Jazz Articles about Billy Bang

About Billy Bang

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Developing a unique, recognizable voice is a vital accomplishment for a jazz musician. Within a few notes, there is no mistaking the distinctive violin of Billy Bang. In nearly every aspect of the instrument, he was singular: timbre, articulation, bowing technique, percussive use of the bow, pizzacto playing, glissandos, phrasing and yes, the occasional dissonance. He once said he was influenced more by saxophonists than string musicians. Categorizing Bang as avant-garde exposes the limitation of labels. While energetic, free flights ...

Album Review

The Jazz Doctors: Intensive Care / Prescriptions Filled

Read "Intensive Care / Prescriptions Filled" reviewed by Chris May

by Chris May
June 5, 2023

Beyond its initiates, the so-called New Thing which emerged in mainly, but not exclusively, Black US jazz in the 1960s/70s, was perceived so amorphously that prairie-wide distinctions between its practitioners went unregarded. Among the general jazz audience, the musicians were lumped together as a horde of crazed zombies who lacked all technique, and who had replaced creativity with noise and anger, and beauty with ugliness. Tenor saxophonists were particularly prone to such dismissal and, given the number ...

Album Review

Billy Bang: Lucky Man

Read "Lucky Man" reviewed by Karl Ackermann

by Karl Ackermann
April 27, 2021

When he performed in Germany, they called him the “black devil violinist," his frenetic playing wrapped in a gyrating, trance-like state. For Billy Bang, who believed he had schizophrenia, the epithet bore a resemblance to his inner turmoil. He was born William Walker in Mobile, Alabama but grew up in the South Bronx. He studied violin and classical music, and his talent earned him a hardship scholarship to the Stockbridge School in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Bang felt out of place in ...

Album Review

Billy Bang: Da Bang!

Read "Da Bang!" reviewed by AAJ Italy Staff

by AAJ Italy Staff
September 17, 2013

Da Bang!, registrato il 2 e 3 febbraio a Helsinki, è con tutta probabilità l'ultima registrazione del violinista Billy Bang, deceduto solo due mesi più tardi a New York per un male incurabile. Nel solito elegante libretto che accompagna le pubblicazioni TUM Records sono riportati alcuni brevi poemi declamati dagli stessi autori (Amiri Baraka il più noto) nel corso della commemorazione, organizzata presso la St. Peter's Church di New York, dalla comunità di amici e colleghi. Più che enfatizzare la ...

Album Review

Billy Bang: Da Bang!

Read "Da Bang!" reviewed by Eyal Hareuveni

by Eyal Hareuveni
September 15, 2013

The final recording of the late violinist Billy Bang from February 2011, days before his final performance in the TUMfest 11 in Helsinki, is a celebration of his life as musician. Bang chose for this recording compositions of innovative musicians in the history of jazz--Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis and Sonny Rollins-- that were part of his quintet repertoire for years. His trusty quintet supports his musical ideas and improvisations beautifully, and the album booklet features touching and insightful ...

Album Review

Billy Bang: Da Bang!

Read "Da Bang!" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
September 7, 2013

Da Bang was recorded two months before violinist Billy Bang's battle with cancer ended in April, 2011. The album title is lifted from Bang's former FAB Trio band mate, drummer Barry Altschul. Indeed, Bang was an influential presence, partly due to his cutting-edge improvisational faculties. He was an artiste markedly comfortable in most any setting. On this outing, Bang covers modern jazz standards and contributes one original composition. The quartet gels on the late Don Cherry's “Guinea," which ...

Album Review

Billy Bang: Da Bang!

by John Sharpe
August 27, 2013

Even were one not viewing Da Bang! through the lens of this being violinist Billy Bang's last album, recorded just two short months before he succumbed to cancer in April 2011, there is still a detectable elegiac air which pervades even the brightest tracks. That's not the fault of the cast, although trombonist Dick Griffin comes across as a somewhat downbeat soloist, nor the material though it includes a selection of old warhorses. Rather it is down to the unvarnished ...