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Jazz Composers Guild
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] |
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. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, hymns, marches, vaudeville song, and dance music. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swing and blue notes, complex chords, call and response vocals, polyrhythms and improvisation. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphonic improvisation. However, jazz did not begin as a single musical tradition in New Orleans or elsewhere. In the 1930s, arranged dance-oriented swing big bands, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Clifford Thornton
Clifford Edward Thornton III (September 6, 1936 – November 25, 1989) was an American jazz trumpeter, trombonist, political activist, and educator. He played free jazz and avant-garde jazz in the 1960s and '70s. Career Clifford was born in Philadelphia. The year of his birth has been reported as early as 1934 or as late as 1939. Jazz pianist Jimmy Golden was his uncle, while his cousin, drummer J. C. Moses, had a jazz career that was cut short by failing health. Clifford began piano lessons when he was seven-years-old. He briefly attended Morgan State University and Temple University. Several biographers report that Clifford studied with trumpeter Donald Byrd during 1957, after Byrd had left Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, and also that he worked with 17-year-old tuba player Ray Draper and Webster Young. Following a late 1950s stint in the U.S. Army bands Thornton moved to New York City. Clifford's political and musical motivations are epitomized by his statement: "For a lot o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avant-garde Jazz Ensembles
In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable to the artistic establishment of the time. The military metaphor of an ''advance guard'' identifies the artists and writers whose innovations in style, form, and subject-matter challenge the artistic and aesthetic validity of the established forms of art and the literary traditions of their time; thus, the artists who created the anti-novel and Surrealism were ahead of their times. As a stratum of the intelligentsia of a society, avant-garde artists promote progressive and radical politics and advocate for societal reform with and through works of art. In the essay "The Artist, the Scientist, and the Industrialist" (1825), Benjamin Olinde Rodrigues's political usage of ''vanguard'' identified the moral obligation of artists to "serve as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jazz Ensembles From New York City
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African Americans, African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, hymns, march (music), marches, vaudeville song, and dance music. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major form of musical expression in traditional music, traditional and popular music. Jazz is characterized by swung note, swing and blue notes, complex Chord (music), chords, Call and response (music), call and response vocals, polyrhythms and Jazz improvisation, improvisation. As jazz spread around the world, it drew on national, regional, and local musical cultures, which gave rise to different styles. Dixieland, New Orleans jazz began in the early 1910s, combining earlier brass band marches, French quadrilles, biguine, ragtime and blues with collective polyphony, polyphonic Musical improvisation, improvisati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
For Players Only
''For Players Only'' is a live album by violinist and composer Leroy Jenkins, his first as a leader. It was recorded in January 1975 at Wollman Auditorium, Columbia University in New York City, and was released by JCOA Records later that year. On the album, Jenkins is joined by members of the Jazz Composer's Orchestra. The album presents a single, extended composition by Jenkins that was commissioned by the JCOA in 1974. The work was first presented by the JCOA and WKCR-FM via four workshop concerts held at Columbia University from January 28–31, 1975. Reception In a review for AllMusic, Brian Olewnick wrote: "One of seven albums commissioned by the Jazz Composers Orchestra, violinist Leroy Jenkins' ''For Players Only'' is one of the more loosely organized and, for all its charms, most scattershot of these works... The first half of the composition is arranged in suite-like fashion, with briefly stated themes fleshed out by various small groups within the orchestra... in the s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Echoes Of Prayer
''Echoes of Prayer'' is an album by trombonist and composer Grachan Moncur III on which he is joined by members of the Jazz Composer's Orchestra and the Tanawa Dance Ensemble. It was recorded on April 11, 1974, at Blue Rock Studio in New York City, and was released in 1975 by JCOA Records. Moncur's only recorded work for large ensemble, ''Echoes of Prayer'' was commissioned by the JCOA, and consists of four movements dedicated to Martin Luther King Jr., Medgar Evers, Marcus Garvey, and Angela Davis. It was initially performed at a workshop concert at New York University's Loeb Student Center on the day before the recording session. Reception In a review for AllMusic, Scott Yanow called Moncur "one of the unsung heroes of the avant-garde," and wrote: "The music is quite advanced, sometimes pretty dense, and will take a few listens to fully digest." Ed Berger of ''JazzTimes'' called ''Echoes of Prayer'' Moncur's "most ambitious work," "an orchestral work of great rhythmic variety ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Gardens Of Harlem
