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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] |
The Newest Sound Around
''The Newest Sound Around'' is an album by singer Jeanne Lee and pianist Ran Blake. It was recorded in November and December, 1961, at RCA Victor Studio in New York City, and was released by RCA Victor in 1962. The album, which was the debut recording for both musicians, was reissued on CD in 1987 with four extra tracks, and with the title ''The Legendary Duets''. Bassist George Duvivier is featured on two tracks. Lee and Blake met while students at Bard College, and, as a duo, won the Wednesday night Apollo Theater amateur contest, leading to a record deal with RCA. A followup album by the duo titled ''The Newest Sound You Never Heard'' was recorded in 1966 and 1967 but was not released until 2019. Lee and Blake also recorded the album ''You Stepped Out of a Cloud'' in 1989. Reception In a review for AllMusic, Andrew Hamlin wrote: "'Third stream' may have been the bandied term, but this unjustly ignored 1962 duet set... plays blissfully free of the lumbering lugubriousness and Bi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Springfield, Massachusetts
Springfield is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, United States, and the seat of Hampden County. Springfield sits on the eastern bank of the Connecticut River near its confluence with three rivers: the western Westfield River, the eastern Chicopee River, and the eastern Mill River. At the 2020 census, the city's population was 155,929, making it the third-largest city in Massachusetts, the fourth-most populous city in New England after Boston, Worcester, and Providence, and the 12th-most populous in the Northeastern United States. Metropolitan Springfield, as one of two metropolitan areas in Massachusetts (the other being Greater Boston), had a population of 699,162 in 2020. Springfield was founded in 1636, the first Springfield in the New World. In the late 1700s, during the American Revolution, Springfield was designated by George Washington as the site of the Springfield Armory because of its central location. Subsequently it was the site of Shays' Rebellio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colin Larkin (writer)
Colin Larkin (born 1949) is a British writer and entrepreneur. He founded, and was the editor-in-chief of, the ''Encyclopedia of Popular Music'', described by ''The Times'' as "the standard against which all others must be judged". Along with the ten-volume encyclopedia, Larkin also wrote the book ''All Time Top 1000 Albums'', and edited the ''Guinness Who's Who of Jazz'', the ''Guinness Who's Who of Blues'', and the ''Virgin Encyclopedia Of Heavy Rock''. He has over 650,000 copies in print to date. Background and education Larkin was born in Dagenham, Essex. Larkin spent much of his early childhood attending the travelling fair where his father, who worked by day as a plumber for the council, moonlighted on the waltzers to make ends meet. It was in the fairground, against a background of Little Richard on the wind-up 78 rpm turntables, that Larkin acquired his passion for the world of popular music. He studied at the South East Essex County Technical High School and at ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frank London
Frank London (born 1958 in New York) is an American klezmer trumpeter who also plays jazz and world music. Early life London was born to a Reform Jewish family and grew up in New York and Connecticut. He started playing the trumpet in fourth grade. Career London received a B.A. in Afro-American music from the New England Conservatory in 1980. He is on the music faculty of the State University of New York at Purchase. He is a member of The Klezmatics, Hasidic New Wave, and leads Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars. He was a co-founder of Les Misérables Brass Band and the Klezmer Conservatory Band. He served as conductor and music director for David Byrne and Robert Wilson's ''The Knee Plays'' and has collaborated with the Palestinian American violinist Simon Shaheen. He has worked with Chava Alberstein, Lester Bowie, John Cale, Gal Costa, Ben Folds Five, Avraham Fried, Allen Ginsberg, Anne LeBaron, LL Cool J, Luna, Maurice El Mediouni, Natalie Merchant, David Murray, Itzh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Medeski
Anthony John Medeski (born June 28, 1965) is an American jazz keyboard player and composer. Medeski is a veteran of New York's 1990s avant-garde jazz scene and is known popularly as a member of Medeski Martin & Wood. He plays the acoustic piano and an eclectic array of keyboards, including the Hammond B3 organ, melodica, mellotron, clavinet, ARP String Ensemble, Wurlitzer electric piano, Moog Voyager Synthesizer, Wurlitzer 7300 Combo Organ, Vox Continental Baroque organ, and Yamaha CS-1 Synthesizer (a "kids' toy"), among others. When playing acoustic piano, Medeski usually plays the Steinway piano and is listed as a Steinway Artist. Biography Medeski was born in Louisville, Kentucky, and grew up in Florida. After studying piano as a child (starting when he was five years old), he began as a teenager to perform with musicians such as Mark Murphy and Jaco Pastorius. He attended Pine Crest School. In 1983, after graduating from high school, he began studying piano at the New ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Matthew Shipp
Matthew Shipp (born December 7, 1960) is an American pianist, composer, and bandleader. Early life and education Shipp was raised in Wilmington, Delaware, and began playing piano at six years old. His mother was a friend of trumpeter Clifford Brown. He was strongly attracted to jazz, but also played in rock groups while in high school. Shipp attended the University of Delaware for one year, then the New England Conservatory of Music, where he studied with saxophonist/composer Joe Maneri. He has cited private lessons with Dennis Sandole (who also taught saxophonist John Coltrane) as being crucial to his development. Later life and career Shipp moved to New York in 1984Archived aGhostarchiveand thWayback Machine and has been very active since the early 1990s, appearing on dozens of albums as a leader, sideman, or producer. Before making a living playing music, Shipp worked in a bookshop as an assistant manager. He was fired, he threw some books at his boss, and he decided he wou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Byron
