Karlton Hester (born February 11, 1949) is an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

performer The performing arts are The arts, arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which involve the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art ob ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

scholar A scholar is a person who is a researcher or has expertise in an academic discipline. A scholar can also be an academic, who works as a professor, teacher, or researcher at a university. An academic usually holds an advanced degree or a termina ...

, and

educator A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

Early life

Hester began taking piano lessons with his elder sister’s piano teacher (Drusilla Nixon) and a few years after that, he began singing in the El Paso Boys' Choir, founded and directed by the Chair of the music department at Texas Western College, Dr. E.A. Thorsmodsgaard. Renner, Lisa (January 31, 2022) The choir provided a rich education in the European classical approaches, with instruction in music theory and experiences performing with professional groups, including the symphony, ballet, and opera. Hester began learning flute and other wind instruments in the 6th grade, later taking available opportunities to learn from African American music masters outside of school. He studied music at the University of Texas and soon headed to Southern California, where he was employed as a symphonic band, orchestra, marching band, and jazz band director at Eisenhower High School in Rialto, California. Hester earned a doctoral degree in music composition from the City University of New York Graduate Center and taught for a decade at Cornell University immediately after graduating.

Biography

Hester earned his B.M. at

University of Texas at El Paso The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) is a public university, public research university in El Paso, Texas, United States. Founded in 1913 as the State School of Mines and Metallurgy, it is the third oldest academic component of the Univers ...

, his M.A. in Music Education from

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is ...

, and his Ph.D. in composition from the

City University of New York Graduate Center The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a public university, public research institution and post-graduate university, postgraduate university in New York City. Formed in 1961 as Divi ...

. He formally studied flute with Harry Nelsova and Paul Renzi, saxophone with Frank Chase and Bill Tremble, composition with Bruce Saylor and

Robert Starer Robert Starer (8 January 1924 in Vienna – 22 April 2001 in Kingston, New York) was an Austrian-born American composer, pianist and educator. Robert Starer began studying the piano at age 4 and continued his studies at the Vienna State Academy. ...

, and improvisation with

Joe Henderson Joe Henderson (April 24, 1937 – June 30, 2001) was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and very occasional flute player. In a career spanning more than four decades, Henderson played with many of the leading American players of his day an ...

and

John Handy John Richard Handy III (born February 3, 1933) is an American jazz musician most commonly associated with the alto saxophone. He also sings and plays the tenor saxophone, tenor and baritone saxophone, baritone saxophone, saxello, clarinet, and ...

. He began his career as a studio musician and music educator in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

and would later serve as the Herbert Gussman Director of Jazz Studies at

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

from 1990 to 2000. At Cornell, Hester directed the Traditional and Experimental Lab Ensembles and coordinated university festivals and conferences that included a diverse array of “jazz” and African artists including

Jaki Byard John Arthur "Jaki" Byard (; June 15, 1922 – February 11, 1999) was an American jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, and arranger. Mainly a pianist, he also played tenor and alto saxophones, among several other instruments. He was known for h ...

Cecil Taylor Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet. Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in comple ...

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Stanley Turrentine Stanley William Turrentine (April 5, 1934 – September 12, 2000) was an American jazz tenor saxophone, tenor saxophonist and record producer. He began his career playing R&B for Earl Bostic and later soul jazz recording for the Blue Note Reco ...

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, Dr.

Donald Byrd Donaldson Toussaint L'Ouverture Byrd II (December 9, 1932 – February 4, 2013) was an American jazz and rhythm & blues trumpeter, composer and vocalist. A sideman for many other jazz musicians of his generation, Byrd was one of the few h ...

, Dr.

Billy Taylor Billy Taylor (July 24, 1921 – December 28, 2010) was an American jazz pianist, composer, broadcaster and educator. He was the Robert L. Jones Distinguished Professor of Music at East Carolina University in Greenville, and from 1994 was the a ...

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, Charles Lloyd,

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, Sam Rivers,

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Roscoe Mitchell Roscoe Mitchell (born August 3, 1940) is an American composer, jazz instrumentalist, and educator, known for being "a technically superb – if idiosyncratic – saxophonist". ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' described him as "one of the key figure ...

, Hotep Galeta,

Victor Goines Victor Louis Goines (born August 6, 1961) is a jazz saxophonist and clarinetist who has served as president and chief executive officer of Jazz St. Louis since September 2022. From 2000 to 2007, he was director of the jazz program at Juilliard. ...

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, Mamadou Diabate, Samite Mulondo, Cecilia Smith, Phil Bowler, Adela Dalto, Pamela Wise, and Nick Mathis. As of 2000 Hester directs the "jazz" program at

UC Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California, United States. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California system. Located in Monterey Bay ...

and is a Professor of Music Composition in the Music Department. Hester is the founder and director of the San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Preservation Big Band and Hesterian Musicism. Hester's music involves a synthesis of Afrocentric and Western tonal, modal, quartal, serial, and electronic elements into an expressive voice that defies simple categorization as either premeditated or spontaneous composition. Hester's Ph.D. dissertation is titled "The Melodic and Polyrhythmic Development of John Coltrane's Spontaneous Compositions in a Racist Society," and the music of John Coltrane has been a lasting influence on his work. He coined the term musicism to “represent the creative process by which musicians, visual artists, and poets, through the merging of composition and performance, produce new art forms.” This interdisciplinary approach is realized in projects such as “Three Bodies” where Hester collaborated with astrophysicist Greg Laughlin and dancer Ted Warburton to create a multimedia performance that offers a “solution” to the

three-body problem In physics, specifically classical mechanics, the three-body problem is to take the initial positions and velocities (or momenta) of three point masses orbiting each other in space and then calculate their subsequent trajectories using Newton' ...

