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Panama Jazz Festival
The Panama Jazz Festival was founded in September 2003 by pianist and Grammy winner Danilo Pérez. History Perez founded the festival with the intent to improve people's lives through the shared experience of music. After almost 20 years, the Panama Jazz Festival has become a cultural tourism attraction with more than 500,000 people from various latitudes visiting. The festival is produced by a team of 2 directors (Patricia Zarate, Executive Director and Danilo Perez, Artistic Director), 70 coordinators, 500 volunteers, 300 national and international musicians, and about 200 collaborators from all sectors of Panama. The festival provides a week of master classes by musicians from Berklee College of Music, Berklee Global Jazz Institute, and the New England Conservatory. Other institutions that have participated in the festival include the Golandsky Institute, Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, Sienna Jazz F ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Danilo Pérez
Danilo Pérez (born December 29, 1965) is a Panamanian pianist, composer, educator, and a social activist. His music is a blend of Panamanian roots with elements of Latin American folk music, jazz, European impressionism, African, and other musical heritages that promote music as a multi-dimensional bridge between people. He has released eleven albums as a leader, and appeared on many recordings as a side man, which have earned him critical acclaim, numerous accolades, Grammy Awards wins and nominations. He is a recipient of the United States Artists Fellowship, and the 2009 Smithsonian Legacy Award. Biography Born in Panama in 1965, Danilo Pérez started his musical studies at the age of three with his father, Danilo Enrico Pérez Urriola, an elementary and middle school educator and well known Panamanian singer. In 1967 his father wrote a university thesis which stated that the entire curriculum should be taught through music. He used these techniques to teach his son mathemat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joe Lovano
Joseph Salvatore Lovano (born December 29, 1952)"Joe Lovano." ''Contemporary Musicians''. Vol. 13. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 1994. Retrieved via ''Biography in Context'' database, May 5, 2017. is an American jazz saxophonist, alto clarinetist, flautist, and drummer. He has earned a Grammy Award and several mentions on ''Down Beat'' magazine's critics' and readers' polls. His wife, with whom he records and performs, is singer Judi Silvano. Lovano was a longtime member of drummer Paul Motian‘s trio with guitarist Bill Frisell. Biography Early life Lovano was born in Cleveland, Ohio, United States, to Sicilian-American parents; his father was the tenor saxophonist Tony ("Big T") Lovano. His father's family came from Alcara Li Fusi in Sicily, and his mother's family came from Cesarò, also in Sicily. In Cleveland, Lovano's father exposed him to jazz throughout his early life, teaching him the standards, as well as how to lead a gig, pace a set, and be versatile enough to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Santi Debriano
Santi Wilson Debriano (born 1955 in Panama) is a jazz bassist. Debriano was raised in Brooklyn, having moved there with his family at age four. He studied composition at Union College in New York, then attended the New England Conservatory of Music and Wesleyan University. He worked with Archie Shepp in the late 1970s and early 1980s, then moved to Paris and played with Sam Rivers for three years. He returned to New York City and has since worked with Don Pullen, Pharoah Sanders, Sonny Fortune, Billy Hart, Larry Coryell, Chucho Valdés, Hank Jones, Cecil Taylor, Randy Weston, Freddie Hubbard, Kirk Lightsey, and Attila Zoller. Debriano has led several of his own units, including small groups in the late 1980s and Circlechant, a world music-influenced ensemble which has had among its members Helio Alves, Will Calhoun, and Abraham Burton. Debriano was also the music director for arts at Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood, New Jersey, and was given an award for jazz education ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Regina Carter
Regina Carter (born August 6, 1966) is an American jazz violinist. She is the cousin of jazz saxophonist James Carter. Early life Carter was born in Detroit and was one of three children in her family. She began piano lessons at the age of two after playing a melody by ear for her brother's piano teacher. After she deliberately played the wrong ending note at a concert, the piano teacher suggested she take up the violin, indicating that the Suzuki Method could be more conducive to her creativity. Carter's mother enrolled her at the Detroit Community Music School when she was four years old and she began studying the violin. She still studied the piano, as well as tap and ballet.''Biography Today'', p. 31. As a teenager, she played in the youth division of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. While at school, she was able to take master classes from Itzhak Perlman and Yehudi Menuhin. Carter attended Cass Technical High School with a close friend, jazz singer Carla Cook, who introd ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ran Blake
Ran Blake (born April 20, 1935) is an American pianist, composer, and educator. He is known for his unique style that combines blues, gospel, classical, and film noir influences into an innovative and dark jazz sound. His career spans over 40 recording credits on jazz albums along with more than 40 years of teaching jazz at the New England Conservatory of Music, where he started the Department of Third Stream (now called the Department of Contemporary Improvisation) with Gunther Schuller. Early life Blake was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on April 20, 1935. He grew up in Suffield, Connecticut, and became fascinated by film noir after seeing Robert Siodmak's ''Spiral Staircase'' as a twelve-year-old. He began playing piano as a young child, and as a teenager studied with Ray Cassarino. In his teenage years, he developed a love for gospel music and studied the compositions of Béla Bartók and Claude Debussy. After high school, he attended Bard College in New York, graduati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Blade
