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Dorothy Ashby
Born:
Born Dorothy Jeanne Thompson, she grew up around music in Detroit where her father, guitarist Wiley Thompson, often brought home fellow jazz musicians. Even as a young girl, Dorothy would provide support and background to their music by playing the piano. She attended Cass Technical High School where fellow students included such future musical talents and jazz greats as Donald Byrd, Gerald Wilson, and Kenny Burrell.
While in high school she played a number of instruments (including the saxophone and string bass) before coming upon the harp. She attended Wayne State University in Detroit where she studied piano and music education. After she graduated, she began playing the piano in the jazz scene in Detroit, though by 1952 she had made the harp her main instrument. At first her fellow jazz musicians were resistant to the idea of adding the harp, which they perceived as an instrument of classical music and also somewhat ethereal in sound, into jazz performances. So Ashby overcame their initial resistance and built up support for the harp as a jazz instrument by organizing free shows and playing at dances and weddings with her trio. She recorded with Richard Davis, Jimmy Cobb, Frank Wess and others in the late 1950s and early 1960s. During the 1960s, she also had her own radio show in Detroit. Ashby's trio, including her husband John Ashby on drums, regularly toured the country, recording albums for several different record labels. She played with Louis Armstrong and Woody Herman, among others.
Ludovico Granvassu's Garden of Jazzy Delights 2023
by Ludovico Granvassu
If it is true that, like The Police once put it, “when the world is going down you make the best of what's still around," then throughout 2023 jazz fans were better off than most other social groups. In a year in which everyday news brought ever more inconceivable disappointments, jazz musicians, labels, festivals and venues ...
With Strings Attached, 1957-1965
Label: New Land Records
Released: 2023
Track listing: The Jazz Harpist
Thou Swell; Stella by Starlight; Dancing on the Ceiling; Aeolian Groove; Quietude; Spicy; Lamentation.
Hip Harp
Pawky; Moonlight in Vermont; Back Talk; Dancing in the Dark; Charmaine; Jollity; There's a Small Hotel.
In a Minor Groove
Rascallity; You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To; It's a Minor Thing; Yesterdays; Bohemia After Dark; Taboo; Autumn in Rome; Alone Together.
Soft Winds: The Swinging Harp of Dorothy Ashby
Soft Winds; Wild as the Wind; The Man I Love; My Ship; Love Is Here to Stay; I've Never Been in Love Before; With Strings Attached; Laura; The Guns of Navarone; Misty; The Gypsy in My Soul.
Dorothy Ashby
Lonely Melody; Secret Love; Gloomy Sunday; Satin Doll; John R.; Li'l Darlin'; Booze; Django; You Stepped Out of a Dream; Stranger in Paradise.
The Fantastic Jazz Harp of Dorothy Ashby
Flighty; Essence of Sapphire; Why Did You Leave Me; I Will Follow You; What Am I Here For; House of the Rising Sun; Invitation; Nabu Corfa; Feeling Good; Dodi Li.
String Along with Dorothy!
by Patrick Burnette
A music with as complicated and rich a history as jazz is always going to be subject to rediscoveries and reappraisals and we wouldn't want it any other way. This fortnight's episode focuses on a pioneering practitioner on that truly rare avis, the jazz harp. Yes, we're diving into the early work of Dorothy Ashby in ...
New Releases, Birthday Shoutouts To Abbey Lincoln, Dorothy Ashby, Regina Carter, Connie Converse & More
by Mary Foster Conklin
This broadcast includes new releases from Matt Catingub, Gabriela Martina, Olivia Van Goor and Jack Jones, with birthday shoutouts to Louis Armstrong, Tony Bennett, Abbey Lincoln, Dorothy Ashby, Terri Lyne Carrington, Regina Carter, Kat Edmonson and Connie Converse, among others. Thanks for listening and please support the artists you hear by seeing them live and online. ...
Spoleto Festival USA 2023
by Perry Tannenbaum
Spoleto Festival USA Queen Street Playhouse, Sottile Theatre, TD Arena Charleston, SC May 26 to June 11, 2023 Respect for the elders in the jazz lineup of this year's Spoleto Festival USA jazz was gracefully counterbalanced by a hearty welcome to newer generations. It only felt fleetingly like the closing of ...
Dorothy Ashby: With Strings Attached, 1957-1965
by John Chacona
Imagine if Sidney Bechet, Charlie Christian and Jimmy Smith were barely remembered and recordings of their music were long unavailable and known only on the geekiest corners of Discogs. That is essentially the status of harpist Dorothy Ashby. Like the three figures cited above, Ashby essentially created a language for her chosen instrument, the harp, where ...
Brandee Younger: I'm Done Running From The Harp Police
by Leo Sidran
When it comes to instruments that are not easily designed for improvising soloists, there is perhaps none more difficult to handle than the harp. And when it comes to contemporary jazz harpists, there is perhaps none more influential in this moment than Brandee Younger. From the very beginning, as a young music student growing ...
Brandee Younger Trio at Jazz Alley
by Paul Rauch
Brandee Younger Trio Jazz Alley Seattle, WA June 6, 2023 The community of innovative and groundbreaking harpists is a small one. All of these visionaries have taken the large, but delicate instrument out of the context of European classical music, and ventured into a variety of genres, most notably, post-bop ...
Brandee Younger at Dazzle
by Geoff Anderson
Brandee Younger Dazzle Denver, Colorado June 4, 2023 The harp is far from a common jazz instrument and the list of famous jazz harpists is a short one. In fact, the list of significant jazz harpists probably numbers about two: Alice Coltrane and Dorothy Ashby. There have been a ...
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