Results for "spiritual jazz"

Yosef Gutman Levitt

Born: January 29, 1979

ABOUT

Yosef Gutman's palette flourishes from the vast world colors which influenced his artistic development. Whether composing and recording new music or collaborating with high-caliber instrumentalists to explore the world of Nigunim (melodies from the heart), Yosef Gutman strives to foster connections that stimulate the imagination through music performed from the soul.

EARLY LIFE

Yosef Gutman was born in 1979 in South Africa. He grew up in a farming area known as Knoppieslaagte. He began music lessons at an early age, but abandoned the piano in favor of skateboarding at age 11. Life on the farm was quiet, chickens, geese, and horses roamed the property. This provided much time for kickflip practice on the bricked surfaces around the farm house.

At age 16 Yosef reshifted his passion back to music. Inspired by Weather Report, he picked up the bass guitar. The same quietude that afforded him uninterrupted skateboard practice was a perfect environment for many hours of bass exploration. At 18, Yosef submitted a recording of his arrangement of the South African National Anthem to Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA who subsequently invited him to study on a scholarship.

Ascetic

Active since: 2019

Ascetic is a band founded in 2019 on the initiative of clarinetist and saxophonist Mateusz Rybicki, accompanied by Tomasz Kaczmarek (piano), Ju Ghan (double bass) and Jan Słowiński (drums). "After years in which the main area of my musical search was free improvisation and free jazz, I felt the need to explore simplicity and tonality. It also overlapped with the time of my spiritual search. I wanted the music I play to draw from those experiences, bring peace and solace to the audience and was a form of contemplation and prayer. I invited musicians who's sound and personality were the most suited to this concept" - recalls the musician. The sound of Ascetic is very characteristic, in the band's work you can hear the fascination with many genres and the desire to create music clearly going beyond the jazz idiom. "I think that the main direction and the underlying idea of this music is a certain self-limitation in striving for maximum mindfulness and searching for a deep, spiritual charge. This is true both at the level of our intentions and purely formal procedures - most of the songs are based on modal scales and trancy repetitive grooves. We also wanted a certain universalism and reaching the widest possible audience," the artist continues. The group's main inspirations include the John Coltrane quartet, the music of Hildegard of Bingen, Gregorian chant, American minimalists such as Steve Reich and Terry Riley, as well as the band The Necks. Most of the songs on Ascetic's debut album grew out of ideas and sketches proposed by Rybicki, but the final shape of the composition is the result of intensive work of the entire line-up: "I am very grateful to my bandmates for their commitment and the possibility of such systematic and in-depth work both on the arrangement and sound level. We put a lot of work and time into the creation of this material, looking for different forms of expression and testing arrangement solutions. There are also several songs on the album that were born during improvisation in the studio" - sums up the musician.

Kannon

Active since: 2022

Kannon is a 4 piece spiritual jazz/ rock band if Alice Coltrane played in Mogwai.

Mervin Toussaint

Born: January 17, 1996

Mervin Toussaint is an emerging saxophonist and composer making waves as both a performer and educator in the Philadelphia area. A Haitian American, Toussaint grew up in the Haitian church which provided an important incubator for his musical voice. Since moving to Philadelphia in 2016 Mervin has embraced the musical influences around him including Jazz, RnB, Neo-soul, and other contemporary styles into his own voice. He has presented his music as a leader in a wide array of venues and spaces, including South Jazz Kitchen, Chris’ Jazz Cafe, Paris Bistro, and the MAAS building. He has also performed as a soloist at a variety of churches, including the historical Tindley Temple United Methodist Church. As a side musician, Mervin actively collaborates with rappers, poets, and spoken word artists and incorporates those mediums into his original compositions; his five-song debut EP, Another Name for Everything reflects his diverse musical language creates a beautiful preamble to his first full-length release in the fall of 2022.

Lisa Marie Simmons

“I find in writing songs that I’m often walking that thin line – I’m trying to make a personal, individual experience universal,” muses singer-songwriter Lisa Marie Simmons.  

From her homebase on the coast of Italy’s beautiful Lake Garda, Simmons collaboratively leads two different ensembles – Hippie Tendencies and NoteSpeak – with keyboardist, arranger, and songwriter Marco Cremaschini, each deeply but differently informed by the struggles and triumphs in Simmons’ own life.

Born in Colorado Springs (CO), Simmons survived several troubled adoptions and foster homes. She found solace singing in her church choir and was featured soloist with the Boulder (CO) Youth Choir. At nineteen, Simmons moved to New York City to study theater and music at The American Academy of Dramatic Arts, and perform in various pop, funk, soul, blues and jazz bands throughout the Manhattan club circuit at night. “Music is my savior, and my past has taught me empathy,” she reflects.

Phil Dawson

Versatile UK-based guitarist who combines straight-ahead, African and Brazilian, sonic experimentation and improv influences in his playing and composing.

Andy Wasserman

As of April 2024, musical artist, Infusion Jazz pianist, Lydian Chromatic Concept certified teacher, online music educator and native New Yorker Andy Wasserman is as active as ever, evolving and prevailing in an astonishingly diverse range of experience within the music universe since becoming a full-time professional musician in the 1970's.

With 4 new solo piano albums released in 2021 of all original compositions entitled Exuberance, Teleidoscope, Peregrination and Tree, a schedule that encompasses his "Couch Tour" weekly solo piano live stream concerts every Sunday that began in June 2020, with 196 weekly performance episodes so far - having presented 1,330 fresh, original compositions (concert schedule link at event listings on JazzNearYou.com), as well as a 6-day a week roster of private online lesson students from around the globe in his state-of-the-art audio/video/webcam teaching studio featuring his expertise in The Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization - the art and science of Tonal Gravity (certified by George Russell to do so) - Andy presses onward and upward to pass forward the wealth and inspiration of his life's work in music.

Sanja Markovic

Sanja Markovic is an award-winning jazz composer (5th International Jazz Composition Competition in Katowice, Poland, 2018). She is a Belgrade born and based musician that has spent many years on the East Coast, US. Besides a Master’s degree in Music and a classical background, Sanja leans toward jazz music to become an autodidact saxophonist and jazz arranger (Big Band, “Kolarac” concert hall, 2012). Her debut “Ascension”, released for A.MA Records in Italy is already No.1 bestselling album on iTunes for Austria. Vinyl is also available at [email protected]. "Gentle and wondrous effects of my childhood have left me little choice but to never step aside from music and love of creation

Phi-Psonics

Active since: February 18, 1999

Gondwana Records sign LA bassist and composer Seth Ford-Young’s Phi-Psonics project and announce a remastered deluxe-edition of The Cradle featuring bonus material Phi-Psonics is a meditative, immersive instrumental group from Los Angeles, led by bassist Seth Ford-Young and featuring Sylvain Carton on woodwinds, Mitchell Yoshida on electric piano, and Josh Collazo on drums. Their deeply soulful music draws on jazz and classical influences together with Ford-Young’s own musical experiences, relationships, and his introduction to spirituality, yoga and philosophy at a young age, to create something uniquely its own