Results for "Saxophone"

Sonny Stitt

Born: February 2, 1924

Edward "Sonny" Stitt was a quintessential saxophonist of the bebop idiom. He was also one of the most prolific saxophonists, recording over 100 records in his lifetime. He was nicknamed the "Lone Wolf" by jazz critic Dan Morgenstern, due to his relentless touring and his devotion to jazz.

Stitt was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and grew up in Saginaw, Michigan. Stitt had a musical background; his father taught music, his brother was a classically trained pianist, and his mother was a piano teacher. His earliest recordings were from 1945, with Stan Getz and Dizzy Gillespie. He had also experienced playing in some swing bands, though he mainly played in bop bands. Stitt featured in Tiny Bradshaw's big band in the early forties.

Chris Speed

Chris Speed is a composer, clarinetist and saxophonist living in Brooklyn, NY. His bands include Human Feel, yeah NO, Trio Iffy , Pachora and The Clarinets. He is a member of Jim Black’s Alas No Axis and John Hollenbeck’s Claudia Quintet. Speed was born in Seattle in 1967 and graduated from the New England Conservatory in 1990. In 1992 he moved to NYC where he joined Tim Berne’s Bloodcount. Throughout the nineties Speed worked with many pioneering bands in the creative new music/downtown scene including the Dave Douglas Sextet, Myra Melford’s Same River Twice, Erik Freidlander’s Chimera, John Zorn’s Bar Kokhba and Mark Dresser’s trio with Anthony Coleman. During this time he also began pursuing his interest in East European folk music, forming Pachora in 1992, and traveling throughout Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Syria, and Macedonia. Speed is considered one of the leading NYC musicians linking jazz and creative improvisation with Eastern European and Middle Eastern folk music. Currently, he works with Uri Caine’s Bach, Mahler, and Mozart projects, as well as Ben Perowsky’s quartet. Chris was named the rising star clarinetist in Downbeat magazine for 2004 and 2005. In July 2004 he was the special guest at the Copenhagen International Jazz Festival, working with ten different cutting edge Danish groups. In April 2006, he launched Skirl Records, a label dedicated to Brooklyn based creative music.

Andy Snitzer

Now more than a decade and a half into his world travels as soloist and horn section anchor with Paul Simon, Andy Snitzer had a blast cavorting with musical gods throughout 2014 and 2015, on the historic “On Stage Together Tour” featuring the legendary singer/songwriter and Sting. Adding more history to those frequent flier miles, the versatile saxophonist toured the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia. Now, a few years after soulfully chronicling life on the road (on his groundbreaking 2011 album Traveler), Snitzer explores and celebrates intimate places closer to heart and home, with American Beauty. The lush and melodic, sonically adventurous set artfully blends retro touches in groove and instrumentation with electronic-driven soundscapes and pattern-based motions

Howie Smith

A virtuoso saxophonist and composer, Howie Smith does not easily fit into a single category. As a performer he has worked with musicians, organizations and composers as diverse as Lester Bowie, John Cage, the Cleveland Orchestra, Mark Dresser, Mike Nock, Elvis Presley, Vernon Reid, Double Bass Drum, and the Tone Road Ramblers. His recorded performances range from the big bands of Phil Wilson and Frank Mantooth to the Australian quartet Jazz Co/op to saxophone concertos by Edward Miller, Salvatore Martirano and David Baker. He has also presented numerous concerts and workshops throughout the United States, Canada, South America, Europe and Australia. His catalogue of compositions includes works for conventional big bands and combos; for string, wind and percussion ensembles; for electronics; and for mixed media

Wayne Shorter

Born: August 25, 1933

Born in Newark, New Jersey on August 25, 1933, Wayne Shorter had his first great jazz epiphany as a teenager: “I remember seeing Lester Young when I was 15 years old. It was a Norman Granz Jazz at the Philharmonic show in Newark and he was late coming to the theater. Me and a couple of other guys were waiting out front of the Adams Theater and when he finally did show up, he had the pork pie hat and everything. So then we were trying to figure out how to get into the theater from the fire escape around the back. We eventually got into the mezzanine and saw that whole show — Stan Kenton and Dizzy Gillespie bands together on stage doing ‘Peanut Vendor,’ Charlie Parker with strings doing ‘Laura’ and stuff like that. And Russell Jacquet…Ilinois Jacquet. He was there doing his thing. That whole scene impressed me so much that I just decided, ‘Hey, man, let me get a clarinet.’ So I got one when I was 16, and that’s when I started music.

