Miles Davis, famous jazz trumpeter, composer and band-leader was born 26 May 1926 in Alton, Illinois. He moved to New York in 1944 and studied at Juilliard. He left school and entered the jazz society of New York, meeting such famous musicians as Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Charlie Mingus. His record debut came in 1946. Miles soon became a major figure of jazz. He changed the directions of jazz several times, recording albums such as Birth Of The Cool (1949) which started the cool-jazz era, Milestones (1953), Kind Of Blue (1959) which was the beginning of modal jazz, orchestral jazz masterpieces such as Porgy And Bess (1958) and Sketches Of Spain (1961), In A Silent Way (1968) and Bitches Brew (1969) - the first jazz/rock fusion albums. He collaborated with famous jazz players such as: 'Bill Evans (XI)' (qv), John Coltrane, 'Chick Corea' (qv), Philly Joe Jones, 'Joseph Zawinul' (qv), Paul Chambers, 'Herbie Hancock' (qv), 'Wayne Shorter' (qv), John McLaughlin, 'Keith Jarrett' (qv), and others. He retired from music in 1975 due to hip problems as well as his problems with drug addiction. He recovered and returned to music in 1980, collaborating with producer Marcus Miller and recording new, intriguing albums such as electronic-driven Tutu or Amandla,as well as Spanish-flavored music for _Siesta (1987)_ (qv). Miles Davis is now arguably one of the greatest and most important jazz musicians of all time.
name | Miles Dewey Davis III |
---|---|
background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
birth name | Miles Dewey Davis III |
birth date | May 26, 1926 |
birth place | Alton, Illinois, United States |
death date | September 28, 1991 |
death place | Santa Monica, California, US |
instrument | Trumpet, flugelhorn, piano, organ, vocals |
genre | Jazz, hard bop, bebop, cool jazz, modal, fusion, third stream, jazz-funk, jazz rap |
occupation | Bandleader, composer, trumpeter, artist |
years active | 1944–1975, 1980–1991 |
associated acts | Billy Eckstine, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis Quintet, Gil Evans |
website | }} |
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer.
Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz, hard bop, modal jazz, and jazz fusion. Many well-known musicians rose to prominence as members of Davis' ensembles, including saxophonists Gerry Mulligan, John Coltrane, Cannonball Adderley, George Coleman, Wayne Shorter, Dave Liebman, Branford Marsalis and Kenny Garrett; trombonist J. J. Johnson; pianists Horace Silver, Red Garland, Wynton Kelly, Bill Evans, Herbie Hancock, Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett and Kei Akagi; guitarists John McLaughlin, Pete Cosey, John Scofield and Mike Stern; bassists Paul Chambers, Ron Carter, Dave Holland, Marcus Miller and Darryl Jones; and drummers Elvin Jones, Philly Joe Jones, Jimmy Cobb, Tony Williams, Billy Cobham, Jack DeJohnette, and Al Foster.
On October 7, 2008, his 1959 album ''Kind of Blue'' received its fourth platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), for shipments of at least four million copies in the United States. Miles Davis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2006. Davis was noted as "one of the key figures in the history of jazz".
On November 5, 2009, Rep. John Conyers of Michigan sponsored a measure in the US House of Representatives to recognize and commemorate the album ''Kind of Blue'' on its 50th anniversary. The measure also affirms jazz as a national treasure and "encourages the United States government to preserve and advance the art form of jazz music." It passed, unanimously, with a vote of 409–0 on December 15, 2009.
By age 16, Davis was a member of the music society and playing professionally when not at school. At 17, he spent a year playing in Eddie Randle's band, the Blue Devils. During this time, Sonny Stitt tried to persuade him to join the Tiny Bradshaw band, then passing through town, but Davis' mother insisted that he finish his final year of high school.
In 1944, the Billy Eckstine band visited East St. Louis. Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker were members of the band, and Davis was brought in on third trumpet for a couple of weeks because the regular player, Buddy Anderson, was out sick. Even after this experience, once Eckstine's band left town, Davis' parents were still keen for him to continue formal academic studies.
In the fall of 1944, following graduation from high school, Davis moved to New York City to study at the Juilliard School of Music.
Upon arriving in New York, he spent most of his first weeks in town trying to get in contact with Charlie Parker, despite being advised against doing so by several people he met during his quest, including saxophonist Coleman Hawkins.
Finally locating his idol, Davis became one of the cadre of musicians who held nightly jam sessions at two of Harlem's nightclubs, Minton's Playhouse and Monroe's. The group included many of the future leaders of the bebop revolution: young players such as Fats Navarro, Freddie Webster, and J. J. Johnson. Established musicians including Thelonious Monk and Kenny Clarke were also regular participants.
Davis dropped out of Juilliard, after asking permission from his father. In his autobiography, Davis criticized the Juilliard classes for centering too much on the classical European and "white" repertoire. However, he also acknowledged that Juilliard helped give him a grounding in music theory that would prove valuable in later years.
Davis began playing professionally, performing in several 52nd Street clubs with Coleman Hawkins and Eddie "Lockjaw" Davis. In 1945, he entered a recording studio for the first time, as a member of Herbie Fields's group. This was the first of many recordings to which Davis contributed in this period, mostly as a sideman. He finally got the chance to record as a leader in 1946, with an occasional group called the Miles Davis Sextet plus Earl Coleman and Ann Hathaway—one of the rare occasions when Davis, by then a member of the groundbreaking Charlie Parker Quintet, can be heard accompanying singers. In these early years, recording sessions where Davis was the leader were the exception rather than the rule; his next date as leader would not come until 1947.
Around 1945, Dizzy Gillespie parted ways with Parker, and Davis was hired as Gillespie's replacement in his quintet, which also featured Max Roach on drums, Al Haig (replaced later by Sir Charles Thompson and Duke Jordan) on piano, and Curley Russell (later replaced by Tommy Potter and Leonard Gaskin) on bass.
With Parker's quintet, Davis went into the studio several times, already showing hints of the style for which he would become known. On an oft-quoted take of Parker's signature song, "Now's the Time", Davis takes a melodic solo, whose unbop-like quality anticipates the "cool jazz" period that would follow. The Parker quintet also toured widely. During a stop in Los Angeles, Parker had a nervous breakdown that landed him in the Camarillo State Mental Hospital for several months, and Davis found himself stranded. He roomed and collaborated for some time with bassist Charles Mingus, before getting a job on Billy Eckstine's California tour, which eventually brought him back to New York. In 1948, Parker returned to New York, and Davis rejoined his group.
The relationships within the quintet, however, were growing tense. Parker's erratic behavior (attributable to his well-known drug addiction) and artistic choices (both Davis and Roach objected to having Duke Jordan as a pianist and would have preferred Bud Powell) became sources of friction. In December 1948, disputes over money (Davis claims he was not being paid) began to strain their relationship even further. Davis finally left the group following a confrontation with Parker at the Royal Roost.
For Davis, his departure from Parker's group marked the beginning of a period in which he worked mainly as a freelancer and as a sideman in some of the most important combos on the New York jazz scene.
Davis took an active role in the project, so much so that it soon became "his project". The objective was to achieve a sound similar to the human voice, through carefully arranged compositions and by emphasizing a relaxed, melodic approach to the improvisations.
The nonet debuted in the summer of 1948, with a two-week engagement at the Royal Roost. The sign announcing the performance gave a surprising prominence to the role of the arrangers: "Miles Davis Nonet. Arrangements by Gil Evans, John Lewis and Gerry Mulligan". It was, in fact, so unusual that Davis had to persuade the Roost's manager, Ralph Watkins, to allow the sign to be worded in this way; he prevailed only with the help of Monte Kay, the club's artistic director.
The nonet was active until the end of 1949, along the way undergoing several changes in personnel: Roach and Davis were constantly featured, along with Mulligan, tuba player Bill Barber, and alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, who had been preferred to Sonny Stitt (whose playing was considered too bop-oriented). Over the months, John Lewis alternated with Al Haig on piano, Mike Zwerin with Kai Winding on trombone (Johnson was touring at the time), Junior Collins with Sandy Siegelstein and Gunther Schuller on French horn, and Al McKibbon with Joe Shulman on bass. Singer Kenny Hagood was added for one track during the recording
The presence of white musicians in the group angered some black jazz players, many of whom were unemployed at the time, but Davis rebuffed their criticisms.
