b. 1961 American trumpeter Marsalis studied at the Juilliard School in New York. In 1980 he joined Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, and toured with Herbie Hancock the following year. He formed his own group in 1982. He has performed and recorded much of the classical trumpet repertory, appearing with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic ...
In the 1980s, trumpeter Wynton Marsalis leapt from jazz-steeped New Orleans to international artistic prominence. In 1979 he was enrolled in New York City’s Juilliard School and was jamming with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers, and 10 years later he had seeded what has become an unrivalled international jazz performance centre. In between, Marsalis established himself as a hot ...
Like a great river that runs endlessly, forming numerous tributary streams as it flows, jazz continues to evolve over time. And no matter how far the River Jazz may flow from its source – whether through stylistic evolution or technological innovation – the essential spirit of the music remains intact. Granted, the more academic and esoteric extrapolations of ...
(Drums, 1919–90) Art Blakey (also later known as Buhaina or simply Bu after he converted to Islam) led the quintessential hard bop group the Jazz Messengers across four decades from the late 1940s, and was a fervent advocate of the music he loved. He formed his first band in his native Pittsburgh, but moved to New York and ...
(Vocals, composer, b. 1955) Raised in Mississippi, smoky contralto Wilson sang R&B and folk music, but emerged in New York in the early 1980s as a member of the M-Base Collective and with Henry Threadgill’s band. Her breakout album Blue Skies (1988) reprised jazz standards and she starred in Wynton Marsalis’ oratorio Blood on the Fields, ...
(Banjo, guitar, educator, 1909–94) Daniel Moses Barker carried forth the musical traditions of New Orleans, playing with a number of traditional bands in the 1920s and 1930s before marrying Louise Dupont (a.k.a. Blue Lu Barker) in 1930. They recorded several sides together in 1938, including Barker’s own song ‘Don’t You Make Me High’, revived ...
(Various saxophones, b. 1969) A musical prodigy from Detroit’s Creative Arts Collective, saxophonist James Carter toured Europe at the age of 16, worked with Wynton Marsalis and starred in Julius Hemphill’s saxophone opera Long Tongues. Since 1990, his New York ensemble has recorded a variety of ‘quiet storm’ romantic jazz, Django Reinhardt-style gypsy jazz, hard-core ...
(Drums, b. 1960) Watts played timpani in the Pittsburgh Youth Symphony Orchestra during his teens and vibraphone at Berklee School of Music, where he met the Marsalis brothers. He recorded with Wynton Marsalis from 1981 and then with Branford, following him into the house band of the televised Tonight Show. An explosive polyrhythmist who can also provide restrained ...
(Guitar, b. 1937) Born Morris Holt in Grenada, Mississippi, Slim began playing on Chicago’s West Side in the mid-1960s. In 1976, when Hound Dog Taylor passed away, Slim took over his Sunday afternoon gig at Theresa’s on the South Side. Slim’s band the Teardrops was featured on the 1970 Alligator anthology series Living Chicago Blues. Throughout ...
(Fiddle, guitar, b. 1961) O’Connor was a child prodigy who won the junior division of the National Old-Time Fiddlers Contest in 1974. Before he graduated from high school in 1979, he had won the all-ages Grand Masters Fiddling Championship and had released three albums for Rounder Records. Right after graduation, he joined The David Grisman Quintet for ...
(Violin, b. 1966) Violinist Regina Carter has stabilized her instrument’s precarious role in jazz after advanced work in classical, jazz-pop and experimental formats. From childhood Suzuki lessons (a method of teaching music that stresses listening over reading skills), she joined the Detroit-based band Straight Ahead, then the String Trio of New York. She was a featured soloist in ...
(Trumpet, b. 1969) Encouraged by Wynton Marsalis while in high school in Dallas, Texas, Hargrove has a jauntier approach to trumpet than his mentor. He principally employs hard-bop vocabulary, but has also led the Latin jazz band Crîsol with Cuban pianist Chucho Valdés, recorded with hip hop/soul singer D’Angelo, and co-starred in Herbie Hancock’s New ...
b. 1955 American cellist Born to Chinese parents in Paris, Ma gave his first public performance at the age of five. His family then moved to New York, where, aged seven, he played for President Kennedy at a fundraising event. After studies at Harvard, he began an international career in concerto, chamber and solo repertoire ...
By the end of the 1930s, the Swing era was in full force, ushered in by big bands led by Benny Goodman, Chick Webb, the Dorsey brothers (Jimmy and Tommy) and Glenn Miller. New Orleans jazz and its stylistic off-shoot, Dixieland, had both largely faded from popularity. New Orleans pioneers King Oliver and Jelly Roll ...
A forerunner of jazz, ragtime was derived from brass-band music and European folk melodies, African-American banjo music and spirituals, minstrel songs, military marches and European light classics. The ‘raggy’ style, or ragged-time feeling, of this jaunty, propulsive, toe-tapping piano music refers to its inherent syncopation, where loud right-hand accents fall between the ...
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