Tony Vacca
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Tony Vacca
Tony Vacca is an American percussionist specializing in jazz and an early innovator in world music. He incorporates percussion instruments from a world of traditions that includes African, Caribbean, Asian and Middle-Eastern influences, to which he adds some of his spoken word and rhythm poetry. Tony has been active in the Jazz and World Music stage since the early 1970s. Vacca plays both as a soloist and with his World Rhythms Ensemble. His frequent trips to West Africa have contributed to his unique approach to playing the balafon, and to his depth of knowledge regarding African and American musical traditions. Vacca has recorded and performed with such a wide range of musicians such as Sting, Senegalese Afro-pop artist Baaba Maal, Jazz trumpeter Don Cherry, poet Abiodun Oyewole, Senegalese Hip-Hop artists Gokh-bi System, and Massamba Diop. Vacca's performances have been described as a "non-stop athletic spectacle of percussion music and spoken word." Percussion instrum ...
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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 ...
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World Rhythms Ensemble
In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique while others talk of a "plurality of worlds". Some treat the world as one simple object while others analyze the world as a complex made up of many parts. In ''scientific cosmology'' the world or universe is commonly defined as " e totality of all space and time; all that is, has been, and will be". '' Theories of modality'', on the other hand, talk of possible worlds as complete and consistent ways how things could have been. ''Phenomenology'', starting from the horizon of co-given objects present in the periphery of every experience, defines the world as the biggest horizon or the "horizon of all horizons". In ''philosophy of mind'', the world is commonly contrasted with the mind as that which is represented by the mind. ''Th ...
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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 ...
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Sting (musician)
Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner (born 2 October 1951), known as Sting, is an English musician and actor. He was the frontman, songwriter and bassist for new wave rock band The Police from 1977 until their breakup in 1986. He launched a solo career in 1985 and has included elements of rock, jazz, reggae, classical, new-age, and worldbeat in his music. As a solo musician and a member of The Police, Sting has received 17 Grammy Awards: he won Song of the Year for "Every Breath You Take", three Brit Awards, including Best British Male Artist in 1994 and Outstanding Contribution in 2002, a Golden Globe, an Emmy, and four nominations for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. In 2019, he received a BMI Award for "Every Breath You Take" becoming the most-played song in radio history. In 2002, Sting received the Ivor Novello Award for Lifetime Achievement from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors and was also inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He w ...
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Baaba Maal
Baaba Maal ( ff, 𞤄𞤢𞥄𞤦𞤢 𞤃𞤢𞥄𞤤, italics=no, born 13 June 1953) is a Senegalese singer and guitarist born in Podor, on the Senegal River. In addition to acoustic guitar, he also plays percussion. He has released several albums, both for independent and major labels. In July 2003, he was made a United Nations Development Programme, UNDP Youth Emissary. Maal sings primarily in Pulaar language, Pulaar and promotes the traditions of the Pulaar-speaking people, who live on either side of the Senegal River in the ancient Senegalese kingdom of Futa Tooro. Early life and education Maal was expected to follow in his father's profession and become a fisherman. However, under the influence of his lifelong friend and family griot, gawlo, blind guitarist Mansour Seck, Maal devoted himself to learning music from his mother and his school's headmaster. He went on to study music at the university in Dakar before leaving for postgraduate studies on a scholarship at École ...
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Don Cherry (jazz)
Donald Eugene Cherry (November 18, 1936 – October 19, 1995) was an American jazz trumpeter. Cherry had a long association with free jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman, which began in the late 1950s. He also performed alongside musicians such as John Coltrane, Charlie Haden, Sun Ra, Ed Blackwell, the New York Contemporary Five, and Albert Ayler. In the 1970s, Cherry became a pioneer in world fusion music, drawing on traditional African, Middle Eastern, and Hindustani music. He was a member of the ECM group Codona, along with percussionist Naná Vasconcelos and sitar and tabla player Collin Walcott. AllMusic called him "one of the most influential jazz musicians of the late 20th century." Early life Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to a mother of Choctaw descent and an African-American father. His mother and grandmother played piano and his father played trumpet. His father owned Oklahoma City's Cherry Blossom Club, which hosted performances by Charlie Christian an ...
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Abiodun Oyewole
Abiodun Oyewole (born Charles Davis, February 1948), is a poet, teacher and member of the African-American music and spoken-word group The Last Poets, which developed into what is considered to be the first hip hop group. Critic Jason Ankeny wrote, "With their politically charged raps, taut rhythms, and dedication to raising African-American consciousness, the Last Poets almost single-handedly laid the groundwork for the emergence of hip-hop." Early life Oyewole was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and he moved with his maternal aunt and her new husband at age three to Queens, New York. At the age of 15, he attended a Yoruba Temple in Harlem. It was there that he was given the name by which he is best known. As a youth, Oyewole was influenced by jazz and gospel music played by his parents and the poems of Langston Hughes. The Last Poets The group was born on May 19, 1968, Malcolm X's birthday, when Oyewole, David Nelson, and Gylan Kain read poetry in tribute to Malcolm X. T ...
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Massamba Diop
Massamba is a Congolese surname that may refer to *Alphonse Massamba-Débat (1921–1977), Congolese Progressive Party politician *David Massamba David Massamba (born 4 June 1992) is a Gabonese football midfielder who plays for CS Hammam-Lif Club Sportif de Hammam-Lif ( ar, النادي الرياضي لحمام الأنف) or CSHL is a football club from Hammam-Lif in Tunisia. Founded ... (born 1992), Gabonese football midfielder * Kilasu Massamba (1950–2020), Congolese football midfielder * Rigobert Massamba Musungu, major general in the Air Force of the Democratic Republic of the Congo * Thomas Massamba (born 1985), Swedish-Congolese basketball player Kongo-language surnames {{given name, type=both Surnames of Congolese origin ...
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The Soul Cages
''The Soul Cages'' is the third full-length studio album released by English musician Sting. Released on 21 January 1991 it became Sting's second No. 1 album in the United Kingdom. This was Sting's first album to feature guitarist Dominic Miller, who would become a regular collaborator. It spawned four singles: "All This Time", "Mad About You", "The Soul Cages", and "Why Should I Cry for You?". Both "All This Time" and "Why Should I Cry for You?" were included on Sting’s 1994 compilation album '' Fields of Gold: The Best of Sting 1984–1994''. The title track won the first Grammy Award for Best Rock Song in 1992. Since 2009, the song "Saint Agnes and the Burning Train" has been used as the character theme song for ''Running Man''s Lee Kwang-soo. On 15 January 2021, Sting released an expanded version of ''The Soul Cages'' to celebrate its 30th anniversary. Along with the original 9 tracks, this new edition includes 13 bonus tracks that consist of remixes, extended mixes, an ...
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Columbia Records
Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on January 15, 1889, evolving from the Graphophone#Commercialization, American Graphophone Company, the successor to the Volta Laboratory and Bureau#Commercialization of phonograph patents, Volta Graphophone Company. Columbia is the oldest surviving brand name in the recorded sound business, and the second major company to produce records. From 1961 to 1991, its recordings were released outside North America under the name CBS Records International, CBS Records to avoid confusion with EMI's Columbia Graphophone Company. Columbia is one of Sony Music's four flagship record labels, alongside former longtime rival RCA Records, as well as Arista Records and Epic Records. Artists who have recorded for Columbia include AC/DC, Adele, Aerosmith, Julie And ...
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