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The Jazz Composer's Orchestra (album)
''The Jazz Composer's Orchestra'' is a 1968 album by the Jazz Composer's Orchestra recorded over a period of six months with Michael Mantler as composer, leader and producer. Many of the key figures in avant-garde jazz from the time contributed on the album including Don Cherry, Pharoah Sanders, Gato Barbieri, Larry Coryell, Roswell Rudd, and Carla Bley. The album's finale features a two-part concerto for Cecil Taylor and orchestra. Mantler "updated" the album in 2014 as ''The Jazz Composer's Orchestra Update'' on ECM Records. It features the Nouvelle Cuisine Big Band, an orchestra with parallel instrumentation conducted by Christoph Cech and new soloists: Michael Mantler (trumpet), Bjarne Roupé (guitar), Wolfgang Puschnig (alto saxophone), Harry Sokal (tenor saxophone), David Helbock (piano), and the radio.string.quartet.vienna. Reception Langdon Winner's ''Rolling Stone'' review stated "This is a record which all rock musicians as well as general audiences should list ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jazz Composer's Orchestra
The Jazz Composer's Orchestra was an American jazz group, founded by Carla Bley and Michael Mantler in 1965, to perform orchestral avant-garde jazz. Its origins lay in the Jazz Composers Guild, an organization founded by Bill Dixon which grew out of the series of 1964 concerts in New York, known as the "October Revolution in Jazz" and subsequent regular performance settings. A big band, formed by Bley and Mantler, became known as the Jazz Composers Guild Orchestra, which made its first record in April 1965. After the demise of the Guild, the big band continued as the Jazz Composer's Orchestra. A non-profit organisation was established in 1966, the Jazz Composers Orchestra Association Inc. (JCOA). The Orchestra's first release was '' Communication'' in 1965. Their 1968 double-album '' The Jazz Composer's Orchestra'' featured soloists Cecil Taylor, Don Cherry, Roswell Rudd, Pharoah Sanders, Larry Coryell, and Gato Barbieri. JCOA Records was founded for releases from the Orchestra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ECM Records
ECM (Edition of Contemporary Music) is an independent record label founded by Karl Egger, Manfred Eicher and Manfred Scheffner in Munich in 1969. While ECM is best known for jazz music, the label has released a variety of recordings, and ECM's artists often refuse to acknowledge boundaries between genres. ECM's motto is "the most beautiful sound next to silence", taken from a 1971 review of ECM releases in ''Coda'', a Canadian jazz magazine. ECM has been distributed in the U.S. by Warner Bros. Records, PolyGram Records, BMG, and, since 1999, Universal Music, the successor of PolyGram, worldwide. Its album covers were profiled in two books: ''Sleeves of Desire'' and ''Windfall Light'', both published by Lars Müller. History The first ECM release produced by Manfred Scheffner was pianist Mal Waldron's 1969 recording '' Free at Last''. The label went on to release recordings by many prominent jazz musicians, including Keith Jarrett, Jan Garbarek, Pat Metheny, Gary Burton, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy Lyons
Jimmy Lyons (December 1, 1931 – May 19, 1986) was an American alto saxophone player. He is best known for his long tenure in the Cecil Taylor Unit. Lyons was the only constant member of the band from the mid-1960s until his death. Taylor never worked with another musician as frequently as he did with Lyons. Lyons' playing, influenced by Charlie Parker, kept Taylor's avant-garde music tethered to the jazz tradition.Kelsey, ChrisJimmy Lyons''AllMusic'' Biography Lyons was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, United States, and raised there until the age of nine, when his mother moved the family to Harlem and then the Bronx. He obtained his first saxophone in the mid-1940s and took lessons from Buster Bailey. After high school, Lyons was drafted into the United States Army and spent 21 months on infantry duty in Korea. He then spent a year playing in army bands. Once discharged he attended New York University. By the end of the 1950s, Lyons was supporting his interest in music by work ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Marcus
