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 ...
trumpeter and the founder of
The New Jazz Composers Octet
The New Jazz Composers Octet is an all-acoustic jazz ensemble founded by trumpeter/arranger David Weiss in 1996. NPR's Josh Jackson described them as "part New York hustle and part writer's workshop, all of it redolent with the aroma of newnes ...
.
Career
He studied music at
North Texas State University
The University of North Texas (UNT) is a Public university, public research university in Denton, Texas. It was founded as a nonsectarian, coeducational, private Normal school, teachers college in 1890 and was formally adopted by the state 11 y ...
, graduating in 1986. Returning to New York, he performed with
Jaki Byard
John Arthur "Jaki" Byard (; June 15, 1922 – February 11, 1999) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger. Mainly a pianist, he also played tenor and alto saxophones, among several other instruments. He was known for hi ...
Jimmy Heath
James Edward Heath (October 25, 1926 – January 19, 2020), nicknamed Little Bird, was an American jazz saxophonist, composer, arranger, and big band leader. He was the brother of bassist Percy Heath and drummer Albert Heath.
Biography
Heath w ...
. He continued his studies with trumpeters
Tommy Turrentine
Thomas Walter Turrentine, Jr. (April 22, 1928 – May 13, 1997) was a swing and hard bop trumpeter and composer who was active between the 1940s and the 1960s. He rarely worked as a bandleader, and was known for his work as a sideman with drum ...
and
Bill Hardman
William Franklin Hardman Jr. (April 6, 1933 – December 6, 1990) was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhornist who chiefly played hard bop. He was married to Roseline and they had a daughter Nadege.
Career
Hardman was born and grew ...
, as well as attending
Barry Harris
Barry Doyle Harris (December 15, 1929 – December 8, 2021) was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, composer, arranger, and educator. He was an exponent of the bebop style.
Life and career
Harris was born in Detroit, Michigan, on December ...
's jazz classes. Eventually leading an "after hours" session for Harris, he performed with such musicians as Stephen Scott,
Winard Harper
Hiram Winard Harper (born June 4, 1962) is an American jazz drummer.
Career
Harper played in the 1980s with Dexter Gordon, Johnny Griffin, and with Betty Carter for four years. While working with Carter he met Wycliffe Gordon, with whom Harper ...
,
Leon Parker
Leon Parker (born August 21, 1965 in White Plains, New York) is a jazz percussionist and composer.All Music/ref> He is known for occasionally using a minimalist drum set with fewer components than usual, "sometimes consisting only of a snare dr ...
,
Sam Newsome
Sam Newsome (born April 28, 1965) is an American jazz saxophonist, composer, and educator. His music combines straight-ahead jazz, world music (drawing influences from North Africa and East Asia) and experimental jazz, which uses extended techni ...
Rodney Kendrick
Rodney Kendrick (born April 30, 1960) is an American jazz pianist, composer, and record producer. He has been described as a "hard swinging player and composer with a delightful Thelonious Monk, Monkish wit and drive".
Career
At twenty-one, Kendr ...
Clifford Jordan
Clifford Laconia Jordan (September 2, 1931 – March 27, 1993) was an American jazz tenor saxophone player. While in Chicago, he performed with Max Roach, Sonny Stitt, and some rhythm and blues groups. He moved to New York City in 1957, after ...
,
Mulgrew Miller
Mulgrew Miller (August 13, 1955 – May 29, 2013) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and educator. As a child he played in churches and was influenced on piano by Ramsey Lewis and then Oscar Peterson. Aspects of their styles remained in ...
,
Jeff Watts
Jeff is a masculine name, often a short form (hypocorism) of the English given name Jefferson or Jeffrey, which comes from a medieval variant of Geoffrey.
Music
* DJ Jazzy Jeff, American DJ/turntablist record producer Jeffrey Allen Townes
* ...
,
Terence Blanchard
Terence Oliver Blanchard (born March 13, 1962) is an American trumpeter and composer. He started his career in 1982 as a member of the Lionel Hampton Orchestra, then The Jazz Messengers. He has composed more than forty film scores and performed ...
Billy Hart
Billy Hart (born November 29, 1940) is an American jazz drummer and educator. He is known internationally for his work with Herbie Hancock's "Mwandishi" band in the early 1970s, as well with Shirley Horn, Stan Getz, and Quest, among others.
Bi ...
.
In 1990, Weiss started a band with tenor saxophonist
Craig Handy
Craig Mitchell Handy (born September 25, 1962) is an American tenor saxophonist.