A contract with Capitol Records granted the nonet several recording sessions between January 1949 and April 1950. The material they recorded was released in 1956 on an album whose title, ''Birth of the Cool,'' gave its name to the "cool jazz" movement that developed at the same time and partly shared the musical direction begun by Davis' group.
For his part, Davis was fully aware of the importance of the project, which he pursued to the point of turning down a job with Duke Ellington's orchestra.
The importance of the nonet experience would become clear to critics and the larger public only in later years, but, at least commercially, the nonet was not a success. The liner notes of the first recordings of the Davis Quintet for Columbia Records call it one of the most spectacular failures of the jazz club scene. This was bitterly noted by Davis, who claimed the invention of the cool style and resented the success that was later enjoyed—in large part because of the media's attention—by white "cool jazz" musicians (Mulligan and Dave Brubeck in particular).
This experience also marked the beginning of the lifelong friendship between Davis and Gil Evans, an alliance that would bear important results in the years to follow.
Many of his new and old friends (Davis, in his autobiography, mentions Clarke) tried to persuade him to stay in France, but Davis decided to return to New York. Back in the States, he began to feel deeply depressed. The depression was due in part to his separation from Gréco, in part to his feeling underappreciated by the critics (who were hailing Davis' former collaborators as leaders of the cool jazz movement), and in part to the unraveling of his liaison with a former St. Louis schoolmate who was living with him in New York and with whom he had two children.
These are the factors to which Davis traces a heroin habit that deeply affected him for the next four years. Though Davis denies it in his autobiography, it is also likely that the environment in which he was living played a role. Most of Davis' associates at the time, some of them perhaps in imitation of Charlie Parker, had drug addictions of their own (among them, sax players Sonny Rollins and Dexter Gordon, trumpeters Fats Navarro and Freddie Webster, and drummer Art Blakey). For the next four years, Davis supported his habit partly with his music and partly by living the life of a hustler. By 1953, his drug addiction was beginning to impair his ability to perform. Heroin had killed some of his friends (Navarro and Freddie Webster). He himself had been arrested for drug possession while on tour in Los Angeles, and his drug habit had been made public in a devastating interview that Cab Calloway gave to ''Down Beat''.
Realizing his precarious condition, Davis tried several times to end his drug addiction, finally succeeding in 1954 after returning to his father's home in St. Louis for several months and literally locking himself in a room until he had gone through a painful withdrawal. During this period he avoided New York and played mostly in Detroit and other midwestern towns, where drugs were then harder to come by. A widely-related story, attributed to Richard (Prophet) Jennings was that Davis, while in Detroit playing at the Blue Bird club as a guest soloist in Billy Mitchell's house band along with Tommy Flanagan, Elvin Jones, Betty Carter, Yusef Lateef, Barry Harris, Thad Jones, Curtis Fuller and Donald Byrd stumbled into Baker's Keyboard Lounge out of the rain, soaking wet and carrying his trumpet in a paper bag under his coat, walked to the bandstand and interrupted Max Roach and Clifford Brown in the midst of performing Sweet Georgia Brown by beginning to play My Funny Valentine, and then, after finishing the song, stumbled back into the rainy night. Davis was supposedly embarrassed into getting clean by this incident. In his autobiography, Davis disputed this account, stating that Roach had requested that Davis play with him that night, and that the details of the incident, such as carrying his horn in a paper bag and interrupting Roach and Brown, were fictional and that his decision to quit heroin was unrelated to the incident.
Despite all the personal turmoil, the 1950–54 period was actually quite fruitful for Davis artistically. He made quite a number of recordings and had several collaborations with other important musicians. He got to know the music of Chicago pianist Ahmad Jamal, whose elegant approach and use of space influenced him deeply. He also definitively severed his stylistic ties with bebop.
In 1951, Davis met Bob Weinstock, the owner of Prestige Records, and signed a contract with the label. Between 1951 and 1954, he released many records on Prestige, with several different combos. While the personnel of the recordings varied, the lineup often featured Sonny Rollins and Art Blakey. Davis was particularly fond of Rollins and tried several times, in the years that preceded his meeting with John Coltrane, to recruit him for a regular group. He never succeeded, however, mostly because Rollins was prone to make himself unavailable for months at a time. In spite of the casual occasions that generated these recordings, their quality is almost always quite high, and they document the evolution of Davis' style and sound. During this time he began using the Harmon mute, held close to the microphone, in a way that grew to be his signature, and his phrasing, especially in ballads, became spacious, melodic, and relaxed. This sound was to become so characteristic that the use of the Harmon mute by any jazz trumpet player since immediately conjures up Miles Davis.
The most important Prestige recordings of this period (''Dig'', ''Blue Haze'', ''Bags' Groove'', ''Miles Davis and the Modern Jazz Giants'', and ''Walkin''') originated mostly from recording sessions in 1951 and 1954, after Davis' recovery from his addiction. Also of importance are his five Blue Note recordings, collected in the ''Miles Davis Volume 1'' album.
With these recordings, Davis assumed a central position in what is known as hard bop. In contrast with bebop, hard bop used slower tempos and a less radical approach to harmony and melody, often adopting popular tunes and standards from the American songbook as starting points for improvisation. Hard bop also distanced itself from cool jazz by virtue of a harder beat and by its constant reference to the blues, both in its traditional form and in the form made popular by rhythm and blues. A few critics go as far as to call ''Walkin''' the album that created hard bop, but the point is debatable, given the number of musicians who were working along similar lines at the same time (and of course many of them recorded or played with Davis).
Also in this period Davis gained a reputation for being distant, cold, and withdrawn and for having a quick temper. Among the several factors that contributed to this reputation were his contempt for the critics and specialized press and some well-publicized confrontations with the public and with fellow musicians. (One occasion, in which he had a near fight with Thelonious Monk during the recording of ''Bags' Groove'', received wide exposure in the specialized press.)
The "nocturnal" quality of Davis' playing and his somber reputation, along with his whispering voice, earned him the lasting moniker of "prince of darkness", adding a patina of mystery to his public persona.
None of these musicians, with the exception of Davis, had received a great deal of exposure before that time; Chambers, in particular, was very young (19 at the time), a Detroit player who had been on the New York scene for only about a year, working with the bands of Bennie Green, Paul Quinichette, George Wallington, J. J. Johnson, and Kai Winding. Coltrane was little known at the time, in spite of earlier collaborations with Dizzy Gillespie, Earl Bostic, and Johnny Hodges. Davis hired Coltrane as a replacement for Sonny Rollins, after unsuccessfully trying to recruit alto saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley.
The repertoire included many bebop mainstays, standards from the Great American Songbook and the pre-bop era, and some traditional tunes. The prevailing style of the group was a development of the Davis experience in the previous years—Davis playing long, legato, and essentially melodic lines, while Coltrane, who during these years emerged as a leading figure on the musical scene, contrasted by playing high-energy solos.
With the new formation also came a new recording contract. In Newport, Davis had met Columbia Records producer George Avakian, who persuaded him to sign with his label. The quintet made its debut on record with the extremely well received 'Round About Midnight. Before leaving Prestige, however, Davis had to fulfill his obligations during two days of recording sessions in 1956. Prestige released these recordings in the following years as four albums: ''Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet,'' ''Steamin' with the Miles Davis Quintet,'' ''Workin' with the Miles Davis Quintet,'' and ''Cookin' with the Miles Davis Quintet''. While the recording took place in a studio, each record of this series has the structure and feel of a live performance, with several first takes on each album. The records became almost instant classics and were instrumental in establishing Davis' quintet as one of the best on the jazz scene.
The quintet was disbanded for the first time in 1957, following a series of personal problems that Davis blames on the drug addiction of the other musicians. Davis played some gigs at the ''Cafe Bohemia'' with a short-lived formation that included Sonny Rollins and drummer Art Taylor, and then traveled to France, where he recorded the score to Louis Malle's film ''Ascenseur pour l'échafaud''. With the aid of French session musicians Barney Wilen, Pierre Michelot, and René Urtreger, and American drummer Kenny Clarke, he recorded the entire soundtrack with an innovative procedure, without relying on written material: starting from sparse indication of the harmony and a general feel of a given piece, the group played by watching the movie on a screen in front of them and improvising.
