of scientists may take years of systematic investigation to advance their understanding of a phenomenon. Experiments and other types of hands-on activities are very important to student learning in the science classroom. Experiments can raise test scores and help a student become more engaged and interested in the material they are learning, especially when used over time. Experiments can vary from personal and informal natural comparisons (e. ...
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Avant-garde Jazz Ensembles
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or 'vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical Debate and Poetic Practices' (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), p. 64 . It is frequently characterized by aesthetic innovation and initial unacceptability.Kostelanetz, Richard, ''A Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes'', Routledge, May 13, 2013
The avant-garde pushes the boundaries of what is accepted as the norm or the ''

American Jazz Ensembles From New York City
American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, people who self-identify their ancestry as "American" ** American English, the set of varieties of the English language native to the United States ** Native Americans in the United States, indigenous peoples of the United States * American, something of, from, or related to the Americas, also known as "America" ** Indigenous peoples of the Americas * American (word), for analysis and history of the meanings in various contexts Organizations * American Airlines, U.S.-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas * American Athletic Conference, an American college athletic conference * American Recordings (record label), a record label previously known as Def American * American University, in Washington, D.C. Sports teams Soccer * B ...
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The Gardens Of Harlem
''The Gardens of Harlem'' is an album by multi-instrumentalist and composer Clifford Thornton. It was recorded at the Blue Rock Studio in New York City in April 1974, and was released in 1975 by JCOA Records. On the album, Thornton is joined by members of the Jazz Composer's Orchestra, supplemented by seven musicians playing African percussion instruments. The music was conducted by Jack Jeffers. Reception In an article for ''London Jazz News'', Jon Turney stated: "Clifford Thornton... led the final release credited to the co-operative Jazz Composers' Orchestra, and it's a great one. The multiple African percussion that features prominently in the early pieces here energises the music wonderfully. And as the notes made clear, that collection of sounds arises because the whole work explores West African music and how it has travelled 'from West to North Africa, the Caribbean, the South Eastern United States, to Harlem'. He evoked that history by selecting vocal melodies from the ter ...
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For Players Only
''For Players Only'' is a live album by violinist and composer Leroy Jenkins, his first as a leader. It was recorded in January 1975 at Wollman Auditorium, Columbia University in New York City, and was released by JCOA Records later that year. On the album, Jenkins is joined by members of the Jazz Composer's Orchestra. The album presents a single, extended composition by Jenkins that was commissioned by the JCOA in 1974. The work was first presented by the JCOA and WKCR-FM via four workshop concerts held at Columbia University from January 28–31, 1975. Reception In a review for AllMusic, Brian Olewnick wrote: "One of seven albums commissioned by the Jazz Composers Orchestra, violinist Leroy Jenkins' ''For Players Only'' is one of the more loosely organized and, for all its charms, most scattershot of these works... The first half of the composition is arranged in suite-like fashion, with briefly stated themes fleshed out by various small groups within the orchestra... in the se ...
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Don Cherry (trumpeter)
Donald Eugene Cherry (November 18, 1936 – October 19, 1995) was an American jazz trumpeter. Cherry had a long association with free jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman, which began in the late 1950s. He also performed alongside musicians such as John Coltrane, Charlie Haden, Sun Ra, Ed Blackwell, the New York Contemporary Five, and Albert Ayler. In the 1970s, Cherry became a pioneer in world fusion music, drawing on traditional African, Middle Eastern, and Hindustani music. He was a member of the ECM group Codona, along with percussionist Naná Vasconcelos and sitar and tabla player Collin Walcott. AllMusic called him "one of the most influential jazz musicians of the late 20th century." Early life Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to a mother of Choctaw descent and an African-American father. His mother and grandmother played piano and his father played trumpet. His father owned Oklahoma City's Cherry Blossom Club, which hosted performances by Charlie Christian an ...
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Relativity Suite
''Relativity Suite'' is a free-jazz Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians durin ... LP album, LP by Don Cherry (trumpeter), Don Cherry on Jazz Composer's Orchestra Records which was released in 1973. Background Having appeared on the first two JCOA records by Michael Mantler and Carla Bley, Cherry was commissioned to write the third one in 1970. He used many of the same musicians who contributed to the first two records and molded into a suite a string of the pieces he'd been composing and performing in the previous few years. Studying with Pandit Pran Nath, Cherry was increasingly using Indian Carnatic music, karnatic singing in his recordings and concerts and he starts the album with a similarly derived chant." Reception Jazz critic Scott Yanow wrote: "Highlights include Sel ...
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Numatik Swing Band
''Numatik Swing Band'' is a live album by Roswell Rudd and the Jazz Composer's Orchestra released on the JCOA label in 1973. Reception The AllMusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 4 stars stating "The music on this date is avant-garde, but has its melodic and accessible sections".Yanow, S. Allmusic Reviewaccessed August 17, 2010 The authors of ''The Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz'' wrote that the album "shows udd'sconcern for textures, French horns rising over drum beat, piano and basses in unison, the scampering piccolo. Rudd himself plays well but the star of the session is drummer Beaver Harris, tirelessly inventive." Trombonist and composer Jacob Garchik wrote: "Fascinating writing for a 25 piece large ensemble, another one of his under-explored talents! And consequently another obscure, impossible to find record, his third as a leader. Perhaps in a parallel universe we would be reverentially talking about him as a big band composer." In an article for ...
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