Steve Marcus (September 18, 1939 – September 25, 2005) was an American jazz saxophonist. Biography Marcus was born in The Bronx, New York, United States. He studied at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, between 1959 and 1961. He gained experience playing in the bands of Stan Kenton, Herbie Mann and Larry Coryell from 1963 to 1973. His first album as a leader included an arrangement of the Beatles' song, "Tomorrow Never Knows". He worked with jazz drummer Buddy Rich for the last twelve years of Rich's life. After Rich died, Marcus led the band and renamed it Buddy's Buddies. His song "Half a Heart" (1968) has a riff very similar to the famous saxophone riff of "Baker Street" by Gerry Rafferty (recorded in 1977, released in 1978). Marcus died in September 2005 in New Hope, Pennsylvania. Discography As leader/co-leader * ''Tomorrow Never Knows'' (Vortex, 1968) * ''Count's Rock Band'' (Vortex, 1969) * ''The Lord's Prayer'' (Vortex, 1969) * ''Green Line'' with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Steve Lacy (saxophonist)
Steve Lacy (born Steven Norman Lackritz; July 23, 1934 – June 4, 2004) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer recognized as one of the important players of soprano saxophone. Coming to prominence in the 1950s as a progressive dixieland musician, Lacy went on to a long and prolific career. He worked extensively in experimental jazz and to a lesser extent in free improvisation, but Lacy's music was typically melodic and tightly-structured. Lacy also became a highly distinctive composer, with compositions often built out of little more than a single questioning phrase, repeated several times. The music of Thelonious Monk became a permanent part of Lacy's repertoire after a stint in the pianist's band, with Monk's works appearing on virtually every Lacy album and concert program; Lacy often partnered with trombonist Roswell Rudd in exploring Monk's work. Beyond Monk, Lacy performed the work of jazz composers such as Charles Mingus, Duke Ellington and Herbie Nichols; unli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Howard Johnson (jazz Musician)
Howard Lewis Johnson (August 7, 1941 – January 11, 2021) was an American jazz musician, known mainly for his work on tuba and baritone saxophone, although he also played the bass clarinet, trumpet, and other reed instruments. He is known to have expanded the tuba’s known capacities in jazz. Johnson was known for his extensive work as a sideman, notably with George Gruntz, Hank Crawford, and Gil Evans. As a leader, he fronted the tuba ensemble Gravity and released three albums during the 1990s for Verve Records; the first ''Arrival'', was a tribute to Pharoah Sanders. Biography Johnson was born in Montgomery, Alabama, United States, but from the age of two was raised in Massillon, Ohio. A self-taught musician, he began playing baritone saxophone and tuba while still in high school. After graduating in 1958, he served in the U.S. Navy before moving to Boston, where he lived with the family of the drummer Tony Williams. He then spent time in Chicago, where he met Eric Dolphy, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jimmy Knepper
James Minter Knepper (November 22, 1927 – June 14, 2003) was an American jazz trombonist. In addition to his own recordings as leader, Knepper performed and recorded with Charlie Barnet, Woody Herman, Claude Thornhill, Stan Kenton, Benny Goodman, Gil Evans, Thad Jones and Mel Lewis, Toshiko Akiyoshi and Lew Tabackin, and, most famously, Charles Mingus in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Knepper died in 2003 of complications of Parkinson's disease. Biography Knepper was born in Los Angeles, California, United States, the second son of a nurse and a police officer. His parents divorced shortly after his birth, and his mother had to take her abusive husband to court in order to get child support. He and his older brother, Robert, were sent to several boarding and military schools, Page Military Academy and St. John's Military Academy, while their mother worked. He picked up his first instrument, an alto horn, at the age of six while he was a pupil there. His first teacher pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Julius Watkins
Julius Watkins (October 10, 1921 – April 4, 1977) was an American jazz musician who played French horn. Described by AllMusic as "virtually the father of the jazz French horn", Watkins won the ''Down Beat'' critics poll in 1960 and 1961 for Miscellaneous Instrument. Life and career Watkins was born in Detroit, Michigan, United States. He began playing the French horn when he was nine years old. Watkins began his career in jazz playing the trumpet in the Ernie Fields Orchestra from 1943 to 1946. By the late 1940s, he had played some French horn solos on recording sessions led by Kenny Clarke and Babs Gonzales. After moving to New York City, Watkins studied for three years at the Manhattan School of Music. He started appearing in small-group jazz sessions, including two led by Thelonious Monk, featuring on "Friday the 13th" on the album ''Thelonious Monk and Sonny Rollins'' (1954). Watkins recorded with many other jazz musicians, including John Coltrane, Freddie Hubbard, Char ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bob Northern
