Results for "bass, acoustic"

Percy Heath

Born: April 30, 1923

The American jazz musician and bassist with the Modern Jazz Quartet, Percy Heath, began his musical apprenticeship in 1946, after Air Force service. It was just the right time. Though the double bass had always been used sporadically in jazz, performers capable of advancing both its rhythmic and harmonic role into a distinctive jazz-bass language were arriving on the scene more slowly than trumpeters, saxophonists or pianists. But by the 1940s, the place of the bass had significantly changed. Swing specialists like Pops Foster, John Kirby and Walter Page had brought animation, drive and swing - as well as harmonic breadth - to bass technique, and Duke Ellington's young star, Jimmy Blanton, had added a soloistic agility that rewrote the book on the instrument

John Heard

Born: July 3, 1938

John Heard has worked almost constantly in the jazz world, for over four decades appearing on over 150 albums and working with Benny Carter, Rashan Roland Kirk, Hampton Hawes, Tete Montoliu, Oscar Peterson, Wes Montgomery, Cal Tjader, Willie Bobo, the Gerald Wilson Big Band, Freddie Hubbard, Count Basie, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, Milt Jackson, Ella Fitzgerald, Ahmad Jamal, Kenny Burrell, the Toshiko Akiyoshi-Lew Tabakin Big Band, the Louis Bellson Big Band, Joe Pass, Herb Ellis, Art Pepper, George Cables, Harold Land, Frank Morgan, Dexter Gordon, Pharaoh Sanders and others. John is an accomplished jazz bassist and visual artist whose works display a mastery of form and improvisation

Charlie Haden

Born: August 6, 1937

“No other instrument in jazz is more essential than the bass, both backbone and heartbeat, and Haden is its master.” (Francis Davis /August, 2000 issue of The Atlantic Monthly)

Time Magazine has hailed jazz legend {{m: Charlie Haden = 7320}} as “one of the most restless, gifted, and intrepid players in all of jazz.” Haden's career which has spanned more than fifty years has encompassed such genres as free jazz, Portuguese fado and vintage country — the last of which is featured on his latest album, Rambling Boy — not to mention a consistently revolving roster of sidemen and bandleaders that reads like a list from some imaginary jazz hall of fame.

Jimmy Garrison

Born: March 3, 1934

Bassist Jimmy Garrison was the anchor in the classic John Coltrane Quartet, from 1961-'66, which recorded all of its well-known albums on Impulse. Garrison's big, blunt sound, steady time and inventive counter lines were an elemental ingredient in the sound of that famous group. He actually fitted into the group with great insight, supplying a traditional role on the more straight ahead material and exploratory counter melodies and responses as the music grew more progressive. Garrison was born on March 3, 1934, in Miami, but grew up in Philadelphia, where he first played briefly with Coltrane and McCoy Tyner, in 1957

Larry Gales

Born: March 25, 1936

In September of 1964, when Thelonious Monk was looking for a bass player, Larry Gales was recommended. The rest is history. Gales remained with the Monk quartet until just before Christmas 1968, and was the bassist for the Thelonious Monk Quartet’s principal period. Gales started playing bass as a youngster, and by 1956 was studying at the Manhattan School of Music. He had played with the Lockjaw Davis/Johnny Griffin Quintet, Junior Mance, Joe Williams and Herbie Mann before joining up with Monk in ’64. He remained as the bassist with Monk until 1968, whereupon he relocated out to Los Angeles where he became a prolific and highly sought session man and accompanist. Gales did one noteworthy album as leader: “A Message From Monk.”

David Friesen

Born: May 6, 1942

Anyone acquainted with David Friesen's exceptional music quickly thinks of his creative universe. Ocean-deep in his sensitivity to the human spirit, Friesen is compassionate and his music founded on integrity and the pursuit of excellence.

Born in Tacoma, Washington May 6, 1942, he was raised in Seattle, though his first exposure to jazz music was at the age of 5 years in Spokane, Washington hearing in his home a friend of his sister Diane playing Boogie Woogie on his family’s upright piano. After this individual left the home, David went to the piano and tried to emulate what he had just heard…thus his musical career had just begun. His sister Diane played the piano and for many years growing up, together they would play four handed piano and spent many evenings playing the piano and singing. His parents Ben and Clara Friesen were not professional musicians, but his mother had played C Melody saxophone as a child and his father had a beautiful singing voice...especially at church David could hear his father’s beautiful voice harmonizing with the congregation when they would sing hymns. Far removed from the music world, His mother was a professional bowler and his father was a Life Insurance executive. However, both his parents supported his love for music and made it possible for David to explore music on many different instruments. His sister Diane’s love for the movies and acting as a child, eventually led her into a very successful career as an actress, her name known as Dyan Cannon .

Pops Foster

Born: May 18, 1892

George Foster, popularly known as "Pops" Foster, was a jazz musician for more than 70 years. Foster played both tuba and string bass, but is recognized for solidifying the predominance of string bass in jazz music.Foster was known for his musical imagination and his unique bass slapping technique, which was later copied by other popular musicians. Foster performed and recorded with some of the biggest names in jazz musical history, and had one of the longest and most prolific careers of the jazz musicians of his era. George Murphy Foster was born on May 19, 1892, on a plantation in Louisiana

Malachi Favors

Born: August 22, 1937

Malachi Favors was the mainstay bassist in a remarkable group that combined traditional elements of jazz and blues, West African music, chanting, ritual, abstract sound and silence. The Art Ensemble of Chicago was one of the landmark groups of experimental jazz. But with all its theatricality the rudiments were not slighted. Favors, a concise, direct and eloquent player, formed a boldly swinging rhythm section with the drummer Don Moye. Favors sometimes added Maghostut to his name, which his daughter said was an Egyptian word meaning ''I am the host.'' Favors was born on August 22, 1927, in Lexington, Mississippi, Moved to Chicago and served in the Army during the Korean War, and then, back in Chicago in the late 1950's, he studied with the bassists Wilbur Ware and Israel Crosby, and worked with the pianists Andrew Hill and King Fleming

Leon Lee Dorsey

Born: March 12, 1958

As a legendary composer and arranger, Leon Lee Dorsey has performed with jazz luminaries that include: Dizzy Gillespie, Wynton Marsalis, Freddie Hubbard, John Lewis, Kenny Clarke, Jon Hendricks, Gloria Lynn, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Dorothy Donegan, Stanley Turrentine, George Benson, Ellis Marsalis, Neena Freelon and Terumasa Hino.

He has also performed in big bands with the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, Benny Carter, the Duke Ellington Orchestra and Charlie Persip’s Superband. Other career highlights include working with Frank Sinatra at Carnegie Hall, guest appearances at the White House under Presidents Reagan and Clinton and performing with Joe Williams and the operatic diva Marilyn Horne.

Willie Dixon

Born: July 1, 1915

Willie Dixon was a prolific blues songwriter with more than 500 compositions to his credit. Born and raised in Mississippi, he rode the rails to Chicago during the Great Depression and became the primary blues songwriter and producer for Chess Records. Dixon's songs literally created the so-called "Chicago blues sound" and were recorded by such blues artists as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Bo Diddley, Koko Taylor, and many others. Willie Dixon was born on July 1, 1915, in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Vicksburg was a lively town located on the Mississippi River midway between New Orleans and Memphis