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The Unpredictability Of Predictability
''The Unpredictability of Predictability'' is a live solo percussion album by Jerome Cooper. It was recorded in July 1979 at Soundscape in New York City, and was released on LP by About Time Records later that year. On the album, Cooper plays a variety of instruments, including flute, whistle, balaphone, chirimia, bass drum, cymbal, drums, and tom tom. Writer John Szwed commented: "Cooper added a balafon and horns to his kit... so that he could play like an old-time one-man band (though the results sounded more African than African American)". In the album liner notes, Cooper wrote: "This is not just an album for drummers... anyone into music can dig this music. Classical music people can dig it because it's structured. People into rock, because of the beat, people into jazz because of the improvisational aspect, and those into ethnic music because of the instruments involved". Reception In a review for AllMusic, Brian Olewnick wrote: "This superb musician... treats his solo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jerome Cooper
Jerome Douglas Cooper (December 14, 1946 – May 6, 2015) was an American free jazz musician. In addition to trap drums, Cooper played balafon, chirimia and various electronic instruments, and referred to himself as a "multi-dimensional drummer," meaning that his playing involved "layers of sounds and rhythms". AllMusic reviewer Ron Wynn called him "A sparkling drummer and percussionist... An excellent accompanist". Another Allmusic reviewer stated that "in the truest sense this drummer is a magician, adept at transformation and the creation of sacred space". Career Cooper studied with Oliver Coleman and Walter Dyett in the late 1950s and early 1960s, then studied at the American Conservatory of Music and Loop College. In 1968, he worked with Oscar Brown, Jr. and Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre in the U.S. but moved to Europe before the end of the decade, where he played with Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Steve Lacy, Lou Bennett (with whom he visited Gambia and Senegal), the Art Ensemble ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soundscape Presents
Soundscape Presents or simply Soundscape is a recording label in jazz and world music, a contributor to music festivals, and a promoter of creative arts education. Foundation Soundscape, was founded as a jazz club in New York City in 1979 by Verna Gillis, a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology. Committed to the ideals of multiculturalism, it aimed to present contemporary music and musicians from diverse cultural backgrounds. It provided one of the first multi-cultural performance spaces in New York City. ''Live in Soundscape'' is a 9-CD series on DIW which documents the early years, through 1984. Multiple venues After 1984, Soundscape no longer operated out of just one location. Other venues used included the Purple Barge on the Hudson River, the Miller Pier, the Ritz rock club, La Mama, the Village Gate, Irving Plaza, SOB's, Symphony Space, Alice Tully Hall, Town Hall and the Beacon Theatre. WKCR 89.8 fm (New York) has launched a webpage devoted to Soundscape, including documentation, re ... [...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] |
Verna Gillis
Verna Gillis (born 1942) is an American freelance record producer, who has gained recognition for her work promoting and producing music from various cultural backgrounds. Gillis holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology. She was an assistant professor at Brooklyn College from 1974 to 1980 and at Carnegie Mellon University from 1988 to 1990. Gillis has been the subject of a number of press articles, with ''The New York Times'' describing her as "the closest thing world music has to a doyenne". Life and career From 1972 to 1978, Gillis recorded traditional music in Afghanistan, Iran, Kashmir, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Surinam, and Ghana. In 1979, she opened Soundscape, the first multi-cultural performance space in New York City, on west 52nd Street which she directed for the next five years. Gillis, Soundscape and the music played there is the subject of a web based project by WKCR Radio 89.9 NY. From 1984, Gillis worked on career development with international musicians inclu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
For The People (Jerome Cooper Album)
''For the People'' is a live album by Jerome Cooper. It was recorded in May 1979 at The Kitchen in New York City, and was released on LP by Hat Hut Records in 1980. On the album, Cooper, who plays a variety of instruments, including drums, chirimia, African balaphone, and whistle, is joined by Oliver Lake, who performs on alto saxophone, flute, bells, and vocals. Reception The editors of AllMusic awarded the album 3 stars. A writer for ''Modern Drummer'' called the music "compelling duets that never fail to swing." Mats Gustafsson and Björn Thorstensson wrote: "Killer duo album with Cooper and the always-as-amazing Oliver Lake... True interaction with a great sound... Very recommendable music." Track listing All compositions by Jerome Cooper. Side A # "Movement" – 13:50 # "Movement" – 5:40 Side B # "Movement" – 5:35 # "Movement" – 4:45 # "Movement" – 5:00 # "Movement" – 5:40 * Recorded on May 12, 1979, at The Kitchen in New York City. Personnel * Jerome Cooper â ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Balafon