Robert Northern (May 21, 1934 – May 31, 2020), known professionally as Brother Ah, was an American jazz French hornist. Life and career Born in 1934 in Kinston, North Carolina and raised in The Bronx, Northern studied at the Manhattan School of Music and at the Vienna Academy in the 1950s. He was perhaps best known as a session musician, working extensively in the 1950s and 1960s with musicians such as Donald Byrd, John Coltrane, Gil Evans, Sun Ra, McCoy Tyner, Roland Kirk, and the Jazz Composers Orchestra. He also worked with Don Cherry, Thelonious Monk, Freddie Hubbard, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Eric Dolphy, Charlie Haden, and John Lewis. He lived in New York City from 1963 to 1971, and after a period of increasing interest in non-Western music, visited and studied in Africa (Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania) during seven consecutive summers (1972 -1977). [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Randy Brecker
Randal Edward Brecker (born November 27, 1945) is an American trumpeter, flugelhornist, and composer. His versatility has made him a popular studio musician who has recorded with acts in jazz, rock, and R&B. Early life Brecker was born on November 27, 1945, in the Philadelphia suburb of Cheltenham to a musical family. His father Bob (Bobby) was a lawyer who played jazz piano and his mother Sylvia was a portrait artist. Randy described his father as "a semipro jazz pianist and trumpet fanatic. In school when I was eight, they only offered trumpet or clarinet. I chose trumpet from hearing Diz, Miles, Clifford, and Chet Baker at home. My brother (Michael Brecker) didn't want to play the same instrument as I did, so three years later he chose the clarinet!" Randy's father, Bob, was also a songwriter and singer who loved to listen to recordings of the great jazz trumpet players such as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie and Clifford Brown. He took Randy and his younger brother Mic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Don Cherry (trumpeter)
Donald Eugene Cherry (November 18, 1936 – October 19, 1995) was an American jazz trumpeter. Cherry had a long association with free jazz saxophonist Ornette Coleman, which began in the late 1950s. He also performed alongside musicians such as John Coltrane, Charlie Haden, Sun Ra, Ed Blackwell, the New York Contemporary Five, and Albert Ayler. In the 1970s, Cherry became a pioneer in world fusion music, drawing on traditional African, Middle Eastern, and Hindustani music. He was a member of the ECM group Codona, along with percussionist Naná Vasconcelos and sitar and tabla player Collin Walcott. AllMusic called him "one of the most influential jazz musicians of the late 20th century." Early life Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to a mother of Choctaw descent and an African-American father. His mother and grandmother played piano and his father played trumpet. His father owned Oklahoma City's Cherry Blossom Club, which hosted performances by Charlie Christian ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barry Guy
Barry John Guy (born 22 April 1947, in London) is an English composer and double bass player. His range of interests encompasses early music, contemporary composition, jazz and improvisation, and he has worked with a wide variety of orchestras in the UK and Europe. He studied at the Guildhall School of Music under Buxton Orr, and later taught there. Guy came to the fore as an improvising bassist as a member of a trio with pianist Howard Riley and drummer Tony Oxley (Witherden, 1969). He also became an occasional member of John Stevens' ensembles in the 1960s and 1970s, including the Spontaneous Music Ensemble. In the early 1970s, he was a member of the influential free improvisation group Iskra 1903 with Derek Bailey and trombonist Paul Rutherford (a project revived in the late 1970s, with violinist Philipp Wachsmann replacing Bailey). He also formed a long-standing partnership with saxophonist Evan Parker, which led to a trio with drummer Paul Lytton which became one of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