Returning to New York in 1958, Davis successfully recruited Cannonball Adderley for his standing group. Coltrane, who in the meantime had freed himself from his drug habits, was available after a highly fruitful experience with Thelonious Monk and was hired back, as was Philly Joe Jones. With the quintet re-formed as a sextet, Davis recorded ''Milestones'', an album anticipating the new directions he was preparing to give to his music.
Almost immediately after the recording of ''Milestones,'' Davis fired Garland and, shortly afterward, Jones, again for behavioral problems; he replaced them with Bill Evans——a young white pianist with a strong classical background——and drummer Jimmy Cobb. With this revamped formation, Davis began a year during which the sextet performed and toured extensively and produced a record (''1958 Miles'', also known as ''58 Sessions''). Evans had a unique, impressionistic approach to the piano, and his musical ideas had a strong influence on Davis. But after only eight months on the road with the group, he was burned out and left. He was soon replaced by Wynton Kelly, a player who brought to the sextet a swinging, bluesy approach that contrasted with Evans' more delicate playing.
In 1958, Davis and Evans were back in the studio to record ''Porgy and Bess,'' an arrangement of pieces from George Gershwin's opera of the same name. The lineup included three members of the sextet: Paul Chambers, Philly Joe Jones, and Julian "Cannonball" Adderley. Davis called the album one of his favorites.
''Sketches of Spain'' (1959–1960) featured songs by contemporary Spanish composer Joaquin Rodrigo and also Manuel de Falla, as well as Gil Evans originals with a Spanish flavor. ''Miles Davis at Carnegie Hall'' (1961) includes Rodrigo's ''Concierto de Aranjuez,'' along with other compositions recorded in concert with an orchestra under Evans' direction.
Sessions with Davis and Evans in 1962 resulted in the album ''Quiet Nights,'' a short collection of bossa novas that was released against the wishes of both artists: Evans stated it was only half an album, and blamed the record company; Davis blamed producer Teo Macero, whom he didn't speak to for more than two years. This was the last time Evans and Davis made a full album together; despite the professional separation, however, Davis noted later that "my best friend is Gil Evans."
The trumpet Davis used on the recording is currently displayed in the music building on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. It was donated to the school by Arthur "Buddy" Gist, who met Davis in 1949 and became a close friend. The gift was the reason why the jazz program at UNCG is named the "Miles Davis Jazz Studies Program."
In 1959, the Miles Davis Quintet was appearing at the famous Birdland nightclub in New York City. After finishing a 27 minute recording for the armed services, Davis took a break outside the club. As he was escorting an attractive blonde woman across the sidewalk to a taxi, Davis was told by Patrolman Gerald Kilduff to "move on." Davis explained that he worked at the nightclub and refused to move. The officer said that he would arrest Davis and grabbed him as Davis protected himself. Witnesses said that Kilduff punched Davis in the stomach with his nightstick without provocation. Two nearby detectives held the crowd back as a third detective, Don Rolker, approached Davis from behind and beat him about the head. Davis was then arrested and taken to jail where he was charged with feloniously assaulting an officer. He was then taken to St. Clary Hospital where he received five stitches for a wound on his head. Davis attempted to pursue the case in the courts, before eventually dropping the proceedings in a plea bargain in order to recover his suspended Cabaret Card, enabling him to return to work in New York clubs.
Davis persuaded Coltrane to play with the group on one final European tour in the spring of 1960. Coltrane then departed to form his classic quartet, although he returned for some of the tracks on Davis' 1961 album ''Someday My Prince Will Come.'' After Coltrane, Davis tried various saxophonists, including Jimmy Heath, Sonny Stitt, and Hank Mobley. The quintet with Hank Mobley was recorded in the studio and on several live engagements at Carnegie Hall and the Black Hawk jazz club in San Francisco. Stitt's playing with the group is found on a recording made in Olympia, Paris (where Davis and Coltrane had played a few months before) and the ''Live in Stockholm'' album.
In 1963, Davis' longtime rhythm section of Kelly, Chambers, and Cobb departed. He quickly got to work putting together a new group, including tenor saxophonist George Coleman and bassist Ron Carter. Davis, Coleman, Carter and a few other musicians recorded half the tracks for an album in the spring of 1963. A few weeks later, seventeen-year-old drummer Tony Williams and pianist Herbie Hancock joined the group, and soon afterward Davis, Coleman, and the new rhythm section recorded the rest of ''Seven Steps to Heaven.''
The rhythm players melded together quickly as a section and with the horns. The group's rapid evolution can be traced through the ''Seven Steps to Heaven'' album, ''In Europe'' (July 1963), ''My Funny Valentine'' (February 1964), and ''Four and More'' (also February 1964). The quintet played essentially the same repertoire of bebop tunes and standards that earlier Davis bands had played, but they tackled them with increasing structural and rhythmic freedom and, in the case of the up-tempo material, breakneck speed.
Coleman left in the spring of 1964, to be replaced by avant-garde saxophonist Sam Rivers, on the suggestion of Tony Williams. Rivers remained in the group only briefly, but was recorded live with the quintet in Japan; this configuration can be heard on ''Miles in Tokyo!'' (July 1964).
By the end of the summer, Davis had persuaded Wayne Shorter to leave Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers and join the quintet. Shorter became the group's principal composer, and some of his compositions of this era (including "Footprints" and "Nefertiti") have become standards. While on tour in Europe, the group quickly made their first official recording, ''Miles in Berlin'' (September 1964). On returning to the United States later that year, ever the musical entrepreneur, Davis (at Jackie DeShannon's urging) was instrumental in getting The Byrds signed to Columbia Records.
A two-night Chicago performance in late 1965 is captured on ''The Complete Live at the Plugged Nickel 1965,'' released in 1995. Unlike their studio albums, the live engagement shows the group still playing primarily standards and bebop tunes. It is reasonable to point out though, that whilst some of the titles remain the same as the tunes employed by the 1950s quintet, the speed and distance of departure from the framework of the standards bears no comparison. It could even be said that the listening experience to these standards as live performances is as much of a radical take on the jazz of the time as the new compositions of the studio albums listed below.
The recording of ''Live at the Plugged Nickel'' was not issued anywhere in the 1960s, first appearing as a Japan-only partial issue in the late 1970s, then as a double-LP in the USA and Europe in 1982. It was followed by a series of studio recordings: ''Miles Smiles'' (1966), ''Sorcerer'' (1967), ''Nefertiti'' (1967), ''Miles in the Sky'' (1968), and ''Filles de Kilimanjaro'' (1968). The quintet's approach to improvisation came to be known as "time no changes" or "freebop," because they abandoned the more conventional chord-change-based approach of bebop for a modal approach. Through ''Nefertiti,'' the studio recordings consisted primarily of originals composed by Shorter, with occasional compositions by the other sidemen. In 1967, the group began to play their live concerts in continuous sets, each tune flowing into the next, with only the melody indicating any sort of demarcation. Davis's bands would continue to perform in this way until his retirement in 1975.
''Miles in the Sky'' and ''Filles de Kilimanjaro,'' on which electric bass, electric piano, and electric guitar were tentatively introduced on some tracks, pointed the way to the subsequent fusion phase of Davis' career. Davis also began experimenting with more rock-oriented rhythms on these records. By the time the second half of ''Filles de Kilimanjaro'' had been recorded, bassist Dave Holland and pianist Chick Corea had replaced Carter and Hancock in the working band, though both Carter and Hancock would occasionally contribute to future recording sessions. Davis soon began to take over the compositional duties of his sidemen.
Six months later an even larger group of musicians, including Jack DeJohnette, Airto Moreira, and Bennie Maupin, recorded the double LP ''Bitches Brew,'' which became a huge seller, reaching gold status by 1976. This album and ''In a Silent Way'' were among the first fusions of jazz and rock that were commercially successful, building on the groundwork laid by Charles Lloyd, Larry Coryell, and others who pioneered a genre that would become known as jazz-rock fusion. During this period, Davis toured with Shorter, Corea, Holland, and DeJohnette. The group's repertoire included material from ''Bitches Brew'', ''In a Silent Way'', and the 1960s quintet albums, along with an occasional standard.