The balafon is a gourd-resonated xylophone, a type of struck idiophone. It is closely associated with the neighbouring Mandé, Senoufo and Gur peoples of West Africa, particularly the Guinean branch of the Mandinka ethnic group, but is now found across West Africa from Guinea to Mali. Its common name, ''balafon'', is likely a European coinage combining its Mandinka name ''bala'' with the word ''fôn'' 'to speak' or the Greek root ''phono''. History Believed to have been developed independently of the Southern African and South American instrument now called the marimba, oral histories of the balafon date it to at least the rise of the Mali Empire in the 12th century CE. Balafon is a Manding name, but variations exist across West Africa, including the ''balangi'' in Sierra Leone and the #Gyil, gyil of the Dagara, Lobi and Gurunsi from Ghana, Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast. Similar instruments are played in parts of Central Africa, with the ancient Kingdom of Kongo denoting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chirimia
ChirimÃa (sometimes chirisuya in Peru) is a Spanish term for a type of woodwind instrument similar to an oboe. The chirimÃa is a member of the shawm family of double-reed instruments, introduced to North, Central and South America in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by the Spanish clergy. Distribution Usage of the chirimÃa varies widely across Latin America and Iberia, with the instrument being extinct in some areas, but a living tradition in others. The chirimÃa and drum are used to accompany religious processions and annual commemorative dance-dramas in many remote areas of Latin America, including Jacaltenango, Guatemala. The music produced is quite unique and varies from one region to another. This tradition is an adaptation of the pre-Columbian practice of accompanying religious ceremonies and processions with drums, flutes, and whistles. There are two types of chirimÃas in Guatemala, a small one and a large one. The size of the holes and their location determi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Szwed
John F. Szwed (born 1936) is the John M. Musser Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, African American Studies and Film Studies at Yale University and an Adjunct Senior Research Scholar in the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University, where he previously served as the Center's Director and Professor of Music and Jazz Studies. Szwed is the author of many books on jazz and American music, including studies of Sun Ra, Miles Davis, Jelly Roll Morton, Alan Lomax and Billie Holiday. Career Szwed received a B.S. in business and economics from Marietta College in 1958. He also studied trombone and music theory and played professionally for twelve years; as an undergraduate, he worked in a steel mill and performed at roadhouses, country clubs, college dances and speakeasies in Ohio and West Virginia. Thereafter, he enrolled at Ohio State University, where he earned a second bachelor's degree in communications in 1959, an M.A. in communications in 1960 and a Ph.D. in sociology and anthro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as ''All Music Guide'' by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Guide' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MusicHound
MusicHound (sometimes stylized as musicHound) was a compiler of genre-specific music guides published in the United States by Visible Ink Press between 1996 and 2002. After publishing eleven album guides, the MusicHound series was sold to London-based Music Sales Group, whose company Omnibus Press had originally distributed the books outside America. The series' founding editor was Gary Graff, formerly a music critic with the ''Detroit Free Press''. Subtitled "''The Essential Album Guide''", each publication typically contained entries providing an overview of an artist's career and dividing their work into categories such as "what to buy", "what's next", "what to avoid" and "worth searching for". Among the MusicHound album guides were titles dedicated to rock, blues, classical, jazz, world music, swing, and soundtrack recordings. Further to the canine analogy in the series title, albums were graded according to a "bone" rating system: five bones constituting the highest score, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide
''The Rolling Stone Album Guide'', previously known as ''The Rolling Stone Record Guide'', is a book that contains professional music reviews written and edited by staff members from ''Rolling Stone'' magazine. Its first edition was published in 1979 and its last in 2004. The guide can be seen at Rate Your Music, while a list of albums given a five star rating by the guide can be seen at Rocklist.net. First edition (1979) ''The Rolling Stone Record Guide'' was the first edition of what would later become ''The Rolling Stone Album Guide''. It was edited by Dave Marsh (who wrote a large majority of the reviews) and John Swenson, and included contributions from 34 other music critics. It is divided into sections by musical genre and then lists artists alphabetically within their respective genres. Albums are also listed alphabetically by artist although some of the artists have their careers divided into chronological periods. Dave Marsh, in his Introduction, cites as precedents Leo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Corbett (writer)
John Corbett (born 1963) is an American writer, musician, radio host, teacher, record producer, concert promoter, and gallery owner based in Chicago, Illinois. He is best known among musicians and music fans as a champion of free jazz and free improvisation. In recent years he has become known in the visual art world as well through his Corbett vs. Dempsey gallery. Corbett's activities include: * musician playing free improvisation, usually on acoustic guitar * staff writer for Down Beat magazine * curator, with Ken Vandermark, of the Wednesday night jazz series at the Empty Bottle in Chicago, circa 1996–2004 * artistic director of the Berlin Jazz Festival in 2002 * record producer; he curates the Unheard Music Series for Atavistic Records, reissuing both classic and obscure recordings of free jazz and free improvisation, and has also produced new recordings by Peter Brötzmann and others * adjunct associate professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he has tau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
