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Torsten De Winkel
Torsten de Winkel (born 6 January 1965) is a German musician, composer, and philosopher primarily active in the jazz, world music, fusion and electronic music genres. He is known as an electric and acoustic guitarist but also records and performs on electric sitar, keyboards, and percussion. Since the 1990s, he has initiated and participated in several platforms aimed at combining the arts and sustainability. Biography At the age of 10, de Winkel picked up the Charango in La Paz, Bolivia where his father worked for the UN. He proceeded to teach himself guitar and jazz improvisation and attended the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany for a brief period. For the release of ''Mastertouch'', he collaborated with Michael Brecker, Billy Cobham, Kai Eckhardt, Ernie Watts, Alphonse Mouzon, Hellmut Hattler, Joachim Kühn and various other instrumentalists, setting a new standard for young musicians both in regard to its open minded eclecticism and to its high level of trans ...
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Frankfurt Am Main
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its namesake Main River, it forms a continuous conurbation with the neighboring city of Offenbach am Main and its urban area has a population of over 2.3 million. The city is the heart of the larger Rhine-Main metropolitan region, which has a population of more than 5.6 million and is Germany's second-largest metropolitan region after the Rhine-Ruhr region. Frankfurt's central business district, the Bankenviertel, lies about northwest of the geographic center of the EU at Gadheim, Lower Franconia. Like France and Franconia, the city is named after the Franks. Frankfurt is the largest city in the Rhine Franconian dialect area. Frankfurt was a city state, the Free City of Frankfurt, for nearly five centuries, and was one of the most import ...
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Ernie Watts
Ernest James Watts (born October 23, 1945) is an American jazz and rhythm and blues saxophonist who plays soprano, alto, and tenor saxophone. He has worked with Charlie Haden's Quartet West and toured with the Rolling Stones. On Frank Zappa's album ''The Grand Wazoo'' he played the "Mystery Horn", a straight-necked C melody saxophone. He played the notable saxophone riff on " The One You Love" by Glenn Frey. Biography Watts was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and began playing saxophone at thirteen. After a brief period at West Chester University, he attended the Berklee College of Music on a ''Down Beat'' magazine scholarship. He toured with Buddy Rich in the late-1960s, occupying one of the alto saxophone chairs. He visited Africa on a U.S. State Department tour with Oliver Nelson's group. For twenty years he played alto saxophone with The Tonight Show Band under Doc Severinsen. He was a featured soloist on many of Marvin Gaye's albums on Motown during the 1970s, as well as on m ...
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Ravi Coltrane
Ravi Coltrane (born August 6, 1965) is an American jazz saxophonist. Co-owner of the record label RKM Music, he has produced pianist Luis Perdomo, guitarist David Gilmore, and trumpeter Ralph Alessi. Biography Ravi Coltrane is the son of saxophonist John Coltrane and jazz harpist Alice Coltrane. He is the second born of John and Alice Coltrane's three children; John Jr. and Oran. Alice had a daughter Michelle prior to her union with John Coltrane. He is a cousin of experimental music producer Steven Ellison, aka Flying Lotus. He was raised in Los Angeles, California, and was named after sitar player Ravi Shankar. Ravi Coltrane was less than two years old in 1967 when his father died. He is a 1983 graduate of El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, California. In 1986, he studied music, concentrating on saxophone at the California Institute of the Arts. He has worked often with Steve Coleman, a significant influence on Coltrane's musical conception. Coltrane has also pl ...
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Matthew Garrison
Matthew Justin Garrison (born June 2, 1970) is an American jazz bassist. Since 2011, he has run ShapeShifter Lab in Brooklyn, New York, with Fortuna Sung. Described by ''the New York Times'' as "an electric bass virtuoso", he has toured with Herbie Hancock. His 2000 debut album, ''Matthew Garrison'', was described by ''Bass Player'' magazine as having "raised the bar" for electric bass players. In 2010, Garrison toured with R&B singer Whitney Houston during her Nothing but Love World Tour. Early life and pre-solo career The son of Jimmy Garrison (bassist with: Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane) and modern dancer Roberta Escamilla Garrison, Matthew spent much of his childhood in Rome, Italy. In 1988, he returned to the U.S. to live with his godfather, Jack DeJohnette, with whom he recorded. In 1989, he attended Berklee College of Music in Boston on a scholarship and began to play professionally. In 1994, he moved to New York City where he regularly performed and recorded with Ga ...
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Larry Grenadier
Larry Grenadier (born February 6, 1966 in San Francisco) is an American jazz double bassist. Early life Grenadier's father, Albert, was a trumpet player, and his two brothers, Phil and Steve, play trumpet and guitar, respectively. Grenadier began on trumpet when he was 10 years old before beginning to play the bass the following year. Grenadier's father helped introduce him to the instruments and music theory. Larry's older brother Phil began listening to jazz around this time, influencing his sibling's musical interests. Grenadier began listening to several jazz bassists including Ray Brown, Charles Mingus, Richard Davis, Paul Chambers, Wilbur Ware and Oscar Pettiford, among others. At age 12 Grenadier began formal study of the acoustic bass, learning from local jazz bass players Chris Poehlor, Paul Breslin, and Frank Tusa and later classical bassists Michael Burr and Stephen Tramontozzi. At 16, Grenadier had a busy career playing in the San Francisco Bay Area with both lo ...
