Alex Cline (born January 4, 1956) is an American jazz drummer.
Biography
Born in Los Angeles, California, Cline began playing drums with his twin brother, guitarist
Nels Cline
Nels Courtney Cline (born January 4, 1956) is an American guitarist and composer. He has been a guitarist for the band Wilco since 2004.
In the 1980s he played jazz, often in collaboration with his twin brother Alex, a percussionist. He has wor ...
, at the age of 11.
Their first band was called Homogenized Goo and included David Hirschman on guitar. Alex Cline began a musical association with
woodwind
Woodwind instruments are a family of musical instruments within the greater category of wind instruments.
Common examples include flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and saxophone. There are two main types of woodwind instruments: flutes and Ree ...
artist Jamil Shabaka in 1976 as "Duo Infinity". In 1977, he became a member of
Vinny Golia
Vinny Golia (born March 1, 1946) is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist specializing in woodwind instruments. He performs in the genres of contemporary music, jazz, free jazz, and free improvisation.
Career
As a composer, Golia fuses ...
's group as well as the
Julius Hemphill Trio (along with
Baikida Carroll
Baikida Carroll (born January 15, 1947) is an American jazz trumpeter.
Carroll studied at Southern Illinois University and at the Armed Forces School of Music. Following this he became a member of the Black Artists Group in St. Louis, where he dir ...
),
formed the electric improvisational trio Spiral (with brother Nels and
synthesizer
A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...
player and multi-instrumentalist Brian Horner) and began performing solo percussion concerts.
In 1979, Alex and Nels Cline, along with bassist
Eric von Essen and violinist Jeff Gauthier, formed "Quartet Music", a group that enjoyed continued success in its performances and four recordings over an eleven-year period and was awarded grants from the
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...
and the
California Arts Council
The California Arts Council functions as a state agency headquartered in Sacramento, California. Its board comprises eight council members who receive appointments from both the Governor
A governor is an politician, administrative leader and ...
.
In 1982, Alex Cline made his solo debut with ''Not Alone'' (
Nine Winds
Nine Winds is an American jazz record label that was founded in 1977 by Vinny Golia.
Golia is a self-taught musician who plays over fifty woodwind instruments, in addition to brass. In the early 1970s, he believed it was impossible for musicians ...
), a double LP of percussion music. In 1987, he recorded ''The Lamp and The Star'' (
ECM
ECM may refer to the following:
Economics and commerce
* Engineering change management
* Equity capital markets
* Error correction model, an econometric model
* European Common Market
Mathematics
* Lenstra's Elliptic curve method for factor ...
), his first album as a bandleader-composer. As the leader of his own group, The Alex Cline Ensemble, he can be heard on ''Sparks Fly Upward'' and ''The Constant Flame'',
two releases on
Cryptogramophone Records, an LA-based independent creative-jazz label. Cline's other improvisational collaborations include ''right of violet'' and ''The Other Shore'', both with Jeff Gauthier and ex-
Shadowfax guitarist G.E. Stinson, and ''Cloud Plate'' (Cryptogramophone) with Stinson, vocalist Kaoru and
koto player
Miya Masaoka
Miya Masaoka (born 1958, Washington, D.C.) is an American composer, musician, and sound artist active in the field of contemporary classical music and experimental music. Her work encompasses contemporary classical composition, improvisation, ele ...
.
Other groups Cline has led are Alex Cline's Band of the Moment and The Rain Trio (with Eric Barber and Scott Walton). He has also been involved in duo percussion collaborations with Ron George,
Peter Erskine
Peter Clark Erskine (born June 5, 1954) is an American jazz drummer who was a member of the jazz fusion groups Weather Report and Steps Ahead.
Early life and education
Erskine was born in Somers Point, New Jersey, U.S. He began playing the d ...
, Christopher Garcia,
Andrea Centazzo
Andrea Centazzo (born 1948) is an Italian-born American composer, percussionist, multimedia artist and record label founder.
Music career
Centazzo was born in Udine, Italy. In the 1970s he played percussion in avant-garde jazz with John Zorn, ...
