Results for "Improvisation"

Michael A Levy

Born: July 2, 1948

My early musical influesnes were entirely classical. Primarily Chopin. Actually, my mom taught me my first stride bass tune, St.Louis  Blues. In my teens I started playing in bands and acquired copies of the then “illegal” fake books. The world of standards opened up and I learned lots of them, comping basic chords in  my left hand. 

Around 15 I became exposed to the jazz genre. Miles, Monk, Brubeck, MJQ. Those sounds became my jazz foundation. I tried to improvise but it was unguided and not very adventurous. Of course I listened to a lot of lesser luminaries, but still great… Horace Silver, Yusef Lateef, Ahmad Jamal, Ravi Shankar, etc. 

Cecilie Grundt

Born: July 13, 1991

Cecilie Grundt has performed and recorded with artists such as Vigleik Storaas, Knut Riisnæs, Trondheim Jazz Orchestra & Come Shine, Nils-Olav Johansen, Benny Bennack III, Bjørn Vidar Solli, ØyvindLAND, Cosmic Swing Orchestra and Alternatilla All Woman Jazz Band. As a solo leader, she has toured extensively in Europe and released four solo albums 'Contemporary Old School' (2019), 'Order and Chaos' (2020), 'Cecilie Grundt & Vigleik Storaas' (2022) and 'Live At Dokkhuset' (2024) to critical acclaim. On October 18, 2024, she will release her fifth album, 'Illuminate'.

Gwendolyn Kassenaar

Gwendolyn Kassenaar is a Dutch visual artist & performer based in London. A graduate from Chelsea College of Art, she collaborates with dancers and musicians in her live-art performances and studio-based work. She improvises in the moment to express the intangible poetry of that ephemeral moment. She embraces experimentation in her quest to fuse visual art, rhythm, colour, sound and movement.

Synaesthesia makes Gwendolyn experience sound as shapes and colours in her mind’s eye, particularly relating to an instrument’s timbre or the music’s rhythm. They emerge, overlap and fade like a psychedelic animation.

Greg Osby

Born: August 3, 1960

Saxophonist, composer, producer, educator and curator Greg Osby has been a formidable presence on the international music scene as a leader of his own ensembles and as a guest artist with other acclaimed groups for the past 39 years. Highly regarded for his insightful and innovative approach to composition and performance, Osby is an inspired voice among the ranks of improvising musicians. He has earned numerous awards and critical acclaim for his recorded works and passionate live appearances and has been recognized by The New York Times as one of the "most provocative musical thinkers of his generation".

João Gato

Born: February 13, 2000

Born in 2000, João Gato started taking Jazz saxophone seriously whilst studying with the altoist Ricardo Toscano, at the Hotclub of Portugal. At age 18, he finished the practical course, after taking 3 years of classes with Toscano.

In 2018, he started his Bachelor Degree in Jazz saxophone in at ESML, where he studied with prestigious portuguese musicians such as Gonçalo Marques, Desidério Lázaro, Pedro Moreira, Afonso Pais and Nelson Cascais. He finished his degree in 2021.

Since August 2023 he has been undertaking the NOCOM (Nordic Master: Composing Musician), a joint master in the RMC (Coppenhagen), NMH (Oslo) and HSM (Gottemburg), where he has studied with Lotte Anker, Peter Bruun, Kasper Tranberg and Torben Snekkestad.

Ann Hampton Callaway

Born: May 30, 1959

Ann Hampton Callaway is one America's most gifted and prolific artists. A leading champion of the great American Songbook, she's made her mark as a singer, pianist, composer, lyricist, arranger, actress, educator, TV host and producer. Voted by Broadwayworld.com as "Performer of the Year" and two years in a row as "Best Jazz Vocalist," Ann is born entertainer. Her unique singing style that blends jazz and traditional pop, making her a mainstay in concert halls, theaters and jazz clubs as well as in the recording studio, on television, and in film. She is best known for Tony-nominated performance in the hit Broadway musical "Swing!" and for writing and singing the theme song to the hit TV series "The Nanny." Callaway is a Platinum Award winning writer whose songs are featured on seven of Barbra Streisand's recent CD's

VOODOO DRUMMER

Born: February 28, 1970

>The Afro-Dionysian VOODOO DRUMMER duo    

Weird Cello and Balafon melodies on top of original odd rhythms and African percussion, inspired by the Greek Drama, especially by Dionysus!

For more than 30 years he has appeared at festivals, theaters and venues all over the world, such as the Rouge Cabaret Festival (Paris), Villa Celimontana Jazz Fest (Rome), Odeon of Herodes Atticus (Athens), Secret Garden Fest (U.K.), and the Doha Jazz Festival (Qatar) - his own highlights, though, are gigs in New Orleans and jamming at a funeral in Benin, West Africa!

He had performed and recorded with the cult British trio The Tiger Lillies, New Orleans singer Meschyia Lake, Greek singer-songwriter Dionysis Savvopoulos, the great American Jazz saxophonist Alex Foster (Miles Davis, Charles Mingus), the Balafon master Mamadou Diabate (Burkina Faso), Blaine L. Reininger from Tuxedomoon (U.S.), Marc Collin from Nouvelle Vague (FR) and Xavi Turull from Ojos de Brujo (SP).

Gaya Feldheim Schorr

Born: October 6, 1993

Gaya Feldheim Schorr is a vocalist, multi-instrumentalist and photographer originally from Tel Aviv - Jaffa and currently based in Marseille, France, after spending almost a decade in New York City. 'I Have Considered The Lilies' is Gaya’s vibrant re-imagination of the music of Connie Converse, an enigmatic singer-songwriter who left behind a staggering archive of music and texts after her disappearance in 1974. Alongside a group of cult-favorite Brooklynite collaborators including Grey Mcmurray (guitar), Tal Yahalom (guitar), and Eva Lawitts (bass), Gaya invites the listener into the intimate world of Converse’s songs, poems, and ontological wrestlings with equal doses of warmth and melancholy

Jaana Narsipur

Born: January 4, 1971

Jazz vocalist Jaana Narsipur has just released a new album, "Better Than Anything," which is a tribute to the bebop and hard bop masters Bob Dorough and Horace Silver. "Better Than Anything" features original arrangements (all by Jaana Narsipur) of Dorough and Silver’s classic swing and groove tunes, as well as beautiful lesser-known gems from these jazz masters. The album shines with a stellar cast of New York based musicians including drummer Joe Abba (John Scofield, Gene Pritzker), pianist Cary Brown (Sloan Wainwright, Levon Helm), and violinist Ludovica Burtone (Danilo Perez, Jon Batiste). Jaana has been performing and teaching in New York for the last 12 years

Andrea Goretti

Born: December 25, 1990

EDUCATION

Born in 1990, he graduated in classical piano from the Music Conservatory in Parma. With Fabrizio Ottavucci he studied John Cage’s prepared piano and the music by other important composers from the 1900s, such as Giacinto Scelsi and Morton Feldman.

He joined the Erasmus program studying at the Stanisław Moniuszko Academy of Music in Gdańsk (Poland). During that period, he fell in love with jazz. He continued studying jazz in Parma with Masters Alberto Tacchini, Roberto Bonati and Roberto Dani. In 2016, he completed the bachelor in Jazz Piano with the highest mark, presenting a thesis about John Taylor’s music. In the meantime, he studied composition with Master Luigi Abbate and saxophone with Master Massimo Ferraguti. After that, he continued studying with pianist Umberto Petrin and graduated from Conservatorio di Milano with a thesis about Carla Bley’s compositions.

ARTISTIC ACTIVITY