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Song For Biko
''Song for Biko'' is an album by the Johnny Dyani Quartet, led by bassist Dyani, and featuring saxophonist Dudu Pukwana, cornetist Don Cherry, and drummer Makaya Ntshoko. It was recorded on July 18, 1978, and was released on vinyl in 1979 by SteepleChase Records. In 1994, the album was reissued on CD with an extra track. The dedication in the album title refers to anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, who was killed by South African security officers in 1977. Reception In a review for AllMusic, Scott Yanow called the music "haunting, emotional, somewhat adventurous, yet also melodic," and wrote: " While 'Song for Biko' is the most memorable piece, all five of Dyani's originals... are special. The music combines together Dyani's South African folk heritage with Ornette Coleman's free bop and elements of avant-garde jazz. Highly recommended." The authors of ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings'' noted that the album "comes from Dyani's most consistently inventive period," and commen ...
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Johnny Dyani
Johnny Mbizo Dyani (30 November 1945 – 24 October 1986) was a South African jazz double bassist, vocalist and pianist, who, in addition to being a key member of The Blue Notes, played with such international musicians as Don Cherry, Steve Lacy, David Murray, Finnish guitar player Jukka Syrenius, Pierre Dørge, Peter Brötzmann, Mal Waldron, fellow South African Dollar Brand (Abdullah Ibrahim), and Leo Smith, among many other prominent players. Biography Dyani was born (3 years before the establishment of Apartheid) and grew up in Duncan Village, East London, in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality, eastern Cape Province of South Africa.. In the early 1960s, he was a member of South Africa's first integrated jazz band, The Blue Notes, with Mongezi Feza on trumpet, Dudu Pukwana on alto saxophone, Nikele Moyake on tenor saxophone, Chris McGregor on piano, and Louis Moholo on drums. In 1964, the band fled South Africa to seek musical and political freedom. Moholo expla ...
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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 co ...
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1979 Albums
Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ''Chiquitita'' to commemorate the event. ** The United States and the People's Republic of China establish full Sino-American relations, diplomatic relations. ** Following a deal agreed during 1978, France, French carmaker Peugeot completes a takeover of American manufacturer Chrysler's Chrysler Europe, European operations, which are based in United Kingdom, Britain's former Rootes Group factories, as well as the former Simca factories in France. * January 7 – Cambodian–Vietnamese War: The People's Army of Vietnam and Vietnamese-backed Kampuchean United Front for National Salvation, Cambodian insurgents announce the fall of Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and the collapse of the Pol Pot regime. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge retreat west to an area ...
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Ornette Coleman
Randolph Denard Ornette Coleman (March 9, 1930 – June 11, 2015) was an American jazz saxophonist, violinist, trumpeter, and composer known as a principal founder of the free jazz genre, a term derived from his 1960 album '' Free Jazz: A Collective Improvisation''. His pioneering performances often abandoned the chordal and harmony-based structure found in bebop, instead emphasizing a jarring and avant-garde approach to improvisation. AllMusic called him "one of the most important (and controversial) innovators of the jazz avant-garde". Born in Fort Worth, Texas, Coleman began his musical career playing in local R&B and bebop groups, and eventually formed his own group in Los Angeles featuring members such as Ed Blackwell, Don Cherry, Charlie Haden, and Billy Higgins. In 1959, he released the controversial album '' The Shape of Jazz to Come'' and began a long residency at the Five Spot jazz club in New York City. His 1960 album ''Free Jazz'' would profoundly influ ...
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Sandy Brown (musician)
Alexander Brown (25 February 1929 – 15 March 1975) was a Scottish jazz clarinetist, band leader, and acoustic engineer, who performed mostly New Orleans-style and mainstream jazz. He had a particular interest in African music, which was reflected in his compositions. Biography Brown was born of Scottish parents in Izatnagar, Uttar Pradesh, India, where his father was a railway engineer. In the early 1930s, the family relocated to Edinburgh, Scotland, where Brown was later educated at the Royal High School. He taught himself clarinet from the age of twelve. After national service he studied architecture at Edinburgh College of Art. While there, in 1949, he also started a band with his old schoolfriend Al Fairweather. The two achieved national recognition following a concert at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, in February 1952.Sandy Brown Biograph ...
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The Penguin Guide To Jazz Recordings
''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 comp ...
