Standards (Ken Vandermark Album)
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Standards (Ken Vandermark Album)
''Standards'' is an album by American jazz reedist Ken Vandermark, which was recorded in 1994 and released on the Quinnah label. Background In the four sessions that produced the record, Vandermark chose from the large number of colleagues with whom he's got ongoing relationships and mix-and-matched them in four new improvising trios with different instrumental combinations. The initial inspiration for the project came for a similar one undertaken by German bassist Peter Kowald and a monthly series of improvisations called "Head Exam" at Chicago's HotHouse modelled after Derek Bailey's Company Week, which uses a free format to get people who don't usually play together to collaborate. The first lineup, with longtime partner bassist Kent Kessler and new associate drummer Hamid Drake, would be named later DKV Trio. Vandermark wanted to pair himself with another reed player and he chose NRG Ensemble co-saxophonist Mars Williams and asked Vandermark Quartet drummer Michael Zerang ...
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Ken Vandermark
Ken Vandermark (born September 22, 1964) is an American composer, saxophonist, and clarinetist. A fixture on the Chicago-area music scene since the 1990s, Vandermark has earned wide critical praise for his playing and his multilayered compositions, which typically balance intricate orchestration with passionate improvisation. He has led or been a member of many groups, has collaborated with many other musicians, and was awarded a 1999 MacArthur Fellowship. He plays tenor saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, and baritone saxophone. He was also a member of NRG Ensemble. Biography Boston and Montreal Vandermark grew up in Massachusetts, graduating from Natick High School. His father, Stu Vandermark, was the Boston correspondent for '' Cadence Magazine'' and currently is a noted essayist on jazz, primarily concerned with improvisation. Vandermark led a jazz trio, the Fourth Stream, in Montreal while he was an undergraduate at McGill University. After meeting Michael Snow at a ...
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Kevin Drumm
Kevin Drumm (born 1970) is an experimental musician based in Chicago, United States. Biography Emerging from the city's improvised music scene, in the 1990s he became one of the world's pre-eminent prepared guitar players. Since then his work has expanded to include electroacoustic compositions and live electronic music made with laptop computers and analog modular synthesizers. His early recordings contain mostly sparse, quiet sounds; recent works have been more loud and dense. Drumm has collaborated with many artists working in similar fields, including Japanese guitarist Taku Sugimoto, multi-instrumentalist and producer Jim O'Rourke, and many European improvisers such as Swedish saxophonist Mats Gustafsson and German trumpeter Axel Dörner. He has also worked with the artist group Simparch, composing a piece for their installation ''Spec'', shown at Documenta XI in Kassel, Germany and at the Renaissance Society in Chicago. Drumm has also worked with saxophonist Ken Vande ...
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Violin
The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino piccolo and the pochette (musical instrument), pochette, but these are virtually unused. Most violins have a hollow wooden body, and commonly have four strings (music), strings (sometimes five-string violin, five), usually tuned in perfect fifths with notes G3, D4, A4, E5, and are most commonly played by drawing a bow (music), bow across the strings. The violin can also be played by plucking the strings with the fingers (pizzicato) and, in specialized cases, by striking the strings with the wooden side of the bow (col legno). Violins are important instruments in a wide variety of musical genres. They are most prominent in the Western classical music, Western classical tradition, both in ensembles (from chamber music to orchestras) and as solo ...
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Electric Guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external electric Guitar amplifier, sound amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickup (music technology), pickups to convert the vibration of its strings into Electrical signal, electrical signals, which ultimately are reproduced as sound by loudspeakers. The sound is sometimes shaped or electronically altered to achieve different timbres or tonal qualities via amplifier settings or knobs on the guitar. Often, this is done through the use of Effects unit, effects such as reverb, Distortion (music), distortion and "overdrive"; the latter is considered to be a key element of electric blues guitar music and jazz, rock music, rock and Heavy metal music, heavy metal guitar playing. Designs also exist combining attributes of electric and acoustic guitars: the Semi-acoustic guitar, semi-acoustic and Acoustic-electric guitar, acoustic-electric guitars. Inven ...
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Piano
A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a chromatic scale in equal temperament. A musician who specializes in piano is called a pianist. There are two main types of piano: the #Grand, grand piano and the #Upupright piano. The grand piano offers better sound and more precise key control, making it the preferred choice when space and budget allow. The grand piano is also considered a necessity in venues hosting skilled pianists. The upright piano is more commonly used because of its smaller size and lower cost. When a key is depressed, the strings inside are struck by felt-coated wooden hammers. The vibrations are transmitted through a Bridge (instrument), bridge to a Soundboard (music), soundboard that amplifies the sound by Coupling (physics), coupling the Sound, acoustic energy t ...
