Robin Holcomb
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Robin Lynn Holcomb is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist who combines
avant-garde jazz Avant-garde jazz (also known as avant-jazz and experimental jazz) is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. It originated in the early 1950s and developed through to the late 1960s. Ori ...
, classical music, and folk music. 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 ...
'' described her music as "a new American regionalism, spun from many threads – country rock, minimalism, Civil War songs, Baptist hymns, Appalachian folk tunes, even the polytonal music of Charles Ives. The music that results is as elegantly simple as a Shaker quilt, and no less beautiful." Despite her eclectic output, she has said that she doesn't try to "genre mash" intentionally "...it just kind of comes up because it's what's in the air. I am drawn repeatedly to hymn-type harmonies. I was fascinated by Civil-War songs when I was a kid. I come back to those things." She also describes her style as "minimalism without being a minimalist...when I write poetry, I go for the fewest words that evoke a lot or let the readers connect the dots, or relate it to their own experience, and the same with music." Holcomb began playing professionally in New York, in an
avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
scene that involved her future husband
Wayne Horvitz Wayne Horvitz (born 1955) is an American composer, keyboardist and record producer. He came to prominence in the Downtown scene of 1980s and '90s New York City, where he met his future wife, the singer, songwriter and pianist Robin Holcomb. He ...
as well as John Zorn,
Elliott Sharp Elliott Sharp (born March 1, 1951) is an American contemporary classical composer, multi-instrumentalist, and performer. A central figure in the avant-garde and experimental music scene in New York City since the late 1970s, Sharp has released ...
, and
Eugene Chadbourne Eugene Chadbourne (born January 4, 1954) is an American banjoist, guitarist and music critic. Life and career Chadbourne was born in Mount Vernon, New York, but grew up in Boulder, Colorado. He started playing guitar when he was eleven or twel ...
. Her work during that period was recorded in the 1988 album, ''Larks, They Crazy''. Her subsequent albums focus more on songwriting.


Discography

* '' Larks, They Crazy'' (Sound Aspects, 1989) * '' Robin Holcomb'' ( Elektra, 1990) * '' Rockabye'' (Elektra, 1992) * ''
Little Three The ''Little Three'' is a term started by and used in reference to athletic competition between three private liberal arts colleges in the New England region of the United States: Amherst College in Amherst, Massachusetts, Wesleyan University i ...
'' ( Nonesuch, 1996) * '' The Big Time'' (Nonesuch, 2002) * ''John Brown's Body'' (
Tzadik Tzadik ( he, צַדִּיק , "righteous ne, also ''zadik'', ''ṣaddîq'' or ''sadiq''; pl. ''tzadikim'' ''ṣadiqim'') is a title in Judaism given to people considered righteous, such as biblical figures and later spiritual masters. The ...
, 2006) * ''Point of It All'' (2010)


References

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Holcomb, Robin Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American women singer-songwriters American women pianists American singer-songwriters 20th-century American singers 20th-century American pianists 20th-century American women singers 21st-century American singers 21st-century American pianists 21st-century American women singers Nonesuch Records artists Elektra Records artists Tzadik Records artists