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Scott Yanow
Scott Yanow (born October 4, 1954) is an American jazz reviewer, historian, and author. Allmusic Biography/ref> Biography Yanow was born in New York City and grew up near Los Angeles. Since 1974, he was a regular reviewer of many jazz styles and was the jazz editor for ''Record Review.'' He wrote for many jazz and arts magazines, including '' JazzTimes'', ''Jazziz'', '' Down Beat'', ''Cadence'', '' CODA'' and the ''Los Angeles Jazz Scene''. In September 2002, Yanow was interviewed on-camera by CNN about the Monterey Jazz Festival and wrote an in-depth biography on Dizzy Gillespie for AllMusic.com. He authored 12 books on jazz (including 2022's Life Through The Eyes Of A Jazz Journalist), over 900 liner notes for CDs and over 20,000 reviews of jazz recordings. Yanow was a contributor to and co-editor of the third edition of the '' All Music Guide to Jazz''. He continues to write for ''Downbeat, Jazziz'', the ''Los Angeles Jazz Scene'', "Syncopated Times," "Jazz Artistry Now," ...
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The Virgin Encyclopedia Of Jazz
''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 expertise ...
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AllMusic
AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the database was first made available on the Internet in 1994. AllMusic is owned by RhythmOne. History AllMusic was launched as All-Music Guide by Michael Erlewine, a "compulsive archivist, noted astrologer, Buddhist scholar and musician". He became interested in using computers for his astrological work in the mid-1970s and founded a software company, Matrix, in 1977. In the early 1990s, as CDs replaced LPs as the dominant format for recorded music, Erlewine purchased what he thought was a CD of early recordings by Little Richard. After buying it, he discovered it was a "flaccid latter-day rehash". Frustrated with the labeling, he researched using metadata to create a music guide. In 1990, in Big Rapids, Michigan, he founded ''All Music Guid ...
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Free Jazz
Free jazz is an experimental approach to jazz improvisation that developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s when musicians attempted to change or break down jazz conventions, such as regular tempos, tones, and chord changes. Musicians during this period believed that the bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz that had been played before them was too limiting. They became preoccupied with creating something new and exploring new directions. The term "free jazz" has often been combined with or substituted for the term " avant-garde jazz". Europeans tend to favor the term " free improvisation". Others have used "modern jazz", "creative music", and "art music". The ambiguity of free jazz presents problems of definition. Although it is usually played by small groups or individuals, free jazz big bands have existed. Although musicians and critics claim it is innovative and forward-looking, it draws on early styles of jazz and has been described as an attempt to return to primitive, of ...
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Steve Biko
Bantu Stephen Biko (18 December 1946 – 12 September 1977) was a South African anti-apartheid activist. Ideologically an African nationalist and African socialist, he was at the forefront of a grassroots anti-apartheid campaign known as the Black Consciousness Movement during the late 1960s and 1970s. His ideas were articulated in a series of articles published under the pseudonym Frank Talk. Raised in a poor Xhosa family, Biko grew up in Ginsberg township in the Eastern Cape. In 1966, he began studying medicine at the University of Natal, where he joined the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). Strongly opposed to the apartheid system of racial segregation and white-minority rule in South Africa, Biko was frustrated that NUSAS and other anti-apartheid groups were dominated by white liberals, rather than by the blacks who were most affected by apartheid. He believed that well-intentioned white liberals failed to comprehend the black experience and ...
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Makaya Ntshoko
Makaya (or Makhaya) Ntshoko (born 29 October 1939, Cape Town) is a South African drummer. He played with Dollar Brand's trio in 1958, and recorded in a sextet with Hugh Masekela and John Mehegan in 1959. He performed on The Jazz Epistles album, ''Jazz Epistle: Verse 1''. After the breakup of the group, Ntshoko founded The Jazz Giants with Kippie Moeketsi, Dudu Pukwana, Gideon Nxumalo, and Martin Mgijima. Ntshoko left South Africa in 1962, moving to Switzerland and playing with Johnny Gertze and Dollar Brand at the Club Africana in Zurich from 1963 to 1965. Following Brand's move to New York City, Ntshoko played in Copenhagen (1966, 1969–70) and recorded with Stuff Smith (1967), Benny Bailey (1968), Dexter Gordon (1968–69), and Ben Webster (1969). He embarked on a tour of the United States and the Bahamas in the early 1970s. He and Masekela recorded again in 1972. In 1974 he founded Makaya and the Tsotsis with Heinz Sauer, Bob Degen, and Isla Eckinger (later replaced by J ...
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