In 1972, Davis was introduced to the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen by Paul Buckmaster, leading to a period of new creative exploration. Biographer J. K. Chambers wrote that "the effect of Davis' study of Stockhausen could not be repressed for long... Davis' own 'space music' shows Stockhausen's influence compositionally." His recordings and performances during this period were described as "space music" by fans, by music critic Leonard Feather, and by Buckmaster, who described it as "a lot of mood changes—heavy, dark, intense—definitely space music." Both ''Bitches Brew'' and ''In a Silent Way'' feature "extended" (more than 20 minutes each) compositions that were never actually "played straight through" by the musicians in the studio. Instead, Davis and producer Teo Macero selected musical motifs of various lengths from recorded extended improvisations and edited them together into a musical whole that exists only in the recorded version. ''Bitches Brew'' made use of such electronic effects as multi-tracking, tape loops, and other editing techniques. Both records, especially ''Bitches Brew'', proved to be big sellers. Starting with ''Bitches Brew'', Davis' albums began to often feature cover art much more in line with psychedelic art or black power movements than that of his earlier albums. He took significant cuts in his usual performing fees in order to open for rock groups like the Steve Miller Band, the Grateful Dead, Neil Young, and Santana. Several live albums were recorded during the early 1970s at these performances: ''Live at the Fillmore East, March 7, 1970: It's About That Time'' (March 1970),'' Black Beauty'' (April 1970), and ''Miles Davis at Fillmore: Live at the Fillmore East'' (June 1970).
By the time of ''Live-Evil'' in December 1970, Davis' ensemble had transformed into a much more funk-oriented group. Davis began experimenting with wah-wah effects on his horn. The ensemble with Gary Bartz, Keith Jarrett, and Michael Henderson, often referred to as the "Cellar Door band" (the live portions of ''Live-Evil'' were recorded at a Washington, DC, club by that name), never recorded in the studio, but is documented in the six-CD box set ''The Cellar Door Sessions,'' which was recorded over four nights in December 1970. In 1970, Davis contributed extensively to the soundtrack of a documentary about the African-American boxer heavyweight champion Jack Johnson. Himself a devotee of boxing, Davis drew parallels between Johnson, whose career had been defined by the fruitless search for a Great White Hope to dethrone him, and Davis' own career, in which he felt the musical establishment of the time had prevented him from receiving the acclaim and rewards that were due him. The resulting album, 1971's ''A Tribute to Jack Johnson'', contained two long pieces that featured musicians (some of whom were not credited on the record) including guitarists John McLaughlin and Sonny Sharrock, Herbie Hancock on a Farfisa organ, and drummer Billy Cobham. McLaughlin and Cobham went on to become founding members of the Mahavishnu Orchestra in 1971.
As Davis stated in his autobiography, he wanted to make music for the young African-American audience. ''On the Corner'' (1972) blended funk elements with the traditional jazz styles he had played his entire career. The album was highlighted by the appearance of saxophonist Carlos Garnett. Critics were not kind to the album; in his autobiography, Davis stated that critics could not figure out how to categorize it, and he complained that the album was not promoted by the "traditional" jazz radio stations. After recording ''On the Corner'', Davis put together a new group, with only Michael Henderson, Carlos Garnett, and percussionist Mtume returning from the previous band. It included guitarist Reggie Lucas, tabla player Badal Roy, sitarist Khalil Balakrishna, and drummer Al Foster. It was unusual in that none of the sidemen were major jazz instrumentalists; as a result, the music emphasized rhythmic density and shifting textures instead of individual solos. This group, which recorded in the Philharmonic Hall for the album ''In Concert'' (1972), was unsatisfactory to Davis. Through the first half of 1973, he dropped the tabla and sitar, took over keyboard duties, and added guitarist Pete Cosey. The Davis/Cosey/Lucas/Henderson/Mtume/Foster ensemble would remain virtually intact over the next two years. Initially, Dave Liebman played saxophones and flute with the band; in 1974, he was replaced by Sonny Fortune.
After a Newport Jazz Festival performance at Avery Fisher Hall in New York on July 1, 1975, Davis withdrew almost completely from the public eye for six years. As Gil Evans said, "His organism is tired. And after all the music he's contributed for 35 years, he needs a rest." In his memoirs, Davis is characteristically candid about his wayward mental state during this period, describing himself as hermit, his house as a wreck, and detailing his drug and sex addictions. In 1976, ''Rolling Stone'' reported rumors of his imminent demise. Although he stopped practicing trumpet on a regular basis, Davis continued to compose intermittently and made three attempts at recording during his exile from performing; these sessions (one with the assistance of Paul Buckmaster and Gil Evans, who left after not receiving promised compensation) bore little fruit and remain unreleased. In 1979, he placed in the yearly top-ten trumpeter poll of ''Down Beat''. Columbia continued to issue compilation albums and records of unreleased vault material to fulfill contractual obligations. During his period of inactivity, Davis saw the fusion music that he had spearheaded over the past decade enter into the mainstream. When he emerged from retirement, Davis' musical descendants would be in the realm of New Wave rock, and in particular the styling of Prince.
The initial large band was eventually abandoned in favor of a smaller combo featuring saxophonist Bill Evans and bass player Marcus Miller, both of whom would be among Davis' most regular collaborators throughout the decade. He married Tyson in 1981; they would divorce in 1988. ''The Man with the Horn'' was finally released in 1981 and received a poor critical reception despite selling fairly well. In May, the new band played two dates as part of the Newport Jazz Festival. The concerts, as well as the live recording ''We Want Miles'' from the ensuing tour, received positive reviews.
By late 1982, Davis' band included French percussionist Mino Cinelu and guitarist John Scofield, with whom he worked closely on the album ''Star People.'' In mid-1983, while working on the tracks for ''Decoy'', an album mixing soul music and electronica that was released in 1984, Davis brought in producer, composer and keyboardist Robert Irving III, who had earlier collaborated with him on ''The Man with the Horn.'' With a seven-piece band, including Scofield, Evans, keyboardist and music director Irving, drummer Al Foster and bassist Darryl Jones (later of The Rolling Stones), Davis played a series of European gigs to positive receptions. While in Europe, he took part in the recording of ''Aura,'' an orchestral tribute to Davis composed by Danish trumpeter Palle Mikkelborg.
''You're Under Arrest,'' Davis' next album, was released in 1985 and included another brief stylistic detour. Included on the album were his interpretations of Cyndi Lauper's ballad "Time After Time", and "Human Nature" from Michael Jackson. Davis considered releasing an entire album of pop songs and recorded dozens of them, but the idea was scrapped. Davis noted that many of today's accepted jazz standards were in fact pop songs from Broadway theater, and that he was simply updating the "standards" repertoire with new material. 1985 also saw Davis guest-star on the TV show ''Miami Vice'' as pimp and minor criminal Ivory Jones in the episode titled "Junk Love" (first aired November 8, 1985).
''You're Under Arrest'' also proved to be Davis' final album for Columbia. Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis publicly dismissed Davis' more recent fusion recordings as not being "'true' jazz", comments Davis initially shrugged off, calling Marsalis "a nice young man, only confused". This changed after Marsalis appeared, unannounced, onstage in the midst of a Davis performance. Marsalis whispered into Davis' ear that "someone" had told him to do so; Davis responded by ordering him off the stage.
Davis grew irritated at Columbia's delay releasing ''Aura''. The breaking point in the label-artist relationship appears to have come when a Columbia jazz producer requested Davis place a goodwill birthday call to Marsalis. Davis signed with Warner Brothers shortly thereafter.
Davis collaborated with a number of figures from the British new wave movement during this period, including Scritti Politti. At the invitation of producer Bill Laswell, Davis recorded some trumpet parts during sessions for Public Image Ltd.'s ''Album'', according to Public Image's John Lydon in the liner notes of their ''Plastic Box'' box set. In Lydon's words, however, "strangely enough, we didn't use (his contributions)." (Also according to Lydon in the ''Plastic Box'' notes, Davis favorably compared Lydon's singing voice to his trumpet sound.)