. Hester has been the recipient of composer fellowships, grants, and commissions from the

National Endowment of 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 ...

New York Foundation for the Arts The New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) is an independent 501(c)(3) charity, funded through government, foundation, corporate, and individual support, established in 1971. It is part of a network of national not-for-profit arts organizations ...

, New England Council of the Arts,

ASCAP The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadc ...

, and the William Grant Still Foundation., as well as a 2022 collaborative grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for the "Surge" Afrofuturism Festival. He served as the vice president of the International Society for Improvised Music (2008-2018) and is founding director of Interdisciplinary Artists Aggregation, Inc. (1970–present). Hester is a Gold Medal winner of a Global Music Award for Experimental Jazz in December 2017, for his 2016 album ''Trans-Cultural Musicism''. Hester is currently the director and member of the principal faculty for the University of California, Santa Cruz Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) MFA program, and serves as Associate Dean of Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion for the UCSC Arts Division. As one of the organizers of the event entitled “Surge Afrofuturism”, Music Professor Karlton Hester and Dance Professor Gerald Casel won a grant from the National Endowment for their year-long Festival for the academic year 2021-2022. This was Hester’s third NEA grant.

Discography

* 1981: ''Karlton Hester and the Contemporary Jazz Art Movement'' (Hesteria Records) * 1982: ''Hesterian Musicism'' (Hesteria Records) * 1988: ''Dances Purely for the Sake of Love'' (Hesteria Records) * 1998: ''Musicism for the Sake of Love'' (Hesteria Records) * 1998: ''Sacred Musicism'' (Hesteria Records) * 1998: ''Retrospective: Cornell University Lab Ensembles & Guest Artists 1991–1998'' (Hesteria Records) * 1998: ''Hesterian Liberation'' (Hesteria Records) * 1999: ''Reconstructive Musicism'' (Hesteria Records) * 2000: ''Harmonious Soul Scenes 2000'' (Hesteria Records) * 2006: ''Musicism for Your Imagination'' (Hesteria Records) * 2006: ''Twentieth Century Musicism'' (Hesteria Records) * 2006: ''Live at Herbst Theatre'' with the Fillmore Jazz Preservation Big Band (Hesteria Records) * 2007: ''Divine Particle's Vision'' (Hesteria Records) * 2008: ''Sixth Sense - Stillness'' (Hesteria Records/Blue Cliff Records) * 2015: ''Trans-cultural Musicism'' (Hesteria Records) * 2017: ''Divine Consanguinity Ritual'' (Hesteria Records) * 2018: ''Hip-Hop Hesteria'' (Hesteria Records) * 2018: ''Quantum Elders Ballet'' (Hesteria Records/Centaur Records) * 2021: ''Quantum Elders Consciousness Vaccine'' (Hesteria Records/Blu-ray video) * 2022: ''Quantum Elders Consciousness Vaccine'' (Centaur Records/CD)

Books

* 1997: ''The Melodic and Polyrhythmic Development of John Coltrane's Spontaneous Compositions in a Racist Society'' (Edwin Mellen Press) * 2000: ''From Africa to Afrocentric Innovations Some Call "Jazz"'' (SUNY Press) * 2009: ''Bigotry and the Afrocentric Jazz Evolution'' 4th Edition (Cognella Publishing) * 2010: ''Exploratory Musicism: Ideas for Spontaneous Composition'' (Cognella Publishing) * 2011: ''Survey of African Music'' (Cognella Publishing) * 2016: ''African Roots of the Jazz Evolution'' (Cognella Publishing) * 2019: ''Jazz Nucleus of Global Fission'' (Kendall Hunt Publishing)

References

Further References

* (September 1983). "Review of Hesterian Musicism." ''Downbeat Magazine.'' p. 43 * (January 1983). "Review of Karlton Hester's Contemporary Jazz Art Movement." ''Cadence Magazine.'' p. 38 * (May 1983). "Review of Hesterian Musicism." ''Cadence Magazine.'' p. 42 * Bivins, Jason. (January 2009). "Review of Divine Particle's Vision." ''Cadence Magazine.'' p. 120-121 * Elcombe, Chris. (March 2010). "Review of Stillness: Improvisations 2008." ''The Strad.'' p. 95 * Loewy, Steven. (August 2001). "Review of Harmonious Soul Scenes 2000." ''Cadence Magazine.'' p. 101-102 * Soergel, Brian. (April 2007). "Review of Live at Herbst Theatre." ''Jazz Times.'' p. 89-90 * Watrous, Peter. (April 1989). "Review of Dances Purely for the Sake of Love." ''Musician'' p. 90

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hester, Karlton American jazz musicians American composers Living people Cornell University faculty 1949 births University of California, Santa Cruz faculty San Francisco State University alumni CUNY Graduate Center alumni