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Saxophones
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of Single-reed instrument, single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed (mouthpiece), reed on a Mouthpiece (woodwind), mouthpiece vibrates to produce a sound wave inside the instrument's body. The Pitch (music), pitch is controlled by opening and closing holes in the body to change the effective length of the tube. The holes are closed by leather pads attached to keys operated by the player. Saxophones are made in various sizes and are almost always treated as transposing instruments. A person who plays the saxophone is called a ''saxophonist'' or ''saxist''. The saxophone is used in a wide range of musical styles including classical music (such as concert bands, chamber music, List of concert works for saxophone, solo repertoire, and occasionally orchestras), military bands, marching bands, jazz (such as big bands an ...
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Double Bass
The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions such as the octobass). It has four or five strings, and its construction is in between that of the gamba and the violin family. The bass is a standard member of the orchestra's string section, along with violins, violas, and cellos,''The Orchestra: A User's Manual''
, Andrew Hugill with the Philharmonia Orchestra
as well as the concert band, and is featured in Double bass concerto, concertos, solo, and chamber music in European classical music, Western classical music.Alfred Planyavsky

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Hand Drums
A hand drum is any type of drum that is typically played with the bare hand rather than a stick, mallet, hammer, or other type of beater. Types The following descriptions allude to traditional versions of the drums. Modern synthetic versions are available for most if not all of the drums listed through various manufacturers. Middle and Near East *The Tar (drum), tar is a frame drum common in Middle Eastern music. *The tambourine is a frame drum with jingles attached to the shell. *The daf and the dayereh are Iranian frame drums. *The ghaval is the Azerbaijani frame drum. *The tonbak is the Persian goblet drum. *The doumbek is a goblet shaped drum used in Arabic, Jewish, Assyrian, Persian, Balkan, Greek, Armenian, Azeri and Turkish music. * Mirwas Africa *The most common African music, African drum known to westerners is the djembe, a large, single-headed drum with a goblet shape. *The Ashiko is another African drum in the shape of a truncated cone. Similar to the Djembe it is ro ...
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Trap Set
A drum kit or drum set (also known as a trap set, or simply drums in popular music and jazz contexts) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and sometimes other auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The drummer typically holds a pair of matching drumsticks or special wire or nylon brushes; and uses their feet to operate hi-hat and bass drum pedals. A standard kit usually consists of: * A snare drum, mounted on a stand * A bass drum, played with a beater moved by one or more foot-operated pedals * One or more tom-toms, including rack toms or floor toms * One or more cymbals, including a ride cymbal and crash cymbal * Hi-hat cymbals, a pair of cymbals that can be played with a foot-operated pedal The drum kit is a part of the standard rhythm section and is used in many types of popular and traditional music styles, ranging from rock and pop to blues and jazz. __TOC__ History Early development Before the development of the classic drum ...
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Reed (instrument)
A reed (or lamella) is a thin strip of material that vibrates to produce a sound on a musical instrument. Most woodwind instrument reeds are made from ''Arundo donax'' ("Giant cane") or synthetic material. Tuned reeds (as in harmonicas and accordions) are made of metal or synthetics. Musical instruments are classified according to the type and number of reeds. The earliest types of single-reed instruments used idioglottal reeds, where the vibrating reed is a tongue cut and shaped on the tube of cane. Much later, single-reed instruments started using heteroglottal reeds, where a reed is cut and separated from the tube of cane and attached to a mouthpiece of some sort. By contrast, in an uncapped double reed instrument (such as the oboe and bassoon), there is no mouthpiece; the two parts of the reed vibrate against one another. Single reeds Single reeds are used on the mouthpieces of clarinets and saxophones. The back of the reed is flat and is placed against the mouthpiece. These ...
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The Penguin Guide To Jazz
''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled by Richard Cook and Brian Morton, two chroniclers of jazz resident in the United Kingdom. History The first edition was published in Britain by Penguin Books in 1992. Every subsequent two years, through 2010, a new edition was published with updated entries. The eighth and ninth editions, published in 2006 and 2008, respectively, each included 2,000 new CD listings. The title took on different forms over the lifetime of the work, as audio technology changed. The seventh edition was known as ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD'' while subsequent editions were titled ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings''. The earliest edition had the title ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, LP and Cassette''. Richard Cook died in 2007, prior to the com ...
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Mars Williams
Marc Charles "Mars" Williams (May 29, 1955 – November 20, 2023) was an American jazz and rock saxophonist. He was a member of the American new wave band The Waitresses from 1980 to 1983, and a member of the British post-punk band The Psychedelic Furs from 1983 to 1989 and again from 2005 until his death in 2023. Williams also was a founding member of the acid jazz group Liquid Soul, and a member of the free jazz-oriented NRG Ensemble. Career Exposed to swing music and Dixieland jazz by his trumpeter father, Williams played classical clarinet for ten years before migrating to saxophone in his last year of high school, citing the influence of Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane and Charlie Parker. After attending DePaul University for a period of time, he took courses from the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, where he studied under founders Anthony Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell. In 2004, he was selected by the Moers Festival as their featured artist. As a musicia ...
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