Having first taken part in the Artists United Against Apartheid recording, Davis signed with Warner Brothers records and reunited with Marcus Miller. The resulting record, ''Tutu'' (1986), would be his first to use modern studio tools—programmed synthesizers, samples and drum loops—to create an entirely new setting for Davis' playing. Ecstatically reviewed on its release, the album would frequently be described as the modern counterpart of ''Sketches of Spain'' and won a Grammy in 1987.
thumb|left|The grave of Miles Davis in Woodlawn CemeteryHe followed ''Tutu'' with ''Amandla,'' another collaboration with Miller and George Duke, plus the soundtracks to four movies: ''Street Smart,'' ''Siesta,'' ''The Hot Spot,'' and ''Dingo.'' He continued to tour with a band of constantly rotating personnel and a critical stock at a level higher than it had been for 15 years. His last recordings, both released posthumously, were the hip hop-influenced studio album ''Doo-Bop'' and ''Miles & Quincy Live at Montreux,'' a collaboration with Quincy Jones for the 1991 Montreux Jazz Festival in which Davis performed the repertoire from his 1940s and 1950s recordings for the first time in decades.
In 1988 he had a small part as a street musician in the film ''Scrooged'', starring Bill Murray. He received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990. In 1989, Miles was interviewed on 60 Minutes by Harry Reasoner.
In early 1991, he appeared in the Rolf de Heer film ''Dingo'' as a jazz musician. In the film's opening sequence, Davis and his band unexpectedly land on a remote airstrip in the Australian outback and proceed to perform for the stunned locals. The performance was one of Davis' last on film.
Miles Davis died on September 28, 1991 from the combined effects of a stroke, pneumonia and respiratory failure in Santa Monica, California at the age of 65. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in The Bronx.
As an innovative bandleader and composer, Miles Davis has influenced many notable musicians and bands from diverse genres. These include Wayne Shorter, Cannonball Adderley, Herbie Hancock, Cassandra Wilson, Lalo Schifrin, Tangerine Dream, Brand X, Mtume, Benny Bailey, Joe Bonner, Don Cherry, Urszula Dudziak, Sugizo, Bill Evans, Bill Hardman, The Lounge Lizards, Hugh Masekela, John McLaughlin, King Crimson, Steely Dan, Frank Zappa, Duane Allman, Radiohead, The Flaming Lips, Lydia Lunch, Talk Talk, Michael Franks, Sting, Lonnie Liston Smith, Jiří Stivín, Tim Hagans, Julie Christensen, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman, Vassar Clements, Snooky Young, Prince, and Christian Scott.
Miles' influence on the people who played with him has been described by music writer and author Christopher Smith as follows:
Miles Davis' artistic interest was in the creation and manipulation of ritual space, in which gestures could be endowed with symbolic power sufficient to form a functional communicative, and hence musical, vocabulary. [...] Miles' performance tradition emphasized orality and the transmission of information and artistic insight from individual to individual. His position in that tradition, and his personality, talents, and artistic interests, impelled him to pursue a uniquely individual solution to the problems and the experiential possibilities of improvised performance.
His approach, owing largely to the African American performance tradition that focused on individual expression, emphatic interaction, and creative response to shifting contents, had a profound impact on generations of jazz musicians.
In 1986, the New England Conservatory awarded Miles Davis an Honorary Doctorate for his extraordinary contributions to music. Since 1960 the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) has honored him with eight Grammy Awards, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and three Grammy Hall of Fame Awards.
Category:African American musicians Category:American jazz bandleaders Category:American jazz composers Category:American jazz trumpeters Category:Songwriters from Illinois Category:Bebop trumpeters Category:Cool jazz trumpeters Category:Deaths from stroke Category:Deaths from respiratory failure Category:People with sickle-cell disease Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners Category:Columbia Records artists Category:Capitol Records artists Category:Prestige Records artists Category:Savoy Records artists Category:Hard bop trumpeters Category:Musicians from Illinois Category:Juilliard School alumni Category:Modal jazz trumpeters Category:People from Madison County, Illinois Category:People from St. Clair County, Illinois Category:Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Category:Music of St. Louis, Missouri Category:Third Stream trumpeters Category:Deaths from pneumonia Category:Burials at Woodlawn Cemetery (The Bronx) Category:Infectious disease deaths in California Category:1926 births Category:1991 deaths Category:Avant-garde jazz trumpeters Category:Performing arts pages with videographic documentation
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alt | A mid-twenties African American man wearing a sequined military jacket and dark sunglasses. He is walking while waving his right hand, which is adorned with a white glove. His left hand is bare. |
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background | solo_singer |
birth name | Michael Joseph Jackson |
alias | Michael Joe Jackson, MJ, King of Pop |
birth date | August 29, 1958 |
birth place | Gary, Indiana, U.S. |
death date | June 25, 2009 |
death place | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
instrument | vocals, guitar, drums, percussion, keyboards |
genre | R&B;, pop, rock, soul, dance, funk, disco, new jack swing |
occupation | Singer-songwriter, musician, composer, dancer, choreographer, record producer, actor, businessman, philanthropist |
years active | 1964–2009 |
label | Motown, Epic, Legacy |
associated acts | The Jackson 5 |
relatives | Janet Jackson (sister) |
website | 130pxMichael Jackson's signature }} |
Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958 – June 25, 2009) was an American recording artist, entertainer, and businessman. Often referred to as the King of Pop, or by his initials MJ, Jackson is recognized as the most successful entertainer of all time by Guinness World Records. His contribution to music, dance, and fashion, along with a much-publicized personal life, made him a global figure in popular culture for over four decades. The seventh child of the Jackson family, he debuted on the professional music scene along with his brothers as a member of The Jackson 5, then the Jacksons in 1964, and began his solo career in 1971.
In the early 1980s, Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music. The music videos for his songs, including those of "Beat It", "Billie Jean", and "Thriller", were credited with transforming the medium into an art form and a promotional tool, and the popularity of these videos helped to bring the relatively new television channel MTV to fame. Videos such as "Black or White" and "Scream" made him a staple on MTV in the 1990s. Through stage performances and music videos, Jackson popularized a number of complicated dance techniques, such as the robot and the moonwalk, to which he gave the name. His distinctive musical sound and vocal style have influenced numerous hip hop, post-disco, contemporary R&B;, pop and rock artists.
Jackson's 1982 album ''Thriller'' is the best-selling album of all time. His other records, including ''Off the Wall'' (1979), ''Bad'' (1987), ''Dangerous'' (1991), and ''HIStory'' (1995), also rank among the world's best-selling. Jackson is one of the few artists to have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame twice. He was also inducted into the Dance Hall of Fame as the first (and currently only) dancer from the world of pop and rock 'n' roll. Some of his other achievements include multiple Guinness World Records; 13 Grammy Awards (as well as the Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award); 26 American Music Awards (more than any other artist, including the "Artist of the Century"); 13 number-one singles in the United States in his solo career (more than any other male artist in the Hot 100 era); and the estimated sale of over 750 million records worldwide. Jackson won hundreds of awards, which have made him the most-awarded recording artist in the history of popular music.
Jackson had a troubled relationship with his father, Joe. In 1980, Jackson won three awards at the American Music Awards for his solo efforts: Favorite Soul/R&B; Album, Favorite Soul/R&B; Male Artist, and Favorite Soul/R&B; Single for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough". That year, he also won Billboard Year-End for Top Black Artist and Top Black Album and a Grammy Award for Best Male R&B; Vocal Performance, also for "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough". Jackson again won at the American Music Awards in 1981 for Favorite Soul/R&B; Album and Favorite Soul/R&B; Male Artist. Despite its commercial success, Jackson felt ''Off the Wall'' should have made a much bigger impact, and was determined to exceed expectations with his next release. In 1980, he secured the highest royalty rate in the music industry: 37 percent of wholesale album profit.
