Results for "saxophone, alto"

Jorge Sylvester

Born: March 5, 1953

JORGE SYLVESTER: Alto Saxophonist, Composer, Conductor, Arranger, Bandleader, Producer, Educator Born in Colon, Panama Jorge attended the Panama Conservatory of Music and the University of Panama. He received a Bachelor of Science Degree in Music from the State University of New York College at New Paltz in 1981. A unique innovator and impressive composer and arranger in the idiom of creative music, his sound is reminiscent of Eric Dolphy and Ornette Coleman. Jorge has remained on the cutting edge of the creative NY Jazz scene since his arrival from Spain in 1980. Sylvester’s blend of African-Caribbean rhythms with new music is what gives him his distinguished voice. Beginning his professional career at age 14, Jorge was leading his own Caribbean dance band, writing his own arrangements and compositions

Frank Strozier

Born: June 13, 1937

Frank Strozier (born June 13, 1937) is an alto saxophonist renowned for his playing in the hard bop idiom. Frank Strozier has long been a top-notch hard bop stylist whose intense sound recalls (but is not derivative of) Jackie McLean. One of many excellent jazzmen who grew up in Memphis, Strozier played with other Memphis musicians even after he moved to Chicago in 1954 (including Harold Mabern, Booker Little, and George Coleman). He recorded with the MJT + 3 from 1959-1960, and led sessions for Vee Jay during the same period. After moving to New York, Strozier was briefly with the Miles Davis Quintet in 1963 (between Hank Mobley and George Coleman), gigged with Roy Haynes, and then relocated to Los Angeles

James Spaulding

Born: July 30, 1937

James Spaulding, has established his reputation as a masterful soloist for ensemble performances, and for many years was among the busier sidemen for Blue Note Records. An exceptional saxophonist and flutist, he is one of the many fine artists to come out James has worked with Sun Ra, Freddie Hubbard, Max Roach, and more...of the Indianapolis, Indiana area. James is a modernist, with solid roots in classical jazz; his saxophone style is an extension of the Charlie Parker influence, but his overall concept incorporates much of the broad jazz saxophone heritage. Spaulding's musical training started early, as he came from a musical family in his place of birth Indiana (his father was a professional musician who played the guitar and led his own big band, traveling throughout the country)

Jim Snidero

Born: May 29, 1958

Over the past thirty-five years, Jim Snidero has come to be known as one of the finest jazz musicians of his generation. As an alto saxophonist, composer, arranger, author and educator, Snidero has been called both a “master musician” and “alto saxophone virtuoso” by Downbeat Magazine, and placed in the 2017 Downbeat Critic’s Poll, demonstrating his continued impact on the international jazz scene.

Jim Snidero grew up in Camp Springs, Maryland, just outside of Washington, DC . Musically nurtured from a young age, both at home and in his school music program, Snidero began to quickly show promise as a musician

Steve Slagle

Born: September 16, 1951

Steve Slagle was born in Los Angeles, California where he got his first saxophone and later attended Berklee College of Music in Boston on a DownBeat scholarship. One of his first gigs, at the age of 18, was in the Stevie Wonder Band, in Boston. Berklee is also where he met many musicians from all over the world whom he still remains close with. With his eyes on New York City, Steve moved there permanently in 1977, where he started to work with Machito and the Afro-Cuban Orchestra (lead alto) which was the band Charlie Parker and Dizzy had played with, as well stints with Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman and Cab Calloway

Marshal Royal

Born: May 12, 1912

Marshal Royal, Jr. was an American clarinettist and alto saxophonist best known for his work with Count Basie, with whose band he played for nearly twenty years. Marshal Royal Jr. was born into a musical family in Oklahoma, the elder brother of trumpeter Ernie Royal, and learned to play piano, violin, guitar, clarinet and sax while still a child. The family had moved to Los Angeles, California by the time he was five, and he always considered himself to be a Californian. His mother, Ernestine Walton Royal, began giving him piano lessons when he was three, and his father, from Sherman, Texas, began teaching him violin when he was six

Rent Romus

Born: January 6, 1968

Rent Romus is a saxophonist/multi-instrumentalist, composer, bandleader, music producer, and community leader hailed by Downbeat as having "...a bold sound, unmistakable sincerity and conviction". A third generation Finnish American born in Hancock Michigan of the Upper Peninsula and growing up in the San Francisco Bay Area, Romus' work on the saxophone has been dubbed “ferocious” by the San Francisco Weekly and “central to the creative music world of the West Coast” by writer jazz critic Frank Rubolino. From his very beginnings as a student of jazz while being exposed to the twilight tutelage of Stan Getz he found himself drawn to the outer realms of Sun Ra and Albert Ayler, as well as Arthur Blythe, Derek Bailey and Merzbow.

