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Lowell Davidson
Lowell Davidson (20 November 1941 – 31 July 1990) was a jazz pianist and biochemist from Boston, Massachusetts. He was known for his "sensible and free flowing approach to unconventional linear improvisation", but appeared on only a handful of commercially-available recordings. Davidson also played bass, percussion, organ, electronic keyboards, and reed instruments. Background Davidson was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and began studying piano at age four. When he was twelve, he became the organist at the Zion Temple Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God, where his parents were pastors. He attended the Boston Latin School, graduating in 1959, then enrolled at Harvard College on a full scholarship, studying biochemistry. During this time, he began a long period of experimentation with various kinds of drugs, which may have led to the psychological issues that would later manifest themselves. After six years at Harvard, Davidson was asked to leave, as his academic performance ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lowell Davidson Trio
''Lowell Davidson Trio'' is the debut album by American jazz pianist Lowell Davidson, and the only commercially available recording issued during his lifetime. It was recorded in 1965, and was released on the ESP-Disk label. The album, which contains five original compositions, features Davidson on piano, along with Gary Peacock on bass and Milford Graves on drums. Background Bernard Stollman, the founder of ESP-Disk, agreed to record Davidson without having heard him play following a recommendation from Ornette Coleman. Davidson had been playing with Coleman on a regular basis, and Coleman later referred to him as his favorite pianist. The album was recorded in one take, with minimal rehearsal. Reception In an AllMusic review, Michael G. Nastos awarded the album four stars, calling it a "distinguished document", "a treasure", and "a fascinating display of understated, purely improvised music that is eminently listenable, beautifully conceived, and flowing through past, present ( ... [...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] |
Antennae (album)
''Antennae'' is an album by the American jazz guitarist Joe Morris, recorded in 1997 and released on the AUM Fidelity label. It features a trio with Jerome Deupree, who was the original drummer in the rock band Morphine and played with Morris on some of his early Riti albums, and bassist Nate McBride. The pieces on ''Antennae'' took their inspiration from a collection of visual graphic aids created by Lowell Davidson, a pianist with whom Morris worked fairly extensively before his death in 1990.''Antennae'' at AUM Fidelity Reception '''' states: "The tracks on ''Antenna ...[...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avant-garde Jazz Musicians
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 or the '' |
Don Pullen
Don Gabriel Pullen (December 25, 1941 – April 22, 1995) was an American jazz pianist and organist. Pullen developed a strikingly individual style throughout his career. He composed pieces ranging from blues to bebop and modern jazz. The great variety of his body of work makes it difficult to pigeonhole his musical style. Biography Early life Pullen was and raised in Roanoke, Virginia, United States. Growing up in a musical family, he learned the piano at an early age. A graduate of Lucy Addison High School, Pullen played in the school's band. He played with the choir in his local church and was heavily influenced by his cousin, Clyde "Fats" Wright, who was a professional jazz pianist. He took some lessons in classical piano and knew little of jazz. At this time, he was mainly aware of church music and the blues.Interview with Vernon Frazer, ''Coda'', October, 1976 (Canada); Free Blues, ''Jazz Hot'' 331, October 1976 (France); Piano Inside And Out, ''Down Beat'', June 1985 (US ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbie Nichols
Herbert Horatio Nichols (January 3, 1919 – April 12, 1963) was an American jazz pianist and composer who wrote the jazz standard " Lady Sings the Blues". Obscure during his lifetime, he is now highly regarded by many musicians and critics. Life He was born in San Juan Hill, Manhattan, New York, United States, to parents from St. Kitts and Trinidad, and grew up in Harlem. During much of his career, he took work as a Dixieland musician while also pursuing the more adventurous kind of jazz he preferred. He is best known today for program music that combines bop, Dixieland, and music from the Caribbean with harmonies from Erik Satie and Béla Bartók. His first known work as a musician was with the Royal Barons in 1937, but he did not find performing at Minton's Playhouse a few years later a very happy experience, as the competitive environment did not suit him. However, he did become friends with pianist Thelonious Monk. Nichols was drafted into the Army in 1941. After the war ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk (, October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including " 'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", " Straight, No Chaser", "Ruby, My Dear", "In Walked Bud", and "Well, You Needn't". Monk is the second-most-recorded jazz composer after Duke Ellington. Monk's compositions and improvisations feature dissonances and angular melodic twists and are consistent with his unorthodox approach to the piano, which combined a highly percussive attack with abrupt, dramatic use of switched key releases, silences, and hesitations. Monk's distinct look included suits, hats, and sunglasses. He also had an idiosyncratic habit during performances: while other musicians continued playing, Monk would stop, stand up, and dance for a few moments before returning to the piano. Monk is one of five jazz musicians to have been featured on the cover of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Paul Bley
Paul Bley, CM (November 10, 1932 – January 3, 2016) was a jazz pianist known for his contributions to the free jazz movement of the 1960s as well as his innovations and influence on trio playing and his early live performance on the Moog and ARP synthesizers. His music has been described by Ben Ratliff of the ''New York Times'' as "deeply original and aesthetically aggressive". Bley's prolific output includes influential recordings from the 1950s through to his solo piano recordings of the 2000s. Early life Bley was born in Montreal, Quebec, on November 10, 1932. His adoptive parents were Betty Marcovitch, an immigrant from Romania, and Joseph Bley, owner of an embroidery factory, who named him Hyman Bley. However, in 1993 a relative from the New York branch of the Bley family walked into the Sweet Basil Jazz Club in New York City and informed Bley that his father was actually his biological parent. At age five Bley began studying the violin, but at age seven, after his mot ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet. Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in complex improvisation often involving tone clusters and intricate polyrhythms. His technique has been compared to percussion. Referring to the number of keys on a standard piano, Val Wilmer used the phrase "eighty-eight tuned drums" to describe Taylor's style. He has been referred to as being "like Art Tatum with contemporary-classical leanings". Early life and education Cecil Percival Taylor was born on March 25, 1929, in Long Island City, Queens, and raised in Corona, Queens. Ratliff, Ben (May 3, 2012)"Lessons From the Dean of the School of Improv" ''The New York Times''. Retrieved December 9, 2017: "I recently spoke with the 83-year-old improvising pianist Cecil Taylor for about five hours over two days. One day was at his three-story home ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethan Iverson
Ethan Iverson (born February 11, 1973) is a pianist, composer, and critic best known for his work in the avant-garde jazz trio The Bad Plus with bassist Reid Anderson and drummer Dave King. Biography Iverson was born in Menomonie, Wisconsin. Before forming The Bad Plus, he was musical director of the Mark Morris Dance Group and a student of Fred Hersch and Sophia Rosoff. He has worked with artists such as Billy Hart, Kurt Rosenwinkel, Tim Berne, Mark Turner, Ben Street, Lee Konitz, Albert "Tootie" Heath, Paul Motian, Larry Grenadier, Charlie Haden and Ron Carter. He currently studies with John Bloomfield and is on the faculty of the New England Conservatory. In 2017, the Bad Plus announced that Iverson was leaving the group, to be replaced by Orrin Evans. Also in 2017, the Mark Morris Dance Group premiered ''Pepperland'', for which Iverson composed the score (derived from parts of the Beatles' '' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'') and led the band during performan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
RogueArt
RogueArt (also written Rogueart and Rogue Art) is a French independent record label based in Paris. It was founded by record producer Michel Dorbon in 2005 and specialises in jazz and improvised music. History RogueArt was founded by record producer Michel Dorbon in 2005, and its first release was the album, ''Bindu'' by jazz percussionist Hamid Drake. In the 1960s and 1970s, Dorbon listened to rock groups like Cream, Soft Machine and Henry Cow because of their use of improvisation. His first exposure to free jazz was at an Archie Shepp concert in the 1970s. His interest in this type of jazz led him to start working for various record labels. In the late 1990s he began producing records for Bleu Regard, a French record label. After several years, Dorbon decided he wanted more control of the production process, and in 2005, he established his own record label, RogueArt in Paris. Dorbon said RogueArt' is a natural name for a label that provides shelter for music that is ou ... [...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] |
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