Donald Byron (born November 8, 1958) is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist. He primarily plays clarinet but has also played bass clarinet and saxophone in a variety of genres that includes free jazz and klezmer. Biography His mother was a pianist. His father worked as a mailman and played bass in calypso bands. Byron listened to Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis while growing up, but he was exposed to other styles through trips to the ballet and symphony orchestra. When he was a child, he had asthma, and a doctor recommended playing an instrument to improve his breathing. This was why he started playing clarinet. He grew up in the South Bronx among many Jewish neighbors who sparked an interest in klezmer. Other influences include Joe Henderson, Artie Shaw, Jimmy Hamilton, and Tony Scott. In his teens he took clarinet lessons from Joe Allard. George Russell was one of his teachers at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. At the school he was a member of Klezme ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brandeis University
, mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , provost = Carol Fierke , city = Waltham , state = Massachusetts , country = United States , endowment = $1.07 billion (2019) , students = 5,458 (2021) , undergrad = 3,591 (2021) , postgrad = 1,967 (2021) , faculty = 544 (2021) , administrative_staff = 1,314 (2021) , campus = Small City, , mascot = The Judge and Ollie the Owl (named for Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.) , sports_nickname = Judges , colors = Brandeis Blue , athletics_affiliations = , academic_affiliations = , website = , logo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New England Conservatory
The New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) is a private music school in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the oldest independent music conservatory in the United States and among the most prestigious in the world. The conservatory is located on Huntington Avenue along the Avenue of the Arts near Boston Symphony Hall. NEC is home to 750 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate studies, with 1400 more in its Preparatory School and School of Continuing Education. It offers bachelor's degrees in classical performance, contemporary improvisation, composition, jazz, musicology, and music theory, as well as graduate degrees in accompaniment, conducting, and vocal pedagogy. The conservatory has also partnered with Harvard University and Tufts University to create joint double-degree, five-year programs and provide multi-passionate students access to Boston's premier academic resources. The New England Conservatory's faculty and alumni comprise nearly fifty percent of the Boston Sy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ESP Disk
ESP-Disk is a New York-based record company and label founded in 1963 by lawyer Bernard Stollman. History Though it originally existed to release Esperanto-based music, beginning with its second release (Albert Ayler's ''Spiritual Unity''), ESP became the most important exponent of what is commonly referred to as free jazz. Early releases included albums by Paul Bley, Pharoah Sanders and Sun Ra. ESP also released recordings by uncommercial underground rock acts including the Fugs, The Godz and Pearls Before Swine. The label's motto is "The artists alone decide what you will hear." Bernard Stollman faced allegations of not paying royalties to the artists that were signed to ESP-Disk. Tom Rapp of the band Pearls Before Swine claimed that: "We never got any money from ESP. Never, not even like a hundred dollars or something. My real sense is that he tollmanwas abducted by aliens, and when he was probed it erased his memory of where all the money was". Peter Stampfel of the band Holy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mary Lou Williams
Mary Lou Williams (born Mary Elfrieda Scruggs; May 8, 1910 – May 28, 1981) was an American jazz pianist, arranger, and composer. She wrote hundreds of compositions and arrangements and recorded more than one hundred records (in 78, 45, and LP versions). Williams wrote and arranged for Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman, and she was friend, mentor, and teacher to Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Tadd Dameron, Bud Powell, and Dizzy Gillespie. Early years The second of eleven children, Williams was born in Atlanta, Georgia, and grew up in the East Liberty neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A musical prodigy, at the age of two, she was able to pick out simple tunes and by the age of three, she was taught piano by her mother. Mary Lou Williams played piano out of necessity at a very young age; her white neighbors were throwing bricks into her house until Williams began playing the piano in their homes. At the age of six, she supported her ten half-brothers a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Russo (musician)
William Joseph Russo (June 25, 1928 – January 11, 2003) was an American composer, arranger, and musician from Chicago, Illinois, United States. History A student of jazz pianist Lennie Tristano, Russo wrote orchestral scores for the Stan Kenton Orchestra in the 1950s, including ''23 Degrees N 82 Degrees W'', ''Frank Speaking'', and ''Portrait of a Count''. He composed ''Halls of Brass'' for the brass section, without woodwinds or percussion. The section recording this piece included Buddy Childers, Maynard Ferguson and Milt Bernhart. In 1954, Russo left the Kenton Orchestra and continued private composition and conducting studies, then moved to New York City in 1958, where he led the 22-piece Bill Russo Orchestra. In 1962, Russo moved to England and worked for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). While working in London he founded the London Jazz Orchestra. He was a contributor to the third stream movement which sought to combine jazz and classical music. In 1965 he re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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