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Clifford Jarvis
Clifford Osbourne Jarvis (August 26, 1941 – November 26, 1999) was an American hard bop and free jazz drummer, who in the 1980s moved to London, England, where he spent the remainder of his career. Biography Clifford Jarvis, the son of Malcom “Shorty” Jarvis was born in Boston, Massachusetts, United States, where he studied at Berklee College of Music in the 1950s. John Fordham (jazz critic)"Clifford Jarvis" (obituary)''The Guardian'', December 1, 1999. Moving to New York City, he established himself in jazz between 1959 and 1966, by recording with bebop and hard-bop musicians including Randy Weston, Yusef Lateef, Freddie Hubbard, Barry Harris, Jackie McLean, John Patton, Chet Baker, Kenny Drew, Walter Davis, and Elmo Hope, and playing with Grant Green and Rahsaan Roland Kirk. He worked and recorded with musicians associated with free jazz, including Sun Ra (from 1962 to 1976), Pharoah Sanders, Sonny Simmons, Alice Coltrane, and Archie Shepp. During the 1980s, J ...
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Encyclopedia Of Popular Music
''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music'' is an encyclopedia created in 1989 by Colin Larkin. It is the "modern man's" equivalent of the '' Grove Dictionary of Music'', which Larkin describes in less than flattering terms.''The Times'', ''The Knowledge'', Christmas edition, 22 December 2007- 4 January 2008. It was described by ''The Times'' as "the standard against which all others must be judged". History of the encyclopedia Larkin believed that rock music and popular music were at least as significant historically as classical music, and as such, should be given definitive treatment and properly documented. ''The Encyclopedia of Popular Music'' is the result. In 1989, Larkin sold his half of the publishing company Scorpion Books to finance his ambition to publish an encyclopedia of popular music. Aided by a team of initially 70 contributors, he set about compiling the data in a pre-internet age, "relying instead on information gleaned from music magazines, individual experti ...
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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 15, 1929, to Melvin Harris and Bessie as the fourth of their five children. Harris took piano lessons from his mother at the age of four. His mother, a church pianist, asked him if he was interested in playing church music or jazz. Having picked the latter, he was influenced by Thelonious Monk and Bud Powell. In his teens, he learned bebop largely by ear, imitating solos by Powell. He described Powell's style as being the "epitome" of jazz. He performed for dances in clubs and ballrooms. He was based in Detroit through the 1950s and worked with Miles Davis, Sonny Stitt, and Thad Jones, and substituted for Junior Mance in the Gene Ammons band. In 1956, he toured briefly with Max Roach, after Richie Powell, the band's pianist and younger br ...
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Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp (born May 24, 1937) is an American jazz saxophonist, educator and playwright who since the 1960s has played a central part in the development of avant-garde jazz. Biography Early life Shepp was born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He studied piano, clarinet and alto saxophone before narrowing his focus to tenor saxophone. He occasionally plays soprano saxophone as well. He studied drama at Goddard College from 1955 to 1959. He played in a Latin jazz band for a short time before joining the band of avant-garde pianist Cecil Taylor. Shepp's first recording under his own name, ''Archie Shepp - Bill Dixon Quartet'', was released on Savoy Records in 1962 and featured a composition by Ornette Coleman. Along with alto saxophonist John Tchicai and trumpeter Don Cherry, he formed the New York Contemporary Five. John Coltrane's admiration for Shepp led to recordings for Impulse! Records, the first of which was '' Four for Trane'' in ...
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Alice Coltrane
Alice Coltrane (' McLeod; August 27, 1937January 12, 2007), also known by her adopted Sanskrit name Turiyasangitananda, was an American jazz musician and composer, and in her later years a swamini. An accomplished pianist and one of the few harpists in the history of jazz, she recorded many albums as a bandleader, beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s for Impulse! and other record labels. She was married to jazz saxophonist and composer John Coltrane, with whom she performed in 1966–1967. One of the foremost exponents of spiritual jazz, her eclectic music proved widely influential both within and outside the world of jazz. Coltrane's professional music career slowed from the mid 1970s as she became more dedicated to her religious education. She founded the Vedantic Center in 1975 and the Shanti Anantam Ashram in California in 1983, where she served as spiritual director. On July 3, 1994, Swamini rededicated and inaugurated the land as Sai Anantam Ashram'' During the ...
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Sonny Simmons
Huey "Sonny" Simmons (August 4, 1933 – April 6, 2021) was an American jazz musician. Biography Simmons was born on August 4, 1933 in Sicily Island, Louisiana. He grew up in Oakland, California, where he began playing the English horn. (Along with Vinny Golia, Simmons was among the few musicians to play the instrument in a jazz context.) At age 16 he took up the alto saxophone, which became his primary instrument. Simmons played primarily in an avant-garde style, often delving into free jazz. His then-wife, Barbara Donald, played trumpet on several of his early records, including his ESP-Disk titles ''Staying on the Watch'' and ''Music from the Spheres''; Arhoolie title ''Manhattan Egos'', and Contemporary titles ''Rumasuma'' and the double album ''Burning Spirits''. Simmons also partnered with Prince Lasha on several recordings, two of which – ''The Cry!'' (1963) and ''Firebirds'' (1968) – were released by Contemporary. Personal problems derailed both his music career ...
