Results for "saxophone, alto"

Grace Kelly

Born: May 15, 1992

As Grace Kelly defiantly reminds us on The Other One, a standout number from her upcoming

Album, Trying To Figure It Out, she’s not looking to be like anyone else. “Got my own thing,” she sings over the song’s urban, trance-like groove. Although the singer and saxophone player has been acclaimed by critics and audiences alike as a jazz musician, the track’s exhilarating chorus, haunting keyboard hook and brittle electro edge show an artist interested only in playing what she loves labels be damned.

While a current Kelly concert might delight jazz purists with Great American Songbook standards, it could just as easily inspire mainstream listeners with Gracei-fied takes on the likes of Daft Punk’s Get Lucky, Coldplay’s Magic or Sia’s Chandelier.

Rudresh Mahanthappa

Born: May 4, 1971

Hailed by Pitchfork as “jaw-dropping… one of the finest saxophonists going,” alto saxophonist, composer and educator Rudresh Mahanthappa is widely known as one of the premier voices in jazz of the 21st century. He has over a dozen albums to his credit, including the acclaimed Bird Calls, which topped many critics’ best-of-year lists for 2015 and was hailed by PopMatters as “complex, rhythmically vital, free in spirit while still criss-crossed with mutating structures.” His most recent release, Hero Trio, was considered to be one of the best jazz albums of 2020 by critics and fans alike.  Rudresh has been named alto saxophonist of the year for nine of the last eleven years running in Downbeat Magazine’s International Critics’ Polls (2011-2013, 2015-2018, 2020-1), and for five consecutive years by the Jazz Journalists’ Association (2009-2013) and again in 2016. He won alto saxophonist of the year in the 2015-2018 & 2020 JazzTimes Magazine Critics’ Polls and was named the Village Voice’s "Best Jazz Artist" in 2015.  He has also received the Guggenheim Fellowship and the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, among other honors, and is currently the Anthony H. P. Lee ’79 Director of Jazz at Princeton University.

Rob Wilkerson

Born: September 27, 1973

With saxophonist Rob Wilkerson’s group, you are as likely to hear a tune by Elliott Smith or Coldplay as a jazz standard. Rob’s original music acts as the central force, blending seemingly disparate elements in a cohesive “other.” Imaginary Landscape, Rob’s debut album on the Fresh Sound New Talent label, reflects his diverse influences, and was deemed worthy of several “best of 2004” lists. As an improviser and composer, Rob is deeply interested in melody and mood; harmony serves these considerations, rather than dictating them. In the words of Marc Meyers (All About Jazz), “…Rob Wilkerson speaks to our times

Stefano DiBattista

Born: March 14, 1969

Stefano di Battista(born February 14, 1969 in Rome) is an Italian jazz saxophonist who plays soprano and alto. He began playing at thirteen with friends and became interested in jazz on hearing Art Pepper. In Italy he received guidance from Massimo Urbani and by his twenties di Battista was performing in Paris. He put out his debut as a leader in 1997 and has toured with Elvin Jones Jazz Machine.

Akira Sakata

Born: March 21, 1945

Akira Sakata was born in Kure-city, Hiroshima in 1945. Studied marine biology at Hiroshima university. Formed a group Saibo-bunretsu (Cell fission) in Tokyo in 1969, and was also performing with various free-jazz musicians during this time. Since the late 1960s, Sakata has been a constant figure in jazz and creative music scenes as an ever evolving and adventurous, multi-instrumentalist, and member of classic groups such as Yamashita Yosuke Trio, from 1972 till 1979, and Wha-ha-ha plus many of his own, like the Sakata Akira mii. He has recorded with Chris Cosey, Peter Brotzmann in Last Exit, DJ Krush, Yoshimio, and others.

In 2005 he began peforming with guitarist Jim O'Rourke, drummer Chris Corsano and acoustic bassist Darin Gray. They've since released five albums together

Paul Van Kemenade

Born: May 17, 1957

PAUL VAN KEMENADE Rotterdam / Netherlands 1957; altosax- composer- programmer- organiser Stranger than Paranoia festival (since 1993) Recorded 30 CD's under own name at his record label KEMO, wrote 250 compositions in different settings,5* Downbeat 2011, in 1999 Boy Edgar Dutch lifetime achievement award for jazzmusicians, in 2007 Royal decoration. At the age of 13 and started in 1974 to study music/saxophone at the Brabants Conservatory Tilburg and the last year in 1980 in Amsterdam. PROFESSIONAL: 1976 he started to play in a cabaretshow and in dance/nightclubs untill 1980. In 1977 he started with improvisation music and initiates own bands and projects playing his own compositions

Martin Speake

Born: April 3, 1958

Citing Lee Konitz, Charlie Parker, Warne Marsh, Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, Ornette Coleman, Steve ​Coleman, Rabi Abou Khalil, and Paul Motian as major influences, Martin has developed a personal ​musical voice that expresses a deep understanding of the history and language of Jazz with ​individuality as an improviser that is intelligent, melodic, cool, complex, direct, beautiful and ​profound. ​  Born in Barnet, North London in 1958, Martin was inspired to take up the saxophone at the age ​of 16. From 1977-81, he studied Classical Saxophone at Trinity College of Music, where he was awarded the prestigious Dame Ruth Railton prize for woodwind playing

Ray Warleigh

Born: September 28, 1938

Ray Warleigh was born in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and migrated to England in 1960, where he quickly established himself as an in-demand session musician. He played and recorded with major figures and bands of the UK jazz and blues scene, including Alexis Korner, Tubby Hayes, Humphrey Lyttelton, Terry Smith, Ronnie Scott, Long John Baldry, John Mayall, Allan Holdsworth, Soft Machine, Georgie Fame, Mike Westbrook, Dick Morrissey and Kenny Wheeler, as well as Mike Oldfield, Nick Drake, and Charlie Watts. He accompanied visiting artists such as Champion Jack Dupree. According to John Fordham in The Guardian wrote: "Ray Warleigh brought a unique touch to every venture he played on from the 60s on, and had a successful 30-year career that partnered him with Dusty Springfield, Marianne Faithfull, Scott Walker and Stevie Wonder, among others." Warleigh's first album, in 1968, was produced by Scott Walker

Mike Osborne

Born: September 28, 1941

In the history of British jazz, there were few voices as unmistakable as Mike Osborne's alto saxophone, but his story is one of the tragedies of British jazz. Within 15 years of his first recordings, simmering mental illness had taken over and forced him away from his musical compatriots in vibrant London and brought him back to his native Hereford (near the Welsh border), where he lived under care until his death in 2007, his saxophone silent for decades. But during his career, Osborne was one of British jazz's most versatile players, working with members of the various spheres creating a new indigenous British jazz: the Spontaneous Music Ensemble circle; the crowd around the South African Blue Notes; members of the Canterbury Scene; and the modernists centered on John Surman.

Carl Grubbs

Born: July 27, 1944

Carl Grubbs performs on alto, soprano and tenor saxophones and clarinet. He is an accomplished composer, educator and performing artist. A native of Philadelphia, he received early extensive training from John Coltrane and his brother Earl Grubbs.​ The Carl Grubbs Ensemble performs his original compositions and jazz standards in cities in the U.S. They have performed at jazz festivals in Bogota and Medellin, Columbia, S.A. and most recently an eight-city tour of Brazil.

Through his family, Carl Grubbs was close to many of the history-making musicians of the 1950’s and 1960’s. With his brother, Earl Grubbs, he formed The Visitors, a quintet that recorded four albums for the Muse record label.