Archie Shepp

Born: May 24, 1937

Archie Shepp was born in 1937 in Fort Lauderdale in Florida. He grew up in Philadelphia, studied piano and saxophone and attended high school in Germantown; he went to college, became involved with theatre, met writers and poets, among them, Leroy Jones and wrote: «The Communist», an allegorical play about the situation of black Americans. In the late fifties, Archie Shepp also met the most radical musicians of the time: Lee Morgan, Bobby Timmons, Jimmy Garrison, Ted Curson, Beaver Harris ... his political consciousness found an expression in plays and theatrical productions which barely allowed him to make a living

Andy Sheppard

Born: January 20, 1957

An ECM recording artist, bandleader and composer, Andy Sheppard is one of Europe’s leading saxophonists and one of a very few British musicians to have made a significant impact on the international jazz scene, playing and writing for settings from solo to big band and chamber orchestra. Sheppard has composed over 350 works that incorporate a strong and characteristic sense of lyricism alongside a very personal use of rhythms from Asia, Africa and South America.

Sheppard took up the saxophone at 19, highly motivated after encountering the music of John Coltrane, and three weeks after getting his first instrument was playing in public with the Bristol-based quartet Sphere. After a period in Paris where he worked with groups including performance art band Urban Sax, he returned to the UK in the mid-80’s recording the album “Andy Sheppard” for Antilles/Island, with Steve Swallow as producer, the beginning of a long musical association that continues to this day. Since then Sheppard has recorded for labels including Blue Note, Verve, Label Bleu and Provocateur.

Bob Sheppard

Born: May 4, 1952

Some musicians’ careers are easily pigeonholed. Not so Bob Sheppard’s. For more than four decades, the multi-instrumentalist has played on countless sessions with an astounding crop of A-list jazz giants—among them Chick Corea, Freddie Hubbard, Michael and Randy Brecker, Mike Stern, Herbie Hancock, Kurt Elling, Dianne Reeves, Lyle Mays, John Beasley and Steps Ahead—and artists within several other genres. He’s also recorded and toured as a leader, contributed to hundreds of movie and TV soundtracks, served as an educator and more. But what’s most astounding, perhaps, is that Bob Sheppard still has so much more he wants to do

Bud Shank

Born: May 27, 1926

Bud Shank has been an integral member of the international jazz scene for 60 years. A respected saxophonist, composer, and arranger, his soaring dynamic performances have enlivened countless concerts, festivals, nightclubs, and recording sessions. Shank first came to prominence in the big bands of Charlie Barnet and Stan Kenton during the late 1940s. In the 1950s the saxophonist began a long tenure with Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All Stars, as well as work with his own quartet. A charter member of the "West Coast" jazz movement, Shank's cool but always strongly swinging sound has made him one of a handful of sax players with an instantly recognizable and always exciting sound

Tom Scott

Born: May 19, 1948

Tom Scott is a renowned composer, arranger, producer, music director, saxophonist and educator. His 33 solo recordings have earned him 13 Grammy nominations and 3 Grammy awards. In 2013 he produced a CD for young ukulele master Brittni Paiva which won a Hawaiian Grammy for 'Ukulele Album of the Year', and in 2017 received his first Emmy Award nomination for Musical Direction of the Tony Bennett 90th Birthday TV Special on NBC. Tom’s career as a guest artist spans more than 2000 recordings—by such diverse artists as Barbra Streisand, Quincy Jones, Thelonious Monk, the Blues Brothers, Frank Sinatra, Aretha Franklin and Aerosmith