Results for "Bobby Watson"

Bobby Watson

A saxophonist, composer, arranger and educator, Bobby Watson grew up in Kansas City, Kan. He trained formally at the University of Miami, a school with a distinguished and well-respected jazz program. After graduating, he proceeded to earn his "doctorate" – on the bandstand – as musical director of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers. The group, created in 1955 by late legendary drummer who died in 1990, showcased a rotating cast of players, many who, like Watson, would go on to have substantial careers as bandleaders in their own right. The Jazz Messengers – frequently referred to as the "University of Blakey" – served as the ultimate "postgraduate school" for ambitious young players. After completing a four-year-plus Jazz Messengers tenure (1977-1981) that incorporated more than a dozen recordings – the most of any of the great Jazz Messengers, the gifted Watson became a much-sought after musician, working along the way with a potpourri of notable artists – peers, elder statesmen and colleagues all — including, but not limited to: drummers Max Roach and Louis Hayes, fellow saxophonists George Coleman and a younger Branford Marsalis, celebrated multi-instrumentalist Sam Rivers and trumpeter Wynton Marsalis (who joined the Jazz Messengers at least in part at the suggestion of Watson)

Sex & Drugs & Jazz & Jive: Top Ten Stash Records Albums

By CHRIS MAY

With all the transgressive flair you would expect of bohemian New York City in the 1970s and 1980s, Bernie Brightman's Stash Records made its name with a hugely entertaining series of sex and drugs-themed compilations of swing-era recordings. The first was Reefer Songs in 1976. But Brightman's legacy extends much further. There was a finite amount ...

Sylwester Ostrowski: Building Cultural Connections Globally with Jazz

By CHEPTOO KOSITANY

Sylwester Ostrowski is an accomplished tenor saxophonist, composer, producer, and bandleader of the Jazz Brigade. He is experiencing major success in his music career, built around collaboration with other artists, and partnering with jazz institutions through his organization Szczecin Jazz. Ostrowski's global connections span four continents from Europe, North America, Africa, to Asia. Ostrowski ...

Art Blakey and the Young Lions - The Marsalis Bros., Donald Harrison Jr, Bobby Watson (1981 - 1991)

By RUSSELL PERRY

As the 1970s came to a close, many musicians searching for alternatives to jazz-rock fusion or free jazz found a home in straight-ahead acoustic jazz. Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, whose Blue Note contract was not renewed in 1964, had spent a decade in relative obscurity, when he came roaring back with a series of ...

Ralph Peterson: Listen Up!

By JACK BOWERS

As on its debut album, I Remember Bu, drummer / educator Ralph Peterson's Gen-Next Big Band, composed for the most part of students at Boston's Berklee College of Music, pays tribute on Listen Up! to one of Peterson's mentors, the late great Art Blakey, known far and wide as the longtime leader and sparkplug of the ...

My Dear Acquaintance - A Happy New Year

By MARY FOSTER CONKLIN

My last broadcast of the decade included several women-penned songs for New Years Eve, with new releases by Boogaloo Joe Jones, Kris Davis and Cathy Segal-Garcia, plus birthday shout outs to Cab Calloway, Una Mae Carlisle, Chris McNulty, Katie Bull, Annie Lennox and Janice Friedman, among others. Also remembering those artists lost in 2019 with a ...

Bobby Watson at the Attucks Jazz Club

By MARK ROBBINS

From 1977 to 1981, Bobby Watson was a student at the “University of Blakey," otherwise known as the Jazz Messengers led by drummer Art Blakey. After “graduation," Watson went on to become an acclaimed alto saxophonist, sought out by instrumentalist and vocalists alike while he led his own band, Horizon. Now, in addition to a fulltime ...

Oscar Hernandez, Louis Armstrong, Ron Carter and More

By JOE DIMINO

Kicking off the 623rd Episode of Neon Jazz is a towering figure in the world of Latin Jazz, Mr. Oscar Hernández who teamed up with Alma LIbre with a cut off his latest album Love the Moment. From there, we hear from some of the biggest names in jazz, from Dave Miller and his trio to ...