''The Gardens of Harlem'' is an album by multi-instrumentalist and composer Clifford Thornton. It was recorded at the Blue Rock Studio in New York City in April 1974, and was released in 1975 by JCOA Records. On the album, Thornton is joined by members of the Jazz Composer's Orchestra, supplemented by seven musicians playing African percussion instruments. The music was conducted by Jack Jeffers. Reception In an article for ''London Jazz News'', Jon Turney stated: "Clifford Thornton... led the final release credited to the co-operative Jazz Composers' Orchestra, and it's a great one. The multiple African percussion that features prominently in the early pieces here energises the music wonderfully. And as the notes made clear, that collection of sounds arises because the whole work explores West African music and how it has travelled 'from West to North Africa, the Caribbean, the South Eastern United States, to Harlem'. He evoked that history by selecting vocal melodies from the t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Numatik Swing Band
''Numatik Swing Band'' is a live album by Roswell Rudd and the Jazz Composer's Orchestra released on the JCOA label in 1973. Reception The AllMusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 4 stars stating "The music on this date is avant-garde, but has its melodic and accessible sections".Yanow, S. Allmusic Reviewaccessed August 17, 2010 The authors of ''The Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia of Jazz'' wrote that the album "shows udd'sconcern for textures, French horns rising over drum beat, piano and basses in unison, the scampering piccolo. Rudd himself plays well but the star of the session is drummer Beaver Harris, tirelessly inventive." Trombonist and composer Jacob Garchik wrote: "Fascinating writing for a 25 piece large ensemble, another one of his under-explored talents! And consequently another obscure, impossible to find record, his third as a leader. Perhaps in a parallel universe we would be reverentially talking about him as a big band composer." In an article for ... [...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, bandleader, and multi-instrumentalist. Beginning in the late 1950s, he had a long tenure performing in the bands of saxophonist Ornette Coleman, including on the pioneering free jazz albums '' The Shape of Jazz to Come'' (1959) and '' Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation'' (1961). Cherry also collaborated separately with musicians including John Coltrane, Charlie Haden, Sun Ra, Ed Blackwell, the New York Contemporary Five, and Albert Ayler. Cherry released his debut album as bandleader, '' Complete Communion'', in 1966. In the 1970s, he became a pioneer in world music, with his work drawing on African, Middle Eastern, and Hindustani music, as heard on the 1975 release ''Brown Rice''. He was a member of the ECM group Codona, along with percussionist Naná Vasconcelos and sitar and tabla player Collin Walcott. Chris Kelsey of AllMusic called Cherry "one of the most influential jazz mu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Relativity Suite
''Relativity Suite'' is a free-jazz LP by Don Cherry and the Jazz Composer's Orchestra released in 1973. Background Having appeared on the first two JCOA records by Michael Mantler and Carla Bley, Cherry was commissioned to write the third one in 1970. He used many of the same musicians who contributed to the first two records and molded into a suite a string of the pieces he'd been composing and performing in the previous few years. Studying with Pandit Pran Nath, Cherry was increasingly using Indian karnatic singing in his recordings and concerts and he starts the album with a similarly derived chant." Reception Jazz critic Scott Yanow wrote: "Highlights include Selene Fung's lovely work on the guzheng, a Chinese koto-like instrument, and Ed Blackwell's exuberant New Orleans marching patterns on the concluding number. While not as breathtaking or cohesive as his ''Eternal Rhythm'', ''Relativity Suite'' almost matches that release in its first half and contains many a worthwh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Escalator Over The Hill
''Escalator over the Hill'' (or ''EOTH'') is mostly referred to as a jazz opera, but it was released as a "chronotransduction", with "words by Paul Haines (poet), Paul Haines, adaptation and music by Carla Bley, production and coordination by Michael Mantler", performed by the Jazz Composer's Orchestra. History ''Escalator over the Hill'' is more than an hour and a half long and was recorded over three years (1968 to 1971). It was originally released as a triple gramophone record, LP box which also contained a booklet with lyrics, photos and profiles of the musicians. Side six of the original LPs ended in a locked groove, the final track "...And It's Again" continuing infinitely on manual record player#Turntable technology, record players. (For the CD reissue, the hum is allowed to play for 18 minutes before slowly fading out.) In 1997, a live version of ''Escalator over the Hill,'' re-orchestrated by Jeff Friedman, was performed for the first time in Cologne, Cologne, Germany. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
New Music Distribution Service
New Music Distribution Service (or NMDS) was a non-profit record distributor based in New York City. It was founded in 1972 by Carla Bley and Michael Mantler as a means of distributing artist produced recordings of, primarily, experimental contemporary music. It was a program of the Jazz Composer's Orchestra Association (JCOA). The NMDS began by distributing recordings released by many different independent labels and artists, including Nodlew ( Weldon Irvine's label), Jahari ( Richard Dunbar's label), Gibex ( Michael William Gilbert's label), Philip Glass's Chatham Square label, and many others. Several international labels such as Incus and ECM were also included in their catalogs. The biggest selling album in NMDS history was the ECM release of Return to Forever (Chick Corea album) ''Return to Forever'' is a jazz fusion album by Chick Corea recorded over two days in February 1972 but was not released in the USA until 1975—Corea's fourth release for the label. It is the debu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