In ''Bad'', Jackson's concept of the predatory lover can be seen on the rock song "Dirty Diana". The lead single "I Just Can't Stop Loving You" is a traditional love ballad, while "Man in the Mirror" is an anthemic ballad of confession and resolution. "Smooth Criminal" was an evocation of bloody assault, rape and likely murder. Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine states that ''Dangerous'' presents Jackson as a very paradoxical individual. He comments the album is more diverse than his previous ''Bad'', as it appeals to an urban audience while also attracting the middle class with anthems like "Heal the World". The first half of the record is dedicated to new jack swing, including songs like "Jam" and "Remember the Time". The album is Jackson's first where social ills become a primary theme; "Why You Wanna Trip on Me", for example, protests against world hunger, AIDS, homelessness and drugs. ''Dangerous'' contains sexually charged efforts such as the multifaceted love song, "In the Closet". The title track continues the theme of the predatory lover and compulsive desire. The second half includes introspective, pop-gospel anthems such as "Will You Be There", "Heal the World" and "Keep the Faith"; these songs show Jackson opening up about various personal struggles and worries. In the ballad "Gone Too Soon", Jackson gives tribute to his friend Ryan White and the plight of those with AIDS.
''HIStory'' creates an atmosphere of paranoia. Its content focuses on the hardships and public struggles Jackson went through just prior to its production. In the new jack swing-funk-rock efforts "Scream" and "Tabloid Junkie", along with the R&B; ballad "You Are Not Alone", Jackson retaliates against the injustice and isolation he feels, and directs much of his anger at the media. In the introspective ballad "Stranger in Moscow", Jackson laments over his "fall from grace", while songs like "Earth Song", "Childhood", "Little Susie" and "Smile" are all operatic pop pieces. In the track "D.S.", Jackson launched a verbal attack against Tom Sneddon. He describes Sneddon as an antisocial, white supremacist who wanted to "get my ass, dead or alive". Of the song, Sneddon said, "I have not—shall we say—done him the honor of listening to it, but I've been told that it ends with the sound of a gunshot". ''Invincible'' found Jackson working heavily with producer Rodney Jerkins. It is a record made up of urban soul like "Cry" and "The Lost Children", ballads such as "Speechless", "Break of Dawn" and "Butterflies" and mixes hip-hop, pop and R&B; in "2000 Watts", "Heartbreaker" and "Invincible".
A distinctive deliberate mispronunciation of "come on", used frequently by Jackson, occasionally spelled "cha'mone" or "shamone", is also a staple in impressions and caricatures of him. The turn of the 1990s saw the release of the introspective album ''Dangerous''. ''The New York Times'' noted that on some tracks, "he gulps for breath, his voice quivers with anxiety or drops to a desperate whisper, hissing through clenched teeth" and he had a "wretched tone". When singing of brotherhood or self-esteem the musician would return to "smooth" vocals. When commenting on ''Invincible'', ''Rolling Stone'' were of the opinion that—at the age of 43—Jackson still performed "exquisitely voiced rhythm tracks and vibrating vocal harmonies". Nelson George summed up Jackson's vocals by stating "The grace, the aggression, the growling, the natural boyishness, the falsetto, the smoothness—that combination of elements mark him as a major vocalist".
In the 19-minute music video for "Bad"—directed by Martin Scorsese—Jackson began using sexual imagery and choreography not previously seen in his work. He occasionally grabbed or touched his chest, torso and crotch. When asked by Oprah in the 1993 interview about why he grabbed his crotch, he replied, "I think it happens subliminally" and he described it as something that was not planned, but rather, as something that was compelled by the music. "Bad" garnered a mixed reception from both fans and critics; ''Time'' magazine described it as "infamous". The video also featured Wesley Snipes; in the future Jackson's videos would often feature famous cameo roles.
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Name | Herbie Hancock |
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Landscape | yes |
Background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
Birth name | Herbert Jeffrey Hancock |
Alias | Herbie Hancock |
Born | April 12, 1940Chicago, IllinoisUnited States |
Instrument | piano, synthesizer, organ, clavinet, keytar, vocoder |
Genre | Jazz, bebop, post bop, jazz fusion, hard bop, jazz-funk, funk, R&B;, electro funk, classical |
Occupation | Musician, composer, bandleader |
Years active | 1961–present |
Label | Columbia, Blue Note, Verve, Warner Bros. Records |
Associated acts | Miles Davis Quintet, Jaco Pastorius, Stevie Wonder |
Website | Official website of Herbie Hancock }} |
Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock (b. April 12, 1940) is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound. He was one of the first jazz musicians to embrace music synthesizers and funk music (characterized by syncopated drum beats). Hancock's music is often melodic and accessible; he has had many songs "cross over" and achieved success among pop audiences. His music embraces elements of funk and soul while adopting freer stylistic elements from jazz. In his jazz improvisation, he possesses a unique creative blend of jazz, blues, and modern classical music, with harmonic stylings much like the styles of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.
Hancock's best-known solo works include "Cantaloupe Island", "Watermelon Man" (later performed by dozens of musicians, including bandleader Mongo Santamaría), "Maiden Voyage", "Chameleon", and the singles "I Thought It Was You" and "Rockit". His 2007 tribute album ''River: The Joni Letters'' won the 2008 Grammy Award for Album of the Year, only the second jazz album ever to win the award after Getz/Gilberto in 1965.
As a member of Soka Gakkai, Hancock is an adherent of the Nichiren school of Mahayana Buddhism.
On 22 July 2011 at a ceremony in Paris, Hancock was named UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador for the promotion of Intercultural Dialogue.
Through his teens, Hancock never had a jazz teacher, but developed his ear and sense of harmony. He was also influenced by records of the vocal group the Hi-Lo's:
..by the time I actually heard the Hi-Lo's, I started picking that stuff out; my ear was happening. I could hear stuff and that's when I really learned some much farther-out voicings -like the harmonies I used on 'Speak Like a Child' -just being able to do that. I really got that from Clare Fischer's arrangements for the Hi-Lo's. Clare Fischer was a major influence on my harmonic concept... He and Bill Evans, and Ravel and Gil Evans, finally. You know, that's where it music after two years.In 1960, he heard Chris Anderson play just once, and begged him to accept him as a student. Hancock often mentions Anderson as his harmonic guru. Hancock left Grinnell College, moved to Chicago and began working with Donald Byrd and Coleman Hawkins, during which period he also took courses at Roosevelt University. (He later graduated from Grinnell, which also awarded him an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree in 1972). Donald Byrd was attending the Manhattan School of Music in New York at the time and suggested that Hancock study composition with Vittorio Giannini, which he did for a short time in 1960. The pianist quickly earned a reputation, and played subsequent sessions with Oliver Nelson and Phil Woods. He recorded his first solo album ''Takin' Off'' for Blue Note Records in 1962. "Watermelon Man" (from ''Takin' Off'') was to provide Mongo Santamaría with a hit single, but more importantly for Hancock, ''Takin' Off'' caught the attention of Miles Davis, who was at that time assembling a new band. Hancock was introduced to Davis by the young drummer Tony Williams, a member of the new band.
The second great quintet was where Hancock found his own voice as a pianist. Not only did he find new ways to use common chords, but he also popularized chords that had not previously been used in jazz. Hancock also developed a unique taste for "orchestral" accompaniment – using quartal harmony and Debussy-like harmonies, with stark contrasts then unheard of in jazz. With Williams and Carter he wove a labyrinth of rhythmic intricacy on, around and over existing melodic and chordal schemes. In the later half of the sixties their approach became so sophisticated and unorthodox that conventional chord changes would hardly be discernible; hence their improvisational concept would become known as "Time, No Changes".
While in the Davis' band, Hancock also found time to record dozens of sessions for the Blue Note label, both under his own name and as a sideman with other musicians such as Wayne Shorter, Tony Williams, Grant Green, Bobby Hutcherson, Sam Rivers, Donald Byrd, Kenny Dorham, Hank Mobley, Lee Morgan and Freddie Hubbard.