Born in Oakland, California, he attended North Texas State University from 1981 to 1984, and following this played with Art Blakey, Wynton Marsalis, Roy Haynes, Ab ...
. The rest of the band rotated: Benny Green, Stephen Scott, or
Dave Kikoski
Dave Kikoski (born September 29, 1961) is an American jazz pianist and keyboardist.
Biography
Born in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Kikoski learned piano from his father and played with him in bars as a teenager. He studied at the Berklee Colle ...
on piano,
Christian McBride
Christian McBride (born May 31, 1972) is an American jazz bassist, composer and arranger. He has appeared on more than 300 recordings as a sideman, and is an eight-time Grammy Award winner.
McBride has performed and recorded with a number of j ...
on bass, and Billy Hart or
Jeff Watts
Jeff is a masculine name, often a short form (hypocorism) of the English given name Jefferson or Jeffrey, which comes from a medieval variant of Geoffrey.
Music
* DJ Jazzy Jeff, American DJ/turntablist record producer Jeffrey Allen Townes
* ...
on drums. Weiss assisted Handy with the music of ''
The Cosby Mysteries
''The Cosby Mysteries'' is an American mystery drama television series starring Bill Cosby that aired on NBC from September 21, 1994, to April 12, 1995. 19 episodes were made. It was the first television series to star Cosby since ''The Cosby Sh ...
'', including arranging the title theme. From there, he began arranging for such artists as
Abbey Lincoln
Anna Marie Wooldridge (August 6, 1930 – August 14, 2010), known professionally as Abbey Lincoln, was an American jazz vocalist, songwriter, and actress. She was a civil rights activist beginning in the 1960s. Lincoln made a career out of deli ...
,
Freddie Hubbard
Frederick Dewayne Hubbard (April 7, 1938 – December 29, 2008) was an American jazz trumpeter. He played bebop, hard bop, and post-bop styles from the early 1960s onwards. His unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives fo ...
, and
Rodney Kendrick
Rodney Kendrick (born April 30, 1960) is an American jazz pianist, composer, and record producer. He has been described as a "hard swinging player and composer with a delightful Thelonious Monk, Monkish wit and drive".
Career
At twenty-one, Kendr ...
, Alto Legacy with
Phil Woods
Philip Wells Woods (November 2, 1931 – September 29, 2015) was an American jazz alto saxophonist, clarinetist, bandleader, and composer.
Biography
Woods was born in Springfield, Massachusetts. After inheriting a saxophone at age 12, he began ...
,
Vincent Herring
Vincent Dwayne Herring (born November 19, 1964) is an American jazz saxophonist, flautist, composer, and educator. Known for his fiery and soulful playing in the bands of Horace Silver, Freddie Hubbard, and Nat Adderley in the earlier stages of h ...
, and Antonio Hart. He arranged an album called ''Haunted Melodies'' in tribute to
Rahsaan Roland Kirk
Rahsaan Roland Kirk (born Ronald Theodore Kirk; August 7, 1935Kernfeld, Barry.Kirk, Roland" ''The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz'', 2nd ed. Ed. Barry Kernfeld. ''Grove Music Online''. ''Oxford Music Online''. Retrieved February 1, 2009-. "The year ...
Freddie Hubbard
Frederick Dewayne Hubbard (April 7, 1938 – December 29, 2008) was an American jazz trumpeter. He played bebop, hard bop, and post-bop styles from the early 1960s onwards. His unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives fo ...
,
Booker Little
Booker Little Jr. (April 2, 1938 – October 5, 1961) – accessed June 2010 was an American
, and
Lee Morgan
Edward Lee Morgan (July 10, 1938 – February 19, 1972) was an American jazz trumpeter and composer.
One of the key hard bop musicians of the 1960s, Morgan came to prominence in his late teens, recording on John Coltrane's '' Blue Train'' (1 ...
.
Recognizing a dearth of new jazz composition, Weiss founded
The New Jazz Composers Octet
The New Jazz Composers Octet is an all-acoustic jazz ensemble founded by trumpeter/arranger David Weiss in 1996. NPR's Josh Jackson described them as "part New York hustle and part writer's workshop, all of it redolent with the aroma of newnes ...
, which
Ben Ratliff
Ben Ratliff (born 1968 in New York City) is an American journalist, music critic and author.
Ratliff is the son of an English mother and an American father, growing up in London and in Rockland County, New York.