,
Gregg Bendian and Dan Morris, as well as involved in performing the works of composers such as Robert Eriksson,
Harold Budd
Harold Montgomory Budd (May 24, 1936December 8, 2020) was an American music composer and poet. Born in Los Angeles and raised in the Mojave Desert, he became a respected composer in the minimal music and avant-garde scene of Southern California ...
and David Means.
Cline has served as composer and/or performer for numerous modern dancers and dance companies in Los Angeles, including Margaret Schuette, Linda Fowler, the Momentum Company's "Soundspace" concerts, Dance/LA, the UCLA Dance Company and has enjoyed a longstanding involvement with Will Salmon's Open Gate Theatre company.
He has participated in performance collaborations with visual artists Yoshio Ikezaki, Norton Wisdom, Kio Griffith and 2-Tu. He has worked on feature and cable television film soundtracks, done numerous sound workshops and percussion clinics, plus lecture-demonstrations on Asian metal percussion instruments. Cline has also been the curator of the Open Gate Theatre's Sunday Evening Concerts series, a new music/creative jazz showcase held monthly in
Eagle Rock, California (since 1997).
He also works as an interviewer/interview series developer-coordinator at the
UCLA Library Center for Oral History Research.
Cline has worked with
Gregg Bendian,
Tim Berne
Tim Berne (born October 16, 1954) is an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist and record label owner. His primary instruments are the alto and baritone saxophones.
Biography
Berne was born in Syracuse, New York, United States. He has said tha ...
,
Arthur Blythe
Arthur Murray Blythe (July 5, 1940 – March 27, 2017) was an American jazz alto saxophonist and composer. He was described by critic Chris Kelsey as displaying "one of the most easily recognizable alto sax sounds in jazz, big and round, with a ...
,
Bobby Bradford
Bobby Lee Bradford (born July 19, 1934) is an American jazz trumpeter, cornetist, bandleader, and composer. In addition to his solo work, Bradford is noted for his work with John Carter, Vinny Golia and Ornette Coleman. In October 2009, Brad ...
,
John Wolf Brennan
John Wolf Brennan (born 13 February 1954) is an Irish pianist, organist, melodica player, and composer based in Weggis, Switzerland.
Career
Brennan was born in Dublin, Ireland. His family moved to Switzerland when he was seven years old. He b ...
,
John Carter,
Buddy Collette
William Marcel "Buddy" Collette (August 6, 1921 – September 19, 2010) was an American jazz flutist, saxophonist, and clarinetist. He was a founding member of the Chico Hamilton Quintet.
Early life
William Marcel Collette was born in ...
,
Mark Dresser
Mark Dresser (born September 26, 1952) is an American double bass player and composer.
Career
Dresser was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. In the 1970s, he was a member of Black Music Infinity led by Stanley Crouch and performed w ...
,
Marty Ehrlich
Marty Ehrlich (born May 31, 1955) is a multi-instrumentalist (saxophones, clarinets, flutes) and is considered one of the leading figures in avant-garde jazz.
Biography
Though born in St. Paul, Minnesota, the portion of Ehrlich's youth spent in ...
,
Vinny Golia
Vinny Golia (born March 1, 1946) is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist specializing in woodwind instruments. He performs in the genres of contemporary music, jazz, free jazz, and free improvisation.
Career
As a composer, Golia fuses ...
,
Henry Grimes
Henry Grimes (November 3, 1935 – April 15, 2020) was an American jazz double bassist and violinist.
After more than a decade of activity and performance, notably as a leading bassist in free jazz, Grimes completely disappeared from the music sc ...
,
Charlie Haden
Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than fifty years. Haden helped to revolutionize the harmonic concept of bass playin ...
,
Joseph Jarman
Joseph Jarman (September 14, 1937 – January 9, 2019) was an American jazz musician, composer, poet, and Shinshu Buddhist priest. He was one of the first members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and a member of the ...