His albums ''Empyrean Isles'' (1964) and ''Maiden Voyage'' (1965) were to be two of the most famous and influential jazz LPs of the sixties, winning praise for both their innovation and accessibility (the latter demonstrated by the subsequent enormous popularity of the ''Maiden Voyage'' title track as a jazz standard, and by the jazz rap group US3 having a hit single with "Cantaloop" (derived from "Cantaloupe Island" on ''Empyrean Isles'') some twenty five years later). ''Empyrean Isles'' featured the Davis rhythm section of Hancock, Carter and Williams with the addition of Freddie Hubbard on cornet, while ''Maiden Voyage'' also added former Davis saxophonist George Coleman (with Hubbard remaining on trumpet). Both albums are regarded as among the principal foundations of the post-bop style. Hancock also recorded several less-well-known but still critically acclaimed albums with larger ensembles – ''My Point of View'' (1963), ''Speak Like a Child'' (1968) and ''The Prisoner'' (1969) featured flugelhorn, alto flute and bass trombone. 1963's ''Inventions and Dimensions'' was an album of almost entirely improvised music, teaming Hancock with bassist Paul Chambers and two Latin percussionists, Willie Bobo and Osvaldo Martinez.
During this period, Hancock also composed the score to Michelangelo Antonioni's film ''Blowup'', the first of many soundtracks he recorded in his career.
Davis had begun incorporating elements of rock and popular music into his recordings by the end of Hancock's tenure with the band. Despite some initial reluctance, Hancock began doubling on electric keyboards including the Fender Rhodes electric piano at Davis's insistence. Hancock adapted quickly to the new instruments, which proved to be instrumental in his future artistic endeavors.
Under the pretext that he had returned late from a honeymoon in Brazil, Hancock was dismissed from Davis's band. In the summer of 1968 Hancock formed his own sextet. However, although Davis soon disbanded his quintet to search for a new sound, Hancock, despite his departure from the working band, continued to appear on Miles Davis records for the next few years. Noteworthy appearances include ''In a Silent Way'', ''A Tribute to Jack Johnson'' and ''On the Corner''.
Hancock became fascinated with accumulating musical gadgets and toys. Together with the profound influence of Davis's ''Bitches Brew'', this fascination would culminate in a series of albums in which electronic instruments are coupled with acoustic instruments.
Hancock's first ventures into electronic music started with a sextet comprising Hancock, bassist Buster Williams and drummer Billy Hart, and a trio of horn players: Eddie Henderson (trumpet), Julian Priester (trombone), and multireedist Bennie Maupin. Dr. Patrick Gleeson was eventually added to the mix to play and program the synthesizers. In fact, Hancock was one of the first jazz pianists to completely embrace electronic keyboards.
The sextet, later a septet with the addition of Gleeson, made three experimental albums under Hancock's name: ''Mwandishi'' (1971), ''Crossings'' (1972) (both on Warner Bros. Records), and ''Sextant'' (1973) (released on Columbia Records); two more, '' Realization'' and ''Inside Out'', were recorded under Henderson's name with essentially the same personnel. The music often had very free improvisations and showed influence from the electronic music of some contemporary classical composers.
Synthesizer player Patrick Gleeson, one of the first musicians to play synthesizer on any jazz recording, introduced the instrument on ''Crossings'', released in 1972, one of a handful of influential electronic jazz/fusion recordings to feature synthesizer that same year. On ''Crossings'' (as well as on ''I Sing the Body Electric''), the synthesizer is used more as an improvisatory global orchestration device than as a strictly melodic instrument. This reflected Gleeson's (and Powell's) interest in contemporary European electronic music techniques and in the West Coast synthesis techniques of Morton Subotnick and other contemporaries, several of whom were resident at one time or another, as was Gleeson, at The Mills College Tape Music Center. An early review of ''Crossings'' in Downbeat magazine complained about the synthesizer, but a few years later the magazine noted in a cover story on Gleeson that he was "a pioneer" in the field of electronics in jazz. Gleeson used a modular Moog III for the recording of the album, but used an ARP 2600 synthesizer, and occasionally an ARP Soloist for the group's live performances. On ''Sextant'' Gleeson used the more compact ARP synthesizers instead of the larger Moog III for both studio and live performances. In the albums following ''The Crossings'', Hancock started to play synth himself and unlike Gleeson, he plays it as a melodical and rhythm instrument just like electric pianos.
Hancock's three records released in 1971–1973, became later known as the "Mwandishi" albums, so-called after a Swahili name Hancock sometimes used during this era (''Mwandishi'' is Swahili for ''writer''). The first two, including ''Fat Albert Rotunda'' were made available on the 2-CD set ''Mwandishi: the Complete Warner Bros. Recordings'', released in 1994, but are now sold as individual CD editions. Of the three electronic albums, ''Sextant'' is probably the most experimental since the Arp synthesizers are used extensively, and some advanced improvisation ("post-modal free impressionism") is found on the tracks "Hornets" and "Hidden Shadows" (which is in the meter 19/4). "Hornets" was later revised on the 2001 album ''Future2Future'' as "Virtual Hornets".
Among the instruments Hancock and Gleeson used were Fender Rhodes piano, ARP Odyssey, ARP 2600, ARP Pro Soloist Synthesizer, a Mellotron and the Moog synthesizer III.
All three Warner Bros. albums ''Fat Albert Rotunda'', ''Mwandishi'', and ''Crossings'', were remastered in 2001 and released in Europe but were not released in the U.S.A. as of June 2005. In the Winter of 2006–2007 a remastered edition of Crossings was announced and scheduled for release in the Spring.
After the sometimes "airy" and decidedly experimental "Mwandishi" albums, Hancock was eager to perform more "earthy" and "funky" music. The ''Mwandishi'' albums – though these days seen as respected early fusion recordings – had seen mixed reviews and poor sales, so it is probable that Hancock was motivated by financial concerns as well as artistic restlessness. Hancock was also bothered by the fact that many people did not understand avant-garde music. He explained that he loved funk music, especially Sly Stone's music, so he wanted to try to make funk himself.
He gathered a new band, which he called The Headhunters, keeping only Maupin from the sextet and adding bassist Paul Jackson, percussionist Bill Summers, and drummer Harvey Mason. The album ''Head Hunters'', released in 1973, was a major hit and crossed over to pop audiences, though it prompted criticism from some jazz fans. Head Hunters was recorded at Different Fur studios.
Despite charges of "selling out", Stephen Erlewine of ''Allmusic'' positively reviewed the album amongst other friendly critics, saying, "''Head Hunters'' still sounds fresh and vital three decades after its initial release, and its genre-bending proved vastly influential on not only jazz, but funk, soul, and hip-hop."
Mason was replaced by Mike Clark, and the band released a second album, ''Thrust'', the following year. (A live album from a Japan performance, consisting of compositions from those first two ''Head Hunters'' releases was released in 1975 as ''Flood''. The record has since been released on CD in Japan.) This was almost as well-received as its predecessor, if not attaining the same level of commercial success. The Headhunters made another successful album (called ''Survival of the Fittest'') without Hancock, while Hancock himself started to make even more commercial albums, often featuring members of the band, but no longer billed as The Headhunters. The Headhunters reunited with Hancock in 1998 for ''Return of the Headhunters'', and a version of the band (featuring Jackson and Clark) continues to play live and record.
In 1973, Hancock composed his second masterful soundtrack to the controversial film ''The Spook Who Sat By The Door''. Then in 1974, Hancock also composed the soundtrack to the first ''Death Wish'' film. One of his memorable songs, "Joanna's Theme", would later be re-recorded in 1997 on his duet album with Wayne Shorter ''1 + 1''.
Hancock's next jazz-funk albums of the 1970s were ''Man-Child'' (1975), and ''Secrets'' (1976), which point toward the more commercial direction Hancock would take over the next decade. These albums feature the members of the 'Headhunters' band, but also a variety of other musicians in important roles.
In 1978, Hancock recorded a duet with Chick Corea, who had replaced him in the Miles Davis band a decade earlier. He also released a solo acoustic piano album titled ''The Piano'' (1978), which, like so many Hancock albums at the time, was initially released only in Japan. (It was finally released in the US in 2004.) Several other Japan-only releases have yet to surface in the US, such as ''Dedication'' (1974), ''VSOP: Tempest in the Colosseum'' (1977), and ''Direct Step'' (1978). ''Live Under the Sky'' was a VSOP album remastered for the US in 2004, and included an entire second concert from the July 1979 tour.
