Results for "composer/conductor"

Darcy James Argue

Born: May 23, 1975

Darcy James Argue, “one of the top big band composers of our time”(Stereophile), is best known for Secret Society, an 18-piece group “renowned in the jazz world” (New York Times). Argue brings an outwardly anachronistic ensemble into the 21st century through his “ability to combine his love of jazz’s past with more contemporary sonics” and is celebrated as “a syncretic creator who avoids obvious imitation” (Pitchfork).

Acclaimed as an “innovative composer, arranger, and big band leader” by The New Yorker, Argue’s accolades include multiple GRAMMY nominations and a Latin GRAMMY Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Doris Duke Artist Award, and countless commissions and fellowships. His prescient 2016 Real Enemies, an album-length exploration of the politics of paranoia, was named one of the 20 best jazz albums of the decade by Stereogum. Like Real Enemies, Argue’s previous recordings — his debut Infernal Machines and his follow-up, Brooklyn Babylon — were nominated for both GRAMMY and JUNO awards.

Tyler Gilmore

Born: May 30, 2010

Hans Tammen

Born: 1957

Hans Tammen is a Brooklyn-based guitarist whose rapid-fire juxtapositions of radically contrastive and fascinating sounds capture the energy and abstract musicality that his original influences, Sonny Sharrock and Pete Cosey, brought to music. Signal To Noise called his works "...a killer tour de force of post-everything guitar damage", his playing has been described as “transforming a sequence of instrumental gestures into a wide territory of semi-hostile discontinuity; percussive, droning, intricately colorful, or simply blowing your socks off”, with his "...fingers stuck in a high voltage outlet" (Touching Extremes). 

Charley Harrison

Born: December 31

With the release of his first solo CD, KEEPING MY COMPOSURE, on C3Records, composer,arranger and conductor Charley Harrison, is poised to join the ranks of thecomposer/arranger/conductors that have helped chart the course of jazz.

A Chicago native, Harrison was appointed Director of the UCLA Jazz Orchestrain 2004,while still serving, since 1991, as Associate Director and guitarist for theeighteen-pieceChicago Jazz Orchestra. CJO is currently backing his CD of original materialand jazzstandards, with guest performances by vocalists Freddy Cole, Kurt Elling, SaraGazarek andCJO’s Frieda Lee, guitarist Bobby Broom and pianist Cedar Walton, amongothers.

Daniel Barry

Born: February 28, 1955

Daniel Barry is a composer, arranger, conductor, music educator, publisher and trumpet player currently living in Seattle. Although Daniel's work as a composer falls primarily into the jazz category, his music contains elements garnered from advanced classical music studies along with residencies and festival performances throughout the world, in particular the Caribbean, Central America, Peru, Brazil and Southeast Asia. Recently he has served as guest Composer/Performer in Residence for the Banda Amazonas in Manaus, Brazil, the Conservatoire de Tatui in Sao Paulo Brazil, and as a featured composer at the 2003 Lima Jazz Festival in Peru. He is the owner/operator of Marina Music Service and Daniel Barry Publications, and holds an M.A

Jonathan Pfeffer

Harold Arlen

Born: February 15, 1905

Born Hyman Arluck, February 15, 1905 Buffalo, NY, (died April 23, 1986 New York, NY of Parkinson's disease); son of Samuel Arluck, a Jewish cantor and Celia (born Orlin); married Anya (died March 9, 1973); children: Samuel Arlen. Education: Studied piano with Arnold Cornelisson, Conductor of the Buffalo String Orchestral Society. For more than a century, a large number of immigrant Jews from Poland, Germany and Russia fled to the United States to avoid persecution. Many a son of a Jewish cantor became a singing star, or one of America's top lyricists and composers. Harold Arlen was such an example

Ira Gershwin

Born: December 6, 1896

Ira Gershwin was born in New York City, the son of a Russian Jewish immigrant, on December 6, 1896. The older brother of George Gershwin, he attended Townsend Harris High School in New York City where one of his closest friends and fellow students was E.Y. “Yip” Harburg. The two worked together writing lyrics and Ira started his career in 1918 under the pen name of Arthur Francis. It was not until 1924 that Ira and George began a collaboration that would prove one of the most successful and prolific in history. Their first collaborations were for Broadway: Lady, Be Good! (1924, including "Fascinating Rhythm" and, although it was cut from the show, "The Man I Love"), Tip Toes (1925, including "Sweet and Low Down"), Oh Kay! (1926, including "Clap Yo' Hands", "Do-Do-Do", "Maybe", and "Someone To Watch Over Me"), Funny Face (1927, including '"S Wonderful"), Rosalie (1928, including "How Long Has This Been Going On"), Show Girl (1929, including "Liza"), Strike Up the Band (1930, including "I've Got A Crush On You" and "Soon"), Girl Crazy (1930, including "But Not For Me", "Embraceable You", "Bidin' My Time", and "I Got Rhythm"), Delicious (1931, including "Blah Blah Blah

Fela Kuti

Born: October 15, 1938

Fela Kuti was one of Africa's most controversial musicians and throughout his life he continued to fight for the rights of the common man (and woman) despite vilification, harassment, and even imprisonment by the government of Nigeria.

Born to Yoruban parents, Kuti was strongly influenced by both parents, his mother being Funmilayo, a leading figure in the nationalist struggle. Practically all of his records are dominated by political events and discussions from the approach of Pan- Africanism.

In 1954, Kuti joined the Cool Cats as a singer in that highlife band (highlife being the rage of the Lagos music scene at the time). During this period Kuti developed his own unusual sound which he described as highlife-jazz. In 1968 Kuti announced the arrival of Afro-beat, within the year was promoting his sound all over the USA on a 10- month tour where he became influenced by American jazz. He did some recordings in that came to be known as the “'69 Los Angeles Sessions,” that were remarkable, an indication of a maturing sound and of the raucous, propulsive music that was to mark Fela's career. When he returned to his homeland he opened a nightclub, the Shrine, and changed the name of his band to Africa 70 (and later to Egypt 80).

Nesuhi Ertegun

Born: November 26, 1917

"Nesuhi Ertegun spent most of his lifetime working at Atlantic Records and associated labels. He joined Atlantic in 1956, nine years after its founding by his brother Ahmet and Herb Abramson. Nesuhi initially developed Atlantic’s album department and built up the label’s extensive catalog of jazz long-players. The list of jazz artists he produced at Atlantic over the years reads like a who’s who: John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Ornette Coleman, the Modern Jazz Quartet and more. Nesuhi also became involved with the label’s rhythm & blues and rock and roll roster as well, producing several hit records for Ray Charles, the Drifters, Bobby Darin and Roberta Flack