,
Henry Kaiser
Henry John Kaiser (May 9, 1882 – August 24, 1967) was an American industrialist who became known for his shipbuilding and construction projects, then later for his involvement in fostering modern American health care. Prior to World War II, ...
,
Yusef Lateef
Yusef Abdul Lateef (born William Emanuel Huddleston; October 9, 1920 – December 23, 2013) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, and prominent figure among the Ahmadiyya Community in the United States.
Although Lateef's main i ...
,
Charles Lloyd,
Myra Melford
Myra Melford (born January 5, 1957) is an American avant-garde jazz pianist and composer. A 2013 Guggenheim Fellow, Melford was described by the ''San Francisco Chronicle'' as an "explosive player, a virtuoso who shocks and soothes, and who can m ...
,
Frank Morgan
Francis Phillip Wuppermann (June 1, 1890 – September 18, 1949), known professionally as Frank Morgan, was an American character actor. He was best known for his appearances in films starting in the silent era in 1916, and then numerous sound ...
,
Don Preston
Donald Ward Preston (born September 21, 1932) is an American jazz and rock keyboardist. He is best known for being a member of the original version of Frank Zappa's band The Mothers of Invention during the late 1960s. He continued to work with Z ...
,
Elliott Sharp
Elliott Sharp (born March 1, 1951) is an American contemporary classical music, contemporary classical composer, multi-instrumentalist, performer, author, and visual artist.
A central figure in the Avant-garde music, avant-garde and experimenta ...
, and
Wadada Leo Smith
Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith (born December 18, 1941) is an American trumpeter and composer, working primarily in the field of creative music. He was one of three finalists for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize for Music for ''Ten Freedom Summers'', released on ...
.
Discography
As leader
* ''Duo Infinity'' with Jamil Shabaka (Aten, 1977)
* ''Not Alone'' (Nine Winds, 1981)
* ''The Lamp and the Star'' (ECM, 1989)
* ''Montsalvat'' (Nine Winds, 1995)
* ''Right of Violet'' with Jeff Gauthier, G.E. Stinson (Nine Winds, 1996)
* ''Espiritu'' with Gregg Bendian (Trumedia, 1998)
* ''Sparks Fly Upward'' (Cryptogramophone, 1999)
* ''The Other Shore'' with Jeff Gauthier, G.E. Stinson (Cryptogramophone, 2000)
* ''The Constant Flame'' (Cryptogramophone, 2001)
* ''Cloud Plate'' (Cryptogramophone, 2005)
* ''Continuation'' (Cryptogramophone, 2008)
* ''For People in Sorrow'' (Cryptogramophone, 2013)
* ''Dependent Origination'' (FMR, 2018)
With Quartet Music
* ''Quartet Music'' (Nine Winds, 1981)
* ''Ocean Park'' (Nine Winds, 1984)
* ''Window On the Lake'' (Nine Winds, 1986)
* ''Summer Night'' (Delos, 1989)
As sideman
With
Gregg Bendian
* ''Gregg Bendian's Interzone'' (Eremite, 1996)
* ''Myriad'' (Atavistic, 2000)
* ''Requiem for Jack Kirby'' (Atavistic, 2001)
With
Tim Berne
Tim Berne (born October 16, 1954) is an American avant-garde jazz saxophonist and record label owner. His primary instruments are the alto and baritone saxophones.
Biography
Berne was born in Syracuse, New York, United States. He has said tha ...
* ''The Five-Year Plan'' (Empire, 1979)
* ''7X'' (Empire, 1980)
* ''Spectres'' (Empire, 1981)
* ''
Fulton Street Maul
''Fulton Street Maul'' is an album by the American saxophonist Tim Berne, released in 1987. It was his first album for a major label; he was working at Tower Records when Columbia Records decided to sign him. He supported the album with a North Am ...
'' (Columbia, 1987)
With
John Wolf Brennan
John Wolf Brennan (born 13 February 1954) is an Irish pianist, organist, melodica player, and composer based in Weggis, Switzerland.
Career
Brennan was born in Dublin, Ireland. His family moved to Switzerland when he was seven years old. He b ...
