jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...
group founded in 1987 by
saxophonist
The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pro ...
trombonist
The trombone (german: Posaune, Italian, French: ''trombone'') is a musical instrument in the brass family. As with all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player's vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate ...
Curtis Fowlkes
Curtis Fowlkes (born March 19, 1950) is an American jazz trombonist and singer. He is a founding member of The Jazz Passengers.
Career
In 1987, Fowlkes started The Jazz Passengers with saxophonist Roy Nathanson. He has also been a member of ...
.
The band grew out of a partnership between Nathanson and Fowlkes in 1987, after the two had played with
John Lurie
John Lurie (born December 14, 1952) is an American musician, painter, actor, director, and producer. He co-founded the Lounge Lizards jazz ensemble; has acted in 19 films, including ''Stranger than Paradise'' and '' Down by Law''; has composed ...
Bill Ware
Bill Ware III born William Anthony Ware III (b. January 28, 1959, East Orange, New Jersey) is an American jazz vibraphone, vibraphonist.
Musical career
Ware played bass and piano early in his career, playing at the Harlem Jazzmobile. After spend ...
, bassist Brad Jones and drummer E. J. Rodriguez; the group has often featured a violinist (Rob Thomas, Jim Nolet or, more recently, Sam Bardfeld). Guitarists
Marc Ribot
Marc Ribot (;
born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer.
His work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, rock, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notably Tom Wai ...
and
David Fiuczynski
David Fiuczynski (born March 5, 1964) is an American contemporary jazz guitarist, best known as the leader of the Screaming Headless Torsos and David Fiuczynski's KiF, and as a member of Hasidic New Wave. He has played on more than 95 albums as ...
played in earlier formations of the group. The album that is perhaps their masterpiece, the Hal Willner-produced ''In Love'' ( High Street, 1994), features vocal contributions from Deborah Harry,
Jeff Buckley
Jeffrey Scott Buckley (November 17, 1966 – May 29, 1997), raised as Scott Moorhead, was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. After a decade as a session guitarist in Los Angeles, Buckley amassed a following in the early 1990s by ...
,
Jimmy Scott
James Victor Scott (July 17, 1925 – June 12, 2014), known professionally as Little Jimmy Scott or Jimmy Scott, was an American jazz vocalist known for his high natural contralto voice and his sensitivity on ballads and love songs.
After ...
,
Bob Dorough
Robert Lrod Dorough (December 12, 1923 – April 23, 2018) was an American bebop and cool jazz vocalist, pianist, composer, songwriter, arranger, and producer. Dorough became famous as the composer and performer of songs in the TV series ''School ...
and
Mavis Staples
Mavis Staples (born July 10, 1939) is an American rhythm and blues and gospel singer, actress, and civil rights activist. She rose to fame as a member of her family's band The Staple Singers (she is the last surviving member of that band). Duri ...
. Harry later became a regular member of the band, appearing on a number of follow-up albums, including ''Individually Twisted'' (which includes a duet with
Elvis Costello
Declan Patrick MacManus OBE (born 25 August 1954), known professionally as Elvis Costello, is an English singer-songwriter and record producer. He has won multiple awards in his career, including a Grammy Award in 2020, and has twice been nom ...
), Costello also sings on another track without Harry. Recently the Passengers have recorded infrequently as a full ensemble, though the individual bandmembers' recent side projects tend to feature many fellow Passengers, as well as a similarly skewed musical sensibility.
In 2005, Nathanson composed a work commemorating the world's oldest object, a 4.404 billion year old
zircon
Zircon () is a mineral belonging to the group of nesosilicates and is a source of the metal zirconium. Its chemical name is zirconium(IV) silicate, and its corresponding chemical formula is Zr SiO4. An empirical formula showing some of t ...
found in Australia. The work was performed by The Jazz Passengers at a "Rock Concert" held in
Madison, Wisconsin
Madison is the county seat of Dane County and the capital city of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. As of the 2020 census the population was 269,840, making it the second-largest city in Wisconsin by population, after Milwaukee, and the 80th ...
in April of that yea
Discography
* 1987 – ''Broken Night Red Light'' (Les Disques du Crépuscule)
* 1988 – ''Deranged and Decomposed'' (Les Disques du Crépuscule)
* 1990 – ''Implement Yourself'' ( New World Records, New World)
* 1991 – ''Live at the Knitting Factory'' (
Knitting Factory
The Knitting Factory is a nightclub in New York City that features eclectic music and entertainment. After opening in 1987, various other locations were opened in the United States.
The Knitting Factory gave its audience poetry readings, perform ...
Windham Hill
Windham Hill Records was an independent record label that specialized in instrumental acoustic music. It was founded by guitarist William Ackerman and Anne Robinson (née McGilvray) in 1976 and was popular in the 1980s and 1990s.
The label was ...
)
* 1996 – ''Individually Twisted'' ( 32 Jazz) with Deborah Harry
* 1998 – ''"Live" in Spain'' (32 Jazz) with Deborah Harry
* 2005 - ''The Rock Concert'' (A Stony Muse Production/Roy Nathanson)
* 2010 – ''Reunited'' ( Justin Time)
* 2017 - ''Still Life with Trouble'' ( Enja)