Results for "Detroit"

Rodney Whitaker

Born: February 22, 1968

Rodney Whitaker is associate professor of double bass and director of jazz studies at the Michigan State University College of Music.

Whitaker is one of the leading performers and teachers of jazz double bass in the United States. He is a member of the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, and received national recognition performing with the Terence Blanchard Quintet. Whitaker has also toured internationally as a featured performer with the Roy Hargrove Quintet. In addition, he has appeared and presented master classes at the International Association of Jazz Educators (IAJE) conferences. Featured on more than 100 recordings - from film to compact discs - Whitaker's film score, China, directed by Jeff Wray, was released on PBS in 2002.

In 2006, he was nominated for the Juno Award, Canada's equivalent to the Grammy, for his work on “Let Me Tell You About My Day,” produced by Alma Records

Doug Watkins

Born: March 2, 1934

Douglas Watkins was an American hard bop jazz double bassist from Detroit. An original member of the Jazz Messengers, he later played in Horace Silver's quintet and freelanced with Gene Ammons, Kenny Burrell, Donald Byrd, Art Farmer, Jackie McLean, Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan, Sonny Rollins, and Phil Woods among others. Some of Watkins' best-known work can be heard when as a 22-year-old he appeared on the 1956 album, Saxophone Colossus by tenor saxophonist Sonny Rollins, with Max Roach and Tommy Flanagan. From that session, the tunes "Blue Seven" and "St. Thomas," especially, have become revered not only as evidence of Rollins' original genius but as fine examples of Watkins' work

Julius Watkins

Born: October 10, 1921

Julius Watkins was an American jazz musician, and one of the first jazz French horn players. He won the Down Beat critics poll in 1960 and 1961 for "miscellaneous instrument" with French horn named as the instrument. Watkins was born in Detroit, Michigan. He started playing French horn when he was nine years old, having played the trumpet, the recognized jazz instrument, for the Ernie Fields Orchestra in the mid-1940s. By the late 1940s, however, he had played some French horn solos on Kenny Clarke and Babs Gonzales' records. After moving to New York City, Watkins studied for three years at the Manhattan School of Music

Lucky Thompson

Born: June 16, 1924

A legendary tenor and soprano saxophonist who took his place among the elite improvisers of jazz from the 1940's to the 1960's and then quit music. Lucky Thompson connected the swing era to the more cerebral and complex bebop style. His sophisticated, harmonically abstract approach to the tenor saxophone endeared him to the beboppers, but he was also a beautiful balladeer. Thompson was born in Columbia, South Carolina, but grew up on Detroit's East Side. He saved to buy a saxophone study book, practicing on a simulated instrument carved from a broomstick. He finally acquired a saxophone when he was 15, practiced eight hours a day and, within a month, was playing around town, most notably with the King's Aces big band, among who was vibraphonist Milt Jackson, later a frequent associate

Charles McPherson

Born: July 24, 1939

For more than 60 years, saxophonist Charles McPherson has been one of the most expressive and highly regarded voices in jazz. His rich musical style, rooted in the blues and bebop, has influenced and inspired generations of musicians and listeners. McPherson was born in Joplin, MO, on July 24, 1939, and he developed a love for music at a young age. As a child, he began experimenting at the piano whenever one was available. He also attended summer concerts in Joplin that featured territory bands from the Midwest and Southwest. These concerts made a strong impression on McPherson, who was particularly enamored with the sound and shape of the saxophone. McPherson moved to Detroit in 1948 at age 9

Harold McKinney

arold McKinney was a noted jazz musician who is widely credited with keeping jazz in the forefront of Detroit's music scene. He was a pianist, oboist, vibraphone player and composer who, over his long career, played with many of jazz's greatest artists. As an educator McKinney taught generations of aspiring jazz musicians, helping turn Detroit into a hub for jazz education where the greats passed on their lessons to their students. Harold McKinney was born on July 4, 1928 in Detroit. His mother introduced him to music at an early age and by his teenage years he was playing with local jazz bands

Howard McGhee

Born: March 6, 1918

McGhee was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but grew up in Detroit. He first learned to play the clarinet and tenor sax, then switched to trumpet. From 1936 to 1940 he travelled around playing in territory bands. In 1941 he led his own band at Detroit's Club Congo. After a short stint with Lionel Hampton he joined Andy Kirk, with whom he made his first recording, his own McGhee Special. During the AFM ban, he spent a year with Charlie Barnet, but returned to Kirk in 1943. In 1944, jobs in the bands of Georgie Auld and Count Basie were followed by his joining the Coleman Hawkin's quintet for half a year in Los Angeles

Bennie Maupin

Born: August 29, 1940

Bennie Maupin is best-known for his atmospheric bass clarinet playing on Miles Davis' classic Bitches Brew album, as well as other Miles Davis recordings such as Big Fun, Jack Johnson, and On the Corner. He was a founding member of Herbie Hancock's seminal band The Headhunters, as well as a performer and composer in Hancock's influential Mwandishi band. Born in 1940, Maupin started playing clarinet, later adding saxophone, flute, and, most notably, the bass clarinet to his formidable arsenal of woodwind instruments. Upon moving to New York in 1962, he freelanced with groups led by Marion Brown, Pharoah Sanders, and Chick Corea, and played regularly with Roy Haynes and Horace Silver

Rick Margitza

Born: October 24, 1961

Rick Margitza, who has long been regarded as one of the « Young Lyons » of the International Jazz Scene, is nowadays one of the most respected musicians of his generation. Excellent tenor and soprano saxophonist, mostly inspired by John Coltrane, Michael Brecker and Wayne Shorter, he has managed to expand and develop his unique voice, highly poetic and sharply incisive. He started on the violin when he was four. His grandfather was a cellist and his father a violinist with the Detroit Symphony. He then studied classical piano for a bit, and also played oboe before switching to tenor in high school

Kirk Lightsey

Born: February 15, 1937

Kirk Lightsey’s profound pianisms originate from the Motor City. Kirk LIGHTSEY was born into Detroit 's rich music scene on February 15, 1937. He grew up in a town known for its jazz pianists, which included Hugh Lawson, Sir Roland Hanna, Barry Harris, Hank Jones and Tommy Flanigan, whose brother gave Lightsey his first piano lessons at the age of six. He then took lessons with Glady's Wade Dillard, who also taught pianists Barry Harris, Alice McCloud and Tommy Flanagan. At Cass Technical High School Hugh Lawson and Paul Chambers introduced Kirk to playing jazz. They all performed in the school orchestra, which included Ron Carter and Kiane Zawadi