From 1996 to 2016, he wrote a ...
of ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' immediately hailed as "the sound of the new jazz mainstream." Weiss's compositions on the Octet's second album won him grants from
Chamber Music America Chamber Music America (CMA) is an American non-profit organization that provides small ensemble professionals with access to a variety of professional development, networking, and funding resources. CMA's regular initiatives include grants, awards, ...
and
Doris Duke
Doris Duke (November 22, 1912 – October 28, 1993) was an American billionaire tobacco heiress, philanthropist, art collector, horticulturalist, and socialite. She was often called "the richest girl in the world". Her great wealth, luxurious l ...
Jazz Ensembles Project: New Works Creation and Presentation.
Weiss released his first album as leader, ''Breathing Room'', in 2002, featuring Craig Handy,
Xavier Davis
Xavier Davis (born 1971 in Grand Rapids, Michigan) is an American jazz pianist, composer, arranger, producer, and music educator who leads the Xavier Davis Trio. In addition to performing with the Christian McBride Big Band and other groups as a si ...
,
Dwayne Burno
Dwayne Allen Burno (June 10, 1970 – December 28, 2013) was an American jazz bassist born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania who became a first-call musician on the New York City jazz scene.Tamarkin, Jeff. "Bassist Dwayne Burno Dies at 43." ''JazzTim ...
,
Marcus Strickland
Marcus Strickland (born February 24, 1979) is an American jazz soprano, alto, and tenor saxophonist. He was born in Gainesville, Florida, and grew up in Miami. '' Down Beat'' magazine's Critics' Poll named him 'Rising Star on Tenor Saxophone' in ...
, and E. J. Strickland, some of whom are involved with the Octet. It received four star ratings from ''
DownBeat
' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chi ...
'' magazine, ''
Jazzwise
''Jazzwise'', launched in 1997, is the UK jazz monthly magazine. ''Jazzwise'' has a broad sub-genre coverage, from jazz, improv, hard bop, and jazz-rock to bebop and classic jazz, and also covers jazz crossover, including jazz-funk, jazz hip-h ...
'', and ''52nd Street''.
Discography
As leader
* ''Breathing Room'' (Fresh Sound, 2001)
* ''The Mirror'' (Fresh Sound, 2004)
* ''Snuck In'' (Sunnyside, 2008)
* ''Snuck Out'' (Sunnyside, 2008)
* ''Venture Inward'' (Posi-Tone, 2013)
* ''When Words Fail'' (Motema, 2014)
* ''Wake Up Call'' (Ropeadope, 2017)
With The Cookers
* ''Warriors'' (Jazz Legacy Productions, 2010)
* ''Cast The First Stone'' (Plus Loin Music/
Harmonia Mundi
Harmonia Mundi is an independent record label which specializes in classical music, jazz, and world music (on the World Village label). It was founded in France in 1958 and is now a subsidiary of PIAS Entertainment Group.
Its Latin name ''harm ...
, 2011)
* ''Believe'' (
Motéma Music
Motéma Music is a jazz and world music record label in the United States. It was founded in 2003 in San Francisco Bay Area. This record label’s catalog spans genres, cultures, and generations and has received Grammy recognition for over twen ...
, 2012)
* ''Time And Time Again'' (Motéma Music, 2014)
* ''The Call Of The Wild And Peaceful Heart'' (Smoke Sessions, 2016)
* ''Look Out!'' (Gearbox, 2021)
With New Jazz Composers Octet
* ''First Steps Into Reality'' (Fresh Sound, 1999)
* ''Walkin' The Line'' (Fresh Sound, 2002)
As sideman
*
Tom Harrell
Tom Harrell (born June 16, 1946) is an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist, composer, and arranger. Voted Trumpeter of the Year of 2018 by ''Jazz Journalists Association'', Harrell has won awards and grants throughout his career, including mul ...
, ''Time's Mirror'' (RCA Victor, 1999)
*
Freddie Hubbard
Frederick Dewayne Hubbard (April 7, 1938 – December 29, 2008) was an American jazz trumpeter. He played bebop, hard bop, and post-bop styles from the early 1960s onwards. His unmistakable and influential tone contributed to new perspectives fo ...
, ''New Colors'' (Hip Bop, 2001)
* Freddie Hubbard, ''On the Real Side'' (Four Quarters, 2008)
*
Odean Pope
Odean Pope (born October 24, 1938) is an American jazz tenor saxophonist.
Biography
Pope was raised in Philadelphia, where he learned from Ray Bryant while young. Early in his career, at Philadelphia's Uptown Theater, Pope played behind a numbe ...