He runs the Lords of Outland a free jazz unit since 1994, the Life’s Blood Ensemble a contemporary original ensemble, and works with pianist Thollem McDonas in the Bloom Project, composer bandleader Heikki "Mike" Koskinen, the collective improvisation group The Ruminations and other various projects.

Rent Romus has recorded music exploring improvisation and composition in a wide variety of musical settings both as a leader and sideman which have included Chico Freeman, John Tchicai, Vinny Golia, Thollem McDonas, Heikki "Mike" Koskinen, Stefan Pasborg, James Zitro, Kash Killion, and Jon Bridsong to name a few.

He is the founder of Edgetone Records with over 30 years of independent music production, and performance experience as well as the founder and Executive Director of the non-profit Outsound Presents under which curates the bi-weekly music series known as SIMM at the Musicians Union Hall, the weekly Luggage Store Gallery Creative Music Series, as well as annual Outsound New Music Summit, the Bay Area's creative music festival held every summer in San Francisco.

Gary Bartz

Born: September 26, 1940

Gary Bartz has been known to many as a trail blazer in the music business from the moment he started playing with Art Blakey at his father’s jazz club in his hometown of Baltimore, MD to his own music throughout the 57 years as a professional musician. As if his Grammy Award© with McCoy Tyner in 2005 (‘Illuminations’) wasn’t enough to carve out a place for Bartz in the jazz genre, he has broken the mold with more than 40 solo albums and over 200 as a guest artist.

Gary Bartz first came to New York In 1958 to attend the Julliard Conservatory of Music. Just 17 years old, Gary couldn't wait to come to the city to play and learn. "It was a very good time for the music in New York, at the end of what had been the be-bop era," says Bartz. "Charlie Parker had passed away three years previously but Miles' group was in its heyday, Monk was down at the Five Spot, and Ornette Coleman was just coming to town. Things were fresh." Back then, Gary could regularly be found drinking Cokes in the all ages "peanut gallery" of Birdland, enjoying a marathon bill of performers. "If I didn't have money to get in. I'd help somebody carry a drum and sneak in," laughs Bartz. "I learned that early on."

Marshall Allen

Born: May 25, 1924

Marshall Allen - alto saxophone, flute, clarinet, oboe, kora, and E.V.I. (Electronic Valve Instrument).

Marshall Belford Allen, alto saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, bandleader, and arranger, was born May 25, 1924 in Louisville, Kentucky and started clarinet lessons at age 10. At 18, he enlisted in the Army's 92nd Infantry (renowned as the Buffalo Soldiers), playing clarinet and alto saxophone in the 17th Division Special Service Band. Stationed in Paris during World War II, he played with pianist Art Simmons and saxophonist Don Byas, and he toured and recorded with James Moody during the late '40's. Upon honorable discharge, Mr. Allen enrolled in the Paris Conservatory of Music, studying clarinet with Delacluse. Returning to the States in 1951, Marshall settled in Chicago, where he led his own bands, playing in clubs and dance halls, while writing his own music and arrangements, as he continues to do today.

Kaoru Abe

Born: May 5, 1949

Kaoru Abe was a Japanese jazz pianist, guitarist and saxophonist. Kaoru Abe was a free jazz saxophonist, who was nearly unknown outside of Japan, and who generally played solo. During the 1970s, he recorded a string of albums for the Japanese record labels DIW (Live at Gaya, Vol. 1 - 10) and PFSD (Duo, 1971, Solo 1972 and Last Date 1978). Shortly before his death the quartet album 'Alda's Call' was recorded together with Toshinoro Kondo, Derek Bailey and Motoharu Yoshizawa. He died of a drug overdose; his death was quickly romanticized in the Japanese jazz underground. He was married to the authoress Izumi Suzuki and starred in the movie 'Endless Waltz' of director Koji Wakamatsu