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Pharoah Sanders
Pharoah Sanders (born Ferrell Lee Sanders; October 13, 1940 – September 24, 2022) was an American jazz saxophonist. Known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on the saxophone, as well as his use of " sheets of sound", Sanders played a prominent role in the development of free jazz and spiritual jazz through his work as a member of John Coltrane's groups in the mid-1960s, and later through his solo work. He released over thirty albums as a leader and collaborated extensively with vocalist Leon Thomas and pianist Alice Coltrane, among many others. Fellow saxophonist Ornette Coleman once described him as "probably the best tenor player in the world". Sanders' take on “spiritual jazz” was rooted in his inspiration from religious concepts such as Karma and Tawhid, and his rich, meditative performance aesthetic. This style was seen as a continuation of Coltrane's work on albums such as '' A Love Supreme''. As a result, Sanders was considered to have ...
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Sun Ra
Le Sony'r Ra (born Herman Poole Blount, May 22, 1914 – May 30, 1993), better known as Sun Ra, was an American jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, and poet known for his experimental music, "cosmic" philosophy, prolific output, and theatrical performances. For much of his career, Ra led "The Arkestra", an ensemble with an ever-changing name and flexible line-up. Born and raised in Alabama, Blount became involved in the Chicago jazz scene during the late 1940s. He soon abandoned his birth name, taking the name Le Sony'r Ra, shortened to Sun Ra (after Ra, the Egyptian god of the Sun). Claiming to be an alien from Saturn on a mission to preach peace, he developed a mythical persona and an idiosyncratic credo that made him a pioneer of Afrofuturism. Throughout his life he denied ties to his prior identity saying, "Any name that I use other than Ra is a pseudonym." His widely eclectic and avant-garde music echoed the entire history of jazz, from ragtime and ...
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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 of his birth has been widely given as 1936, but his birth certificate gives 1935 and confirms Ronald, not Roland." – December 5, 1977), known earlier in his career simply as Roland Kirk, was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist who played tenor saxophone, flute, and many other instruments. He was renowned for his onstage vitality, during which virtuoso improvisation was accompanied by comic banter, political ranting, and the ability to play several instruments simultaneously. Life Ronald Theodore Kirk was born in Columbus, Ohio, where he lived in a neighborhood known as Flytown. He became blind at two years old, which he said was a result of improper medical treatment. As a teenager, Kirk studied at the Ohio State School for th ...
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Grant Green
Grant Green (June 6, 1935 – January 31, 1979) was an American jazz guitarist and composer. Recording prolifically for Blue Note Records as both leader and sideman, Green performed in the hard bop, soul jazz, bebop, and Latin-tinged idioms throughout his career. Critics Michael Erlewine and Ron Wynn write, "A severely underrated player during his lifetime, Grant Green is one of the great unsung heroes of jazz guitar ... Green's playing is immediately recognizable – perhaps more than any other guitarist." Critic Dave Hunter described his sound as "lithe, loose, slightly bluesy and righteously groovy". He often performed in an organ trio, a small group featuring a Hammond organ and drummer. Apart from fellow guitarist Charlie Christian, Green's primary influences were saxophonists, particularly Charlie Parker, and his approach was therefore almost exclusively linear rather than chordal. He thus rarely played rhythm guitar except as a sideman on albums led by other music ...
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Elmo Hope
St. Elmo Sylvester Hope (June 27, 1923 – May 19, 1967) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and arranger, chiefly in the bebop and hard bop genres. He grew up playing and listening to jazz and classical music with Bud Powell, and both were close friends of another influential pianist, Thelonious Monk. Hope survived being shot by police as a youth to become a New York-based musician who recorded with several emerging stars in the early to mid-1950s, including trumpeter Clifford Brown, and saxophonists John Coltrane, Lou Donaldson, Jackie McLean, and Sonny Rollins. A long-term heroin user, Hope had his license to perform in New York's clubs withdrawn after a drug conviction, so he moved to Los Angeles in 1957. He was not happy during his four years on the West Coast, but had some successful collaborations there, including with saxophonist Harold Land. More recordings as leader ensued following Hope's return to New York, but they did little to gain him more public or critic ...
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Walter Davis, Jr
Walter may refer to: People * Walter (name), both a surname and a given name * Little Walter, American blues harmonica player Marion Walter Jacobs (1930–1968) * Gunther (wrestler), Austrian professional wrestler and trainer Walter Hahn (born 1987), who previously wrestled as "Walter" * Walter, standard author abbreviation for Thomas Walter (botanist) ( – 1789) Companies * American Chocolate, later called Walter, an American automobile manufactured from 1902 to 1906 * Walter Energy, a metallurgical coal producer for the global steel industry * Walter Aircraft Engines, Czech manufacturer of aero-engines Films and television * ''Walter'' (1982 film), a British television drama film * Walter Vetrivel, a 1993 Tamil crime drama film * ''Walter'' (2014 film), a British television crime drama * ''Walter'' (2015 film), an American comedy-drama film * ''Walter'' (2020 film), an Indian crime drama film * '' W*A*L*T*E*R'', a 1984 pilot for a spin-off of the TV series ''M*A*S*H'' * ...
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Kenny Drew
Kenneth Sidney "Kenny" Drew (August 28, 1928 – August 4, 1993) was an American-Danish jazz pianist. Biography Drew was born in New York City, United States, and received piano lessons from the age of five.Feather, Leonard, & Ira Gitler (2007). ''The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz'', Oxford University Press. He attended the High School of Music & Art in Manhattan. Drew's first recording, in 1950, was with Howard McGhee, and over the next two years he worked in bands led by Buddy DeFranco, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, and Charlie Parker, among others. After a brief period with his own trio in California, Drew returned to New York, playing with Dinah Washington, Johnny Griffin, Buddy Rich, and several others over the following few years. He led many recording sessions throughout the 1950s, and in 1957 appeared on John Coltrane's album, '' Blue Train''. Drew was one of the American jazz musicians who settled in Europe around this period: he moved to Paris in 1961 and t ...
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