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Al Foster
Aloysius Tyrone Foster (born January 18, 1943) is an American jazz drummer. Foster's professional career began in the mid-60s, when he played and recorded with hard bop and swing musicians including Blue Mitchell and Illinois Jacquet. Foster played jazz fusion with Miles Davis during the 70s and was one of the few people to have contact with Davis during his retirement from 1975–1980. During Davis's retirement, Foster continued to play and record acoustic jazz with Sonny Rollins, Dexter Gordon, McCoy Tyner, Horace Silver, and other band leaders. Foster played on Miles Davis's 1981 comeback album ''The Man with the Horn'', and was the only musician to play in Davis's band both before, and after, his retirement. After leaving Davis's band in the mid-80s, Foster toured and recorded with Herbie Hancock, Sonny Rollins, Joe Henderson, and many other band leaders, primarily working in acoustic jazz settings. Foster has also released several solo albums under his own name, starting wit ...
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Berklee College Of Music
Berklee College of Music is a private music college in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known for the study of jazz and modern American music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including rock, hip hop, reggae, salsa, heavy metal and bluegrass. Berklee alumni have won 310 Grammy Awards, more than any other college, and 108 Latin Grammy Awards. Other notable accolades for its alumni include 34 Emmy Awards, 7 Tony Awards, 8 Academy Awards, and 3 Saturn Awards. Since 2012, Berklee College of Music has also operated a campus in Valencia, Spain. In December 2015, Berklee College of Music and the Boston Conservatory agreed to a merger. The combined institution is known as Berklee, with the conservatory becoming The Boston Conservatory at Berklee. History Schillinger House (1945–1954) In 1945, pianist, composer, arranger and MIT graduate Lawrence Berk founde ...
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Vital Information
Steve Smith and Vital Information is an American jazz fusion group led by drummer Steve Smith. The first line-up of Vital Information — Steve Smith (drums), Tim Landers (bass), and Dave Wilczewski (sax) — met in 1971 during their high school years while playing together in the Bridgewater State College Big Band, a Boston area college band under the direction of Vincent Gannon. By 1977 Smith was touring with Jean-Luc Ponty, Landers with Al Di Meola, and Wilczewski with Freddie Hubbard. They reunited annually in Boston with guitarists such as Dean Brown, Daryl Stuermer, or Barry Finnerty to complete the band. From 1977–1982 the three man band members wrote many compositions, played a number of gigs, and developed the sound and concept that became the first edition of Vital Information. After Smith was in the band Journey for a few years, he signed a contract with Columbia to make his first solo album. The group recorded ''Vital Information'' (1983), consisting of Landers, ...
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Frank Gambale
Frank Gambale (; born 22 December 1958) is an Australian jazz fusion guitarist. He has released twenty albums over a period of three decades, and is known for his use of the sweep picking and economy picking techniques. Recording career Solo albums Gambale graduated from the Guitar Institute of Technology in Hollywood with Student of the Year honors and taught there from 1984 to 1986. Groups With the Mark Varney Project, consisting of Allan Holdsworth, Brett Garsed, and Shawn Lane, he recorded two albums, '' Truth in Shredding'' (1990) and ''Centrifugal Funk'' (1991). Beginning in 1987, he spent six years as a member of the Chick Corea Elektric Band, playing with Eric Marienthal, John Patitucci, and Dave Weckl. With Corea's band he recorded five albums and shared two Grammy Award nominations. He spent twelve years as a member of Vital Information, led by Steve Smith. He reunited with the Elektric Band in 2002 and with Corea in 2011 when he joined Return to Forever IV with St ...
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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. ...
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Tom Coster
Tom Coster (born August 21, 1941) is an American keyboardist, composer, and longtime backing musician for Carlos Santana. Early years Detroit-born and San Francisco-raised, Coster played piano and accordion as a youth, continuing his studies through college and a productive five-year stint as a musician in the U.S. Air Force Band. Career Coster has played with and/or composed for many groups and musicians including The Loading Zone, Gábor Szabó, Carlos Santana, Billy Cobham, Third Eye Blind, Coryell/Coster/Smith, Claudio Baglioni, Stu Hamm, Boz Scaggs, Zucchero and Bobby Holiday, Joe Satriani, Frank Gambale, and Vital Information. Coster also produced several solo jazz fusion recordings as a leader for Fantasy, Headfirst, and JVC. Some of Coster's best-known compositions are "Europa (Earth's Cry Heaven's Smile)", "Flor D'Luna (Moonflower)" and "Dance, Sister, Dance (''Baila Mi Hermana'')" performed by Santana and "The Perfect Date" performed by Vital Information. Persona ...
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Steve Smith (musician)
Steven Bruce Smith (born August 21, 1954) is an American drummer best known as a member of the rock band Journey across three stints: 1978 to 1985, 1995 to 1998 and 2015 to 2020. ''Modern Drummer'' magazine readers have voted him the No. 1 All-Around Drummer five years in a row. In 2001, the publication named Smith one of the Top 25 Drummers of All Time, and in 2002 he was voted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Journey on April 7, 2017. Early life Smith received his first drum kit at age two and in 1963 he began taking formal lessons with local Boston area drum teacher Bill Flanagan, who played in big bands in the swing era. Smith got his first "real" drum set when he was 12 years old. On many nights, Steve could be heard practicing in a small shed in the backyard of his Harvard Street home. Smith performed in the usual school band program and garage bands while in his teens, including Clyde, a South Shore s ...
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