* ''Shooting Stars & Traffic Lights'' (L+R/Bellaphon, 1995)
* ''I.N.I.T.I.A.L.S.'' (Creative Works, 2005)
With
Nels Cline
Nels Courtney Cline (born January 4, 1956) is an American guitarist and composer. He has been a guitarist for the band Wilco since 2004.
In the 1980s he played jazz, often in collaboration with his twin brother Alex, a percussionist. He has wor ...
* ''Angelica'' (Enja, 1988)
* ''
Destroy All Nels Cline'' (
Avavistic, 2000)
* ''
New Monastery'' (Cryptogramophone, 2006)
* ''
Dirty Baby'' (Cryptogramophone, 2010)
* ''
Lovers'' (
Blue Note
Blue Note Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group and operated under Capitol Music Group. Established in 1939 by German-Jewish emigrants Alfred Lion and Max Margulis, it derived its name from the blue no ...
, 2016)
With
Jeff Gauthier
* ''Internal Memo'' (Nine Winds, 1994)
* ''The Present'' (Nine Winds, 1997)
* ''Mask'' (Cryptogramophone, 2002)
* ''One and the Same'' (Cryptogramophone, 2006)
* ''House of Return'' (Cryptogramophone, 2008)
* ''Open Source'' (Cryptogramophone, 2011)
With
Vinny Golia
Vinny Golia (born March 1, 1946) is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist specializing in woodwind instruments. He performs in the genres of contemporary music, jazz, free jazz, and free improvisation.
Career
As a composer, Golia fuses ...
* ''Spirits in Fellowship'' (Nine Winds, 1977)
* ''In the Right Order...'' (Nine Winds, 1979)
* ''Openhearted'' (Nine Winds, 1979)
* ''The Gift of Fury'' (Nine Winds, 1981)
* ''Compositions for Large Ensemble'' (Nine Winds, 1982)
* ''Slice of Life'' (Nine Winds, 1983)
* ''Goin' Ahead'' (Nine Winds, 1985)
* ''Facts of Their Own Lives'' (Nine Winds, 1986)
* ''Out for Blood'' (Nine Winds, 1989)
* ''Pilgrimage to Obscurity'' (Nine Winds, 1990)
* ''Decennium Dans Axlan'' (Nine Winds, 1993)
* ''Commemoration'' (Nine Winds, 1994)
* ''Regards from Norma Desmond'' (Fresh Sound, 1994)
* ''Tutto Contare'' (Nine Winds, 1995)
* ''Portland 1996'' (Nine Winds, 1997)
* ''Nation of Laws'' (Nine Winds, 1997)
* ''Lineage'' (Nine Winds, 1998)
* ''The Other Bridge'' (Nine Winds, 2000)
* ''One, Three, Two'' (Jazz'Halo, 2004)
* ''Sfumato'' (Clean Feed, 2005)
* ''Take Your Time'' (
Relative Pitch
Relative pitch is the ability of a person to identify or re-create a given musical note by comparing it to a reference note and identifying the interval between those two notes. For example, if the notes ''Do'' and ''Fa'' are played on a piano, a ...
, 2011)
With
Richard Grossman
* ''One... Two... Three... Four...'' (Nine Winds, 1986)
* ''Trio in Real Time'' (Nine Winds, 1990)
* ''In the Air'' (Nine Winds, 1991)
* ''Remember'' (Magnatone, 1994)
* ''Even Your Ears'' (hatOLOGY, 1998)
With
Ross Hammond
* ''Adored'' (Prescott, 2012)
* ''Cathedrals'' (Prescott, 2013)
With
Armen Nalbandian
*''Orbits'' (Blacksmith Brother, 2018)
* ''V'' (Blacksmith Brother, 2018)
With
David Moss, Alex Cline, Andrea Centazzo
* ''Percussion Interchanges'' (Ictus, 1981)
* ''Koans: Vol. Two'' (Ictus, 2006)
With
John Rapson
Ira John Rapson, III (February 4, 1953, Gary, Indiana – July 21, 2021, Iowa City, Iowa) was an American jazz trombonist and educator.