Brian Blade (born July 25, 1970) is an American jazz drummer, composer, session musician, and singer-songwriter. Early life Blade was born and raised in Shreveport, Louisiana. The first music he experienced was gospel and songs of praise at the Zion Baptist Church where his father, Brady L. Blade Sr., has been the pastor for fifty-two years. In elementary school, music appreciation classes were an important part of his development and at age nine, he began playing the violin. Inspired by his older brother, Brady Blade Jr., who had been the drummer at Zion Baptist Church, Blade shifted his focus to the drums throughout middle and high school. During high school, while studying with Dorsey Summerfield Jr., Blade began listening to the music of John Coltrane, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk, Elvin Jones, and Joni Mitchell. By the age of eighteen, Brian moved to New Orleans to attend Loyola University. From 1988 through 1993, he studied and played with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lizz Wright
Elizabeth LaCharla Wright (born January 22, 1980) is an American jazz and gospel singer. Life and career Wright was born in the small town of Hahira, Georgia, one of three children and the daughter of a minister and the musical director of their church. She started singing gospel music and playing piano in church as a child, and also became interested in jazz and blues. She attended Houston County High School, where she was heavily involved in choral singing, receiving the National Choral Award. She went on to Georgia State University in Atlanta to study singing. Since then she has studied at The New School in New York, and in Vancouver, BC. Wright joined the Atlanta-based vocal quartet In the Spirit in 2000, and in 2002 she signed a recording contract with Verve Records, where her musical compositions and vocal style led her to be compared to that of Norah Jones. Her first album, ''Salt'', was released in the spring of 2003 and reached No. 2 on the ''Billboard'' Top Cont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Randy Weston
Randolph Edward "Randy" Weston (April 6, 1926 – September 1, 2018) was an American jazz pianist and composer whose creativity was inspired by his ancestral African connection. Weston's piano style owed much to Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk, whom he cited in a 2018 video as among pianists he counted as influences, as well as Count Basie, Nat King Cole and Earl Hines."Randy Weston talks about his new solo double CD Sound" YouTube video, March 27, 2018. Beginning in the 1950s, Weston worked often with trombonist and arranger Melba Liston. Described as "America's African Musical Ambassador", Weston once said: "What I do I do because it's about teaching and informing everyone about our most natural cultural phenomenon. It's really about Africa a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chucho Valdés
Jesús Valdés Rodríguez, better known as Chucho Valdés (born October 9, 1941), is a Cuban pianist, bandleader, composer and arranger whose career spans over 50 years. An original member of the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna, in 1973 he founded the group Irakere, one of Cuba's best-known Latin jazz bands. Both his father, Bebo Valdés, and his son, Chuchito, are pianists as well. Married to Lorena Salcedo since 2009. As a solo artist, he has won seven Grammy Awards and four Latin Grammy Awards. Career Chucho Valdés's first recorded sessions as a leader took place in late January 1964 in the Areíto Studios of Havana (former Panart studios) owned by the newly formed EGREM. These early sessions included Paquito D'Rivera on alto saxophone and clarinet, Alberto Giral on trombone, Julio Vento on flute, Carlos Emilio Morales on guitar, Kike Hernández on double bass, Emilio del Monte on drums and Óscar Valdés Jr. on congas. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, these would be t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mike Stern
Mike Stern (born January 10, 1953) is an American jazz guitarist. After playing with Blood, Sweat & Tears, he worked with drummer Billy Cobham, then with trumpeter Miles Davis from 1981 to 1983 and again in 1985. He then began a solo career, releasing more than a dozen albums. Stern was named Best Jazz Guitarist of 1993 by ''Guitar Player'' magazine. At the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal in June 2007, he was given the Miles Davis Award, which was created to recognize internationally acclaimed jazz artists whose work has contributed significantly to the renewal of the genre. In 2009 Stern was listed on ''Down Beat''s list of 75 best jazz guitarists of all time. He received ''Guitar Player'' magazine's Certified Legend Award on January 21, 2012. Personal life Stern was born Michael Sedgwick in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Helen Stern (née Helen Phillips Burroughs), a sculptor and art patron, and Henry Dwight Sedgwick V. His adoptive stepfather was Philip M. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Esperanza Spalding
Esperanza Emily Spalding (born October 18, 1984) is an American bassist, singer, songwriter, and composer. Her accolades include five Grammy Awards, a Boston Music Award, and a Soul Train Music Award. A native of Portland, Oregon, Spalding began playing music professionally in her childhood, performing as a violinist in the Chamber Music Society of Oregon at age five. She was later both self-taught and trained on other instruments, including guitar and bass. Her proficiency earned her academic scholarships to Portland State University and the Berklee College of Music, both of which she attended, studying music. Spalding released her first album, '' Junjo'', in 2006 on the Spanish label Ayva Musica, after which she signed with the independent American label Heads Up, who released her 2007 self-titled album. Her third studio album, ''Chamber Music Society'' (2010), was a commercial success, charting at number 34 on the ''Billboard 200'', and resulting in Spalding winning her f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter (born August 25, 1933) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Shorter came to prominence in the late 1950s as a member of, and eventually primary composer for, Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. In the 1960s, he joined Miles Davis's Second Great Quintet, and then co-founded the jazz fusion band Weather Report. He has recorded over 20 albums as a bandleader. Many Shorter compositions have become jazz standards, and his music has earned worldwide recognition, critical praise and commendation. Shorter has won 11 Grammy Awards. He is acclaimed for his mastery of the soprano saxophone since switching his focus from the tenor in the late 1960s and beginning an extended reign in 1970 as ''Down Beat''s annual poll-winner on that instrument, winning the critics' poll for 10 consecutive years and the readers' for 18. ''The New York Times Ben Ratliff described Shorter in 2008 as "probably jazz's greatest living small-group composer and a contender for greatest living improv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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