Results for "Ronald Shannon Jackson"

Ronald Shannon Jackson

I was born and raised in Fort Worth, Texas in 1940. Both my parents were music lovers. My mother played piano and organ at St. Andrew’s Methodist Church, and worked as a schoolteacher. My father owned the only black-owned local record store and jukebox business. On one side of my family is Curtis Ousley (who became famous as King Curtis). On the other is David “Fathead” Newman. I started playing drums in elementary school under the clarinetist John Carter, and in high school under Mr. Baxter, the same teacher who taught Ornette Coleman, Curtis Ousley, Dewey Redman, John Carter, Julius Hemphill, Charles Moffett, and James Jordan. I began playing professionally in Dallas with members of the Ray Charles band, and worked in Fort Worth, Houston, New Haven, and Bridgeport before moving to New York City in 1966

Ron Miles: Rainbow Sign Of The Times

By IAN PATTERSON

The title of Ron Miles' Rainbow Sign (Blue Note Records, 2020) carries great personal meaning for the Denver cornetist/composer and educator. The initial influence was The Carter Family song “God Gave Noah the Rainbow Sign," with its line 'No more water but the fire next time," which in turn gave James Baldwin the title for his ...

Guitarist Jack DeSalvo: While We Sleep & Quintrepid on Unseen Rain

By MARK SULLIVAN

Guitarist/composer Jack DeSalvo has had a long, diverse career emphasizing fusion and free playing. His most visible gig was with Ronald Shannon Jackson's Decoding Society, but since co-founding the record label Unseen Rain Records he has played on or produced a wide variety of music. For example, his duet album Soldani Dieci Anni (Unseen Rain Records, ...

Meet Pat and Mike: The Jazz Bastards

By AAJ STAFF

About Pat and Mike Pat and Mike host the Jazz Bastard podcast. Mike is a English professor who normally makes his home in jny: San Diego; Pat is a lawyer's helper living in Central Indiana. They met as Freshmen in college and having been bugging each other ever since. (Mike—Actually I'm a Humanities lecturer—if ...

Rudy Royston: Little Steps, Big Pictures

By IAN PATTERSON

Everybody needs a helping hand now and then. Rudy Royston understands that. The Covid-19 pandemic has caused gigs to completely dry up for all musicians, and with that, their main income stream. Yet there are still mortgages, rents and bills to pay, and children to feed. It says something about the precarious finances of a jazz ...

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 ...

Harriet Tubman at SFJAZZ

By HARRY S. PARISER

Harriet Tubman SFJAZZ San Francisco, CA January 23, 2020 The electric bass, electric guitar and drum trio Harriet Tubman stands apart in the music world. As guitarist Brandon Ross notes, they are electrified yet based on spiritual influences such as the late Alice Coltrane, the late John Coltrane's wife who ran ...

John Dikeman And The Origin Of The Species

By MARK CORROTO

If we were to go searching for saxophonist John Dikeman's spirit animal, we might have to bypass beast for sapien. Let's just say his spirit animal is the father of punk, Iggy Pop. Like early music by The Stooges, Dikeman's sound makes reference to the music of both Albert Ayler and Pharoah Sanders. It's a shame ...

Wadada Leo Smith: Najwa

By CHRIS M. SLAWECKI

Trumpet player Wadada Leo Smith is one of the few musicians remaining from the original, founding generation of Chicago's legendary Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. But he has hardly rested since; Smith's Ten Freedom Summers (2012, Cuneiform) was a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize in Music; in 2017, Smith swept the Downbeat Critics' ...

Wadada Leo Smith: Najwa

By MAURIZIO COMANDINI

Il trombettista Wadada Leo Smith chiama a raccolta i suoi fedelissimi per una nuova scorribanda nei territori dell'emozione, con la sua tromba spiritata che guida il cammino con saggezza e ferma determinazione, tracciando le linee guida attraverso le quali poi tutti i musicisti saranno chiamati a dare il proprio ampio contributo nella tessitura narrativa dei cinque ...