Results for "Bob Belden"

Bob Belden

One of the most adventurous arrangers of the 1990s and 2000s, Bob Belden took the music of Puccini, Prince, and (with the most success) Sting, and turned it into jazz. After graduating from the University of North Texas in 1978, he was with Woody Herman's Orchestra for 18 months, worked with Donald Byrd off and on during 1981-1985, played with the Mel Lewis Orchestra, and produced a couple of Red Rodney records. In 1983, Belden settled in New York as a writer for studio sessions. Influenced by Gil Evans, Belden debuted on Sunnyside with Treasure Island, before working on transforming non-jazz material into jazz

Sting: An English (Jazz-)Man In New York - Part 2

By LUDOVICO GRANVASSU

Although Sting is mostly known for his solo career and, before that, for fronting one of the most epic band of all times, The Police, his love for jazz has been a common thread throughout his career. His jazz sensibility became more prominent when he started his solo career with the album The Dream of the ...

Sting: An English (Jazz-)Man in New York - Part 1

By LUDOVICO GRANVASSU

From his early years as a bassist in the trad Phoenix Jazzmen, the straight-ahead Newcastle Big Band, and the fusion quintet Last Exit, to his collaborations with idols like Gil Evans and Miles Davis, jazz has been a constant in Sting's artistic path. This week, we feature music from his jazzier projects as a leader or ...

The (Jazz) Police

By LUDOVICO GRANVASSU

September 2019 will mark the 40th anniversary of “Message in a Bottle," an auspicious opportunity to look back at the seminal work of The Police, through a jazz lens. With both Sting and Andy Summers coming to The Police with jazz in their background and Stewart Copeland being a master of polyrhythmic drumming it's ...

Festival International de Jazz de Montréal 2019

By JOHN KELMAN

Festival International de Jazz de Montréal Various Venues Montréal, Canada June 27 -July 1, 2019 Forty years. Not a lifetime, perhaps, but a remarkably long time for any festival to not only continue to exist but, despite increasing challenges, to thrive. An even greater achievement when it's the Festival International de ...

Los Angeles Jazz Institute Festival - Woodchopper's Ball: Part 3-4

By SIMON PILBROW

Los Angeles Jazz Institute Festival “Woodchoppers' Ball" Four Points by Sheraton at LAX Los Angeles, CA May 23-27, 2018 Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 Concert 8: The Herdsmen -Bobby Shew meets Larry McKenna Trumpeter Bobby Shew is a well- known ...

Adam Holzman: Truth Decay

By JOHN KELMAN

Truly a musician's musician, Adam Holzman's career, visibility-wise, has waxed and waned over the keyboardist's thirty-year career, but he's never been less than busy. His time spent with Miles Davis, during the last years of the music icon's life, helped raise the masterful and broad-reaching keyboardist/producer's profile. Certainly, based on his work with jazz artists including ...

AMP Trio: Three

By NERI POLLASTRI

Terzo album per questo trio codiretto dal giovane pianista Addison Frei, dal contrabbssista Perrine Grace e dal batterista Matt Young, che si suddividono anche la paternità dei brani -solo la chapliniana “Smile" non è originale. La cifra è quella di un jazz moderno dinamico e tutto sommato leggero, piuttosto convenzionale nelle atmosfere e nelle forme espressive, ...

Neil Slater: Legacy: Neil Slater at North Texas

By KARL ACKERMANN

In 1942, a University of North Texas graduate music student, M. E. Hall, was asked to teach dance band arranging to two students, an activity that led to his thesis on a closely related topic. That thesis developed into the foundation of the school's jazz curriculum. Years later, Hall helped launch the jazz program which included ...

Jazz Education: The Next Generation, Part 1

By KARL ACKERMANN

A Protracted Beginning Ken Prouty, an assistant professor of Musicology and Jazz Studies at Michigan State University and author of Knowing Jazz: Community, Pedagogy, and Canon in the Information Age (University Press of Mississippi, 2013) has written at length about the early history of jazz education in the US. In his writings, he ...