From 1978–1982, Hancock recorded many albums consisting of jazz-inflected disco and pop music, beginning with ''Sunlight'' (featuring guest musicians like Tony Williams and Jaco Pastorius on the last track) (1978). Singing through a vocoder, he earned a British hit, "I Thought It Was You", although critics were unimpressed. This led to more vocoder on the 1979 follow-up, ''Feets, Don't Fail Me Now'', which gave him another UK hit in "You Bet Your Love". The video won five different categories at the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards. This single ushered in a collaboration with noted bassist and producer Bill Laswell. Hancock experimented with electronic music on a string of three LPs produced by Laswell: ''Future Shock'' (1983), ''Sound-System'' (1984) and ''Perfect Machine'' (1988). Despite the success of "Rockit", Hancock's trio of Laswell-produced albums (particularly the latter two) are among the most critically derided of his entire career, perhaps even more so than his erstwhile pop-jazz experiments. Hancock's level of actual contribution to these albums was also questioned, with some critics contending that the Laswell albums should have been labelled "Bill Laswell featuring Herbie Hancock".
During this period, he appeared onstage at the Grammy awards with Stevie Wonder, Howard Jones, and Thomas Dolby, in a famous synthesizer jam (The video on Youtube can be found here.). Lesser known works from the 80s are the live album ''Jazz Africa'' and the studio album ''Village Life'' (1984) which were recorded with Gambian kora player Foday Musa Suso. Also, in 1985 he performed as a guest on the album So Red The Rose by the Duran Duran shoot off group Arcadia. He also provided introductory and closing comments for the PBS rebroadcast in the United States of the BBC educational series from the mid-1980s, ''Rockschool'' (not to be confused with the most recent ''Gene Simmons' Rock School'' series).
In 1986, Hancock performed and acted in the film '''Round Midnight''. He also wrote the score/soundtrack, for which he won an Academy Award for Original Music Score. Often he would write music for TV commercials. "Maiden Voyage", in fact, started out as a cologne advertisement. At the end of the ''Perfect Machine'' tour, Hancock decided to leave Columbia Records after a 15-plus-year relationship.
As of June 2005, almost half of his Columbia recordings have been remastered. The first three US releases, ''Sextant'', ''Head Hunters'' and ''Thrust'' as well as the last four releases ''Future Shock'', ''Sound-System'', the soundtrack to ''Round Midnight'' and ''Perfect Machine''. Everything released in America from ''Man-Child'' to ''Quartet'' has yet to be remastered. Some albums, made and initially released in the US, were remastered between 1999 and 2001 in other countries such as ''Magic Windows'' and ''Monster''. Hancock also re-released some of his Japan-only releases in the West, such as ''The Piano.''
Hancock's next album, ''Dis Is Da Drum'' released in 1994 saw him return to Acid Jazz. Also in 1994, Hancock appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation album, Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool. The album, meant to raise awareness and funds in support of the AIDS epidemic in relation to the African American community, was heralded as "Album of the Year" by Time Magazine.
1995's ''The New Standard'' found him and an all-star band including John Scofield, Jack DeJohnette and Michael Brecker interpreting pop songs by Nirvana, Stevie Wonder, The Beatles, Prince, Peter Gabriel and others. A 1997 duet album with Wayne Shorter titled ''1 + 1'' was successful, the song "Aung San Suu Kyi" winning the Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition, and Hancock also achieved great success in 1998 with his album ''Gershwin's World'' which featured inventive readings of George & Ira Gershwin standards by Hancock and a plethora of guest stars including Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell and Shorter. Hancock toured the world in the support of ''Gershwin's World'' with a sextet that featured Cyro Baptista, Terri Lynne Carrington, Ira Coleman, Eli Degibri and Eddie Henderson.
In 2001, Hancock recorded ''Future2Future'', which reunited Hancock with Bill Laswell and featured doses of electronica as well as turntablist Rob Swift of The X-Ecutioners. Hancock later toured with the band, and released a live concert DVD with a different lineup which also included the "Rockit" music video. Also in 2001, Hancock partnered with Michael Brecker and Roy Hargrove to record a live concert album saluting Davis and John Coltrane called ''Directions in Music: Live at Massey Hall'' recorded live in Toronto. The threesome toured t support the album, and have toured on and off through 2005.
2005 saw the release of a duet album called ''Possibilities''. It features duets with Carlos Santana, Paul Simon, Annie Lennox, John Mayer, Christina Aguilera, Sting and others. In 2006, ''Possibilities'' was nominated for Grammy awards in two categories: "A Song For You", featuring Christina Aguilera was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance, and "Gelo No Montanha", featuring Trey Anastasio on guitar was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Performance. Neither nomination resulted in an award.
Also in 2005, Hancock toured Europe with a new quartet that included Beninese guitarist Lionel Loueke, and explored textures ranging from ambient to straight jazz to African music. Plus, during the Summer of 2005, Hancock re-staffed the famous Head Hunters and went on tour with them, including a performance at The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival.
However, this lineup did not consist of any of the original Headhunters musicians. The group included Marcus Miller, Terri Lyne Carrington, Lionel Loueke and John Mayer. Hancock also served as the first artist in residence for Bonnaroo that summer.
Also in 2006, Sony BMG Music Entertainment (which bought out Hancock's old label, Columbia Records) released the two-disc retrospective ''The Essential Herbie Hancock''. This two-disc set is the first compilation of Herbie's work at Warner Bros. Records, Blue Note Records, Columbia and at Verve/Polygram. This became Hancock's second major compilation of work since the 2002 Columbia-only "The Herbie Hancock Box" which was released at first in a plastic 4x4 cube then re-released in 2004 in a long box set. Hancock also in 2006, recorded a new song with Josh Groban and Eric Mouquet (co-founder of Deep Forest) titled "Machine". It is featured on Josh Groban's CD "Awake". Hancock also recorded and improvised with guitarist Lionel Loueke on Loueke's debut album Virgin Forest on the ObliqSound label in 2006, resulting in two improvisational tracks "Le Réveil des Agneaux (The Awakening of the Lambs)" and "La Poursuite du lion (The Lion's Pursuit)".
Hancock, a longtime associate and friend of Joni Mitchell released a 2007 album, ''River: The Joni Letters'', that paid tribute to her work. Norah Jones and Tina Turner recorded vocals, as did Corinne Bailey Rae, and Leonard Cohen contributed a spoken piece set to Hancock's piano. Mitchell herself also made an appearance. The album was released on September 25, simultaneously with the release of Mitchell's album ''Shine''. "River" was nominated for and won the 2008 Album of the Year Grammy Award, only the second jazz album ever to receive either honor. The album also won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Jazz Album, and the song "Both Sides Now" was nominated for Best Instrumental Jazz Solo.
Recently Hancock performed at the Shriner's Children's Hospital Charity Fundraiser with Sheila E, Jim Brickman, Kirk Whalum and Wendy Alane Wright.
His latest work includes assisting the production of the Kanye West track "RoboCop", found on 808s & Heartbreak.
On June 14, 2008, Hancock performed at Rhythm on the Vine at the South Coast Winery in Temecula, California for Shriners Hospital for Children. Other performers at the event, that raised $515,000 for Shriners Hospital, were contemporary music artist Jim Brickman, and Sheila E. & the E. Family Band.
On January 18, 2009, Hancock performed at the We Are One concert, marking the start of inaugural celebrations for American President Barack Obama. Hancock also performed the Rhapsody in Blue at the 2009 Classical BRIT Awards with classical pianist Lang Lang. Hancock was named as the Los Angeles Philharmonic's creative chair for jazz for 2010–12. In June 2010, Hancock released his newest album, ''The Imagine Project''.
On June 5, 2010, Hancock received an Alumni Award from his alma mater, Grinnell College.
Category:1940 births Category:20th-century classical composers Category:African American songwriters Category:American Buddhists Category:American funk keyboardists Category:American jazz bandleaders Category:American jazz composers Category:American jazz pianists Category:Musicians from Chicago, Illinois Category:Best Original Music Score Academy Award winners Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Grinnell College alumni Category:Hard bop pianists Category:Jazz fusion pianists Category:Jazz-funk pianists Category:Living people Category:Miles Davis Category:Blue Note Records artists Category:Modal jazz pianists Category:Post-bop pianists Category