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Leroy Williams
Leroy Williams (February 3, 1941 – June 1, 2022) was an American drummer, mostly known for his work in jazz. Williams first began playing drums as a teenager in the 1950s. From 1959 to the middle of the 1960s he played with singer Judy Roberts, and following this he moved to New York City and played with Booker Ervin in 1967. In 1968 he played with Sonny Rollins, Archie Shepp, and Clifford Jordan; in 1969 he first began playing with Barry Harris, with whom he would collaborate often. 1970 saw him playing with Hank Mobley, Wilbur Ware, and Thelonious Monk, the latter of which he went with on a tour of Japan. Later in the 1970s he played with Yusef Lateef, Ray Bryant, Charles McPherson, Stan Getz, Andrew Hill, Sonny Stitt, Junior Cook, Al Cohn, Buddy Tate, and Bob Wilber. In the 1980s Williams played with Art Davis, Barry Harris, Tommy Flanagan, Steve Turre, and Bill Hardman. In the 1990s he performed with Anthony Braxton, Lee Konitz, Ralph Lalama, and Pete Malinverni. He was a ... [...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] |
Junior Cook
Herman "Junior" Cook (July 22, 1934 – February 3, 1992) was an American hard bop tenor saxophone player. Biography Cook was born in Pensacola, Florida. After playing with Dizzy Gillespie in 1958, Cook was a member of the Horace Silver Quintet (1958–1964); when Silver left the group in the hands of Blue Mitchell Cook stayed in the quintet for five more years (1964–1969). Later associations included Freddie Hubbard, Elvin Jones, George Coleman, Louis Hayes (1975–1976), Bill Hardman (1979–1989), and the McCoy Tyner big band. In addition to many appearances as a sideman, Junior Cook recorded as a leader for Jazzland (1961), Catalyst (1977), Muse, and SteepleChase. He also taught at Berklee School of Music for a year during the 1970s. In the early 1990s, Cook was playing with Clifford Jordan, and also leading his own group. He died in February 1992 in his apartment in New York City, aged 57. Discography As leader/co-leader * '' Junior's Cookin''' ( Jazzland, 196 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pepper Adams
Park Frederick "Pepper" Adams III (October 8, 1930 – September 10, 1986) was an American jazz baritone saxophonist and composer. He composed 42 pieces, was the leader on eighteen albums spanning 28 years, and participated in 600 sessions as a sideman. He worked with an array of musicians, and had especially fruitful collaborations with trumpeter Donald Byrd and as a member of the Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Big Band. Biography Early life Pepper Adams was born in Highland Park, Michigan, to father Park Adams II, who worked as the manager of a furniture store, and mother Cleo Marie Coyle. Both of his parents were college graduates, with each spending some time at the University of Michigan. Due to the onset of the Great Depression, Adams' parents separated to allow his father to find work without geographic dependence. In the fall of 1931, Adams moved with his mother to his extended family's farm near Columbia City, Indiana, where food and support were more readily available. In 1933 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Booker
Walter Booker (December 17, 1933 – November 24, 2006) was an American jazz musician. A native of Prairie View, Texas, Booker was a reliable bass player and an underrated stylist. His playing was marked by voice-like inflections, glissandos and tremolo techniques. Biography Booker moved with his family to Washington, D.C. in the mid-1940s. He played clarinet and alto sax in college with a concert band. In 1959 he began on bass while in the US Army while serving in the same unit as Elvis Presley. He worked with Andrew White in Washington after his discharge, playing in the ''JFK Quintet'' during the early 1960s. In 1964 Booker moved to New York City, being hired by Donald Byrd. After that, he recorded and toured with Ray Bryant, Betty Carter, Chick Corea, Stan Getz, Art Farmer, Milt Jackson, Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins, before joining the Cannonball Adderley Quintet in 1969, starting an association which lasted until Adderley's death in 1975. He then toured the United S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bertha Hope
Bertha Hope-Booker ( Rosemond; born November 8, 1936, Los Angeles, California) is an American jazz pianist and jazz educator. She is the widow of fellow pianist Elmo Hope, with whom she collaborated. She has toured Europe and Japan and played with a diverse group of artists. In the 1990s, she had her first CDs as a leader and additionally worked with her second husband, bassist Walter Booker. Oxford University Press, 1996, p. 165. Retrieved November 16, 2013. Biography Hope-Booker was born in Los Angeles in 1936. Both of her parents worked in the entertainment industry. Her mother, Corinne Meaux Rosemond, worked as a chorus line dancer and her father, Clinton Rosemond, was a stage manager and singer who had worked with |
Roni Ben-Hur
Roni Ben-Hur is an Israeli jazz guitarist who immigrated to the United States in 1985. His parents were Tunisian-Jewish from Tunisia. Biography Roni Bohobza grew up in Dimona, Israel. He is the youngest of seven children and one of two born after the family emigrated from Tunisia in 1955. His surname was legally changed to Ben-Hur via ritual at age 10. When he was eleven, he started playing guitar. He learned about jazz from a high school's friend's record collection. In Israel he performed in clubs and at weddings and bar mitzvahs until he had enough money to move to the U.S. He arrived in New York City in 1985, spending time at Barry Harris's Jazz Cultural Theater. He took lessons from Harris, then became a member of his band. Ben-Hur's experience as an educator dates back to 1981 in Israel. In the U.S. he started jazz music programs at Professional Performing Arts School, the Coalition School for Social Change, and at the Lucy Moses School. At the request of Bette Midler, h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lee Konitz
Leon Konitz (October 13, 1927 – April 15, 2020) was an American composer and alto saxophonist. He performed successfully in a wide range of jazz styles, including bebop, cool jazz, and avant-garde jazz. Konitz's association with the cool jazz movement of the 1940s and 1950s includes participation in Miles Davis's ''Birth of the Cool'' sessions and his work with pianist Lennie Tristano. He was one of relatively few alto saxophonists of this era to retain a distinctive style, when Charlie Parker exerted a massive influence. Like other students of Tristano, Konitz improvised long, melodic lines with the rhythmic interest coming from odd accents, or odd note groupings suggestive of the imposition of one time signature over another. Other saxophonists were strongly influenced by Konitz, such as Paul Desmond and Art Pepper. He died during the COVID-19 pandemic from complications brought on by the disease. Biography Early life Konitz was born on October 13, 1927, in Chicago. He ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthony Braxton
Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American experimental composer, educator, music theorist, improviser and multi-instrumentalist who is best known for playing saxophones, particularly the alto. Braxton grew up on the South Side of Chicago, Illinois, and was a key early member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. He received great acclaim for his 1969 double- LP record ''For Alto'', the first full-length album of solo saxophone music. A prolific composer with a vast body of cross-genre work, the MacArthur Fellow and NEA Jazz Master has released hundreds of recordings and compositions. During six years signed to Arista Records, the diversity of his output encompassed work with many members of the AACM, including duets with co-founder and first president Muhal Richard Abrams; collaborations with electronic musician Richard Teitelbaum; a saxophone quartet with Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and Hamiet Bluiett; compositions for four orchestras; and t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bill Hardman
William Franklin Hardman Jr. (April 6, 1933 – December 6, 1990) was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhornist who chiefly played hard bop. He was married to Roseline and they had a daughter Nadege. Career Hardman was born and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, and worked with local players including Bobby Few and Bob Cunningham; while in high school he appeared with Tadd Dameron, and after graduation he joined Tiny Bradshaw's band. Hardman's first recording was with Jackie McLean in 1956; he later played with Charles Mingus, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, Horace Silver, and Lou Donaldson, and led a group with Junior Cook. Hardman also recorded as a leader: '' Saying Something'' on the Savoy label received critical acclaim in jazz circles, but was little known to the general public. He had three periods in as many decades with Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers; Hardman's misfortune was not to be with the Messengers at the time of their popular Blue Note recordings. Blakey ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Turre
Stephen Johnson Turre (born September 12, 1948, in Omaha, Nebraska) is an American jazz trombonist and a pioneer of using Conch (instrument), seashells as instruments, a composer, arranger, and educator at the collegiate-conservatory level. For years, Turre has been active in jazz, rock, and Latin jazz – in live venues, recording studios, television, and Filmmaking, cinema production. He has recorded over 20 albums as a bandleader, and appeared on many more as a contributor or sideman. As a studio musician, Turre is among the most prolific living jazz trombonists in the world. He has been a member of the Saturday Night Live Band since 1985. Family and early life Turre is one of five children born to James Boles Turre (1921–1997) and Carmen Marie ''(née'' Johnson). His father was of Northern Italian ancestry and his mother was of Mexican ancestry. His grandfather Ernest Turre was a founder of the San Francisco 49ers with Tony Morabito. His four siblings are Michael James ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tommy Flanagan
Thomas Lee Flanagan (March 16, 1930 – November 16, 2001) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He grew up in Detroit, initially influenced by such pianists as Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, and Nat King Cole, and then by bebop musicians. Within months of moving to New York in 1956, he had recorded with Miles Davis and on Sonny Rollins' album ''Saxophone Colossus''. Recordings under various leaders, including ''Giant Steps'' of John Coltrane, continued well into 1962, when he became vocalist Ella Fitzgerald's full-time accompanist. He worked with Fitzgerald for three years until 1965, and then in 1968 returned to be her pianist and musical director, this time for a decade. After leaving Fitzgerald in 1978, Flanagan attracted praise for the elegance of his playing, which was principally in trio settings when under his own leadership. In his 45-year recording career, he recorded more than three dozen albums under his own name and more than 200 as a sideman. By the time of h ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Art Davis
Arthur David Davis (December 6, 1934 – July 29, 2007) was a double-bassist, known for his work with Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner and Max Roach. Biography Davis was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, United States, where he began studying the piano at the age of five, switched to tuba, and finally to bass while attending high school. He studied at Juilliard and Manhattan School of Music but graduated from Hunter College. As a New York session musician, he recorded with many jazz and pop musicians and also in symphony orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic and Los Angeles Philharmonic. He recorded with Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, and John Coltrane among other jazz musicians. Art Davis was a professor at Orange Coast College. Davis is also known for starting a legal case that led to blind auditions for orchestras. Davis earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from New York University in 1982. He moved in 1986 to southern California, where he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