Rapson began on piano at age five before switching to trombone. He studied at Westmont College, graduating in 1 ...
* ''Deeba Dah-Bwee'' (Nine Winds, 1984)
* ''Bu-Wah'' (Nine Winds, 1986)
* ''Bing'' (Sound Aspects, 1990)
* ''Dances & Orations'' (Music & Arts, 1996)
With others
*
Bobby Bradford
Bobby Lee Bradford (born July 19, 1934) is an American jazz trumpeter, cornetist, bandleader, and composer. In addition to his solo work, Bradford is noted for his work with John Carter, Vinny Golia and Ornette Coleman. In October 2009, Brad ...
, ''Live at the Open Gate'' (NoBusiness, 2016)
*
Andrea Centazzo
Andrea Centazzo (born 1948) is an Italian-born American composer, percussionist, multimedia artist and record label founder.
Music career
Centazzo was born in Udine, Italy. In the 1970s he played percussion in avant-garde jazz with John Zorn, ...
, ''U.S.A. Concerts'' (Ictus, 1978)
*
Amir ElSaffar, ''Radif Suite'' (Pi, 2010)
*
Dennis Gonzalez, ''The Earth and the Heart'' (Konnex, 1991)
*
Charlie Haden
Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than fifty years. Haden helped to revolutionize the harmonic concept of bass playin ...
's Quartet West, ''
In Angel City'' (Verve, 1988)
*
Joel Harrison
Joel Harrison is an American jazz guitarist, singer, composer, and arranger.
Career
Harrison was born in Washington, D.C., and graduated from Bard College, New York, in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts in composition and performance. His father was ...
, ''3 + 3 = 7'' (Nine Winds, 1996)
*
Julius Hemphill
Julius Arthur Hemphill (January 24, 1938 – April 2, 1995) was a jazz composer and saxophone player. He performed mainly on alto saxophone, less often on soprano and tenor saxophones and flute.
Biography
Hemphill was born in Fort Worth, Texas, ...
, ''Georgia Blue'' (Minor Music, 1984)
* Julius Hemphill, ''
The Boyé Multi-National Crusade for Harmony'' (New World, 2021)
*
Steuart Liebig
Steuart Liebig, born July 25, 1956, is an American bassist and composer of modern creative jazz and the free improvisational music. He plays 6-string bass guitars.
Life and work
Liebig grew up in Los Angeles and was influenced as a child by rock ...
, ''Pomegranate'' (Cryptogramophone, 2001)
*
Lydia Lunch
Lydia Lunch (born Lydia Anne Koch; June 2, 1959)Martin Charles Strong. ''The Great Indie Discography''. 2003, page 85 is an American singer, poet, writer, actress and self-empowerment speaker. Her career began during the 1970s New York City no ...
, ''Smoke in the Shadows'' (Breakin Beats, 2004)
*
Don Preston
Donald Ward Preston (born September 21, 1932) is an American jazz and rock keyboardist. He is best known for being a member of the original version of Frank Zappa's band The Mothers of Invention during the late 1960s. He continued to work with Z ...
, ''Transformation'' (Cryptogramophone, 2001)
*
Adam Rudolph
Adam Rudolph (born September 12, 1955) is a jazz composer and percussionist performing in the post-bop and world fusion media.
Rudolph grew up in the South Side of Chicago among jazz and blues musicians. In 1988 he met jazz musician Yusef La ...
, ''Web of Light'' (Meta, 2002)
*
G. E. Stinson, ''The Same Without You'' (Nine Winds, 1992)
*
Walter Thompson, ''Stardate'' (Dane, 1980)
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cline, Alex
1956 births
American jazz composers
Avant-garde jazz musicians
American jazz drummers
Jazz musicians from Los Angeles
University of California, Los Angeles faculty
Living people
20th-century American drummers
American male drummers
American male jazz composers
20th-century American male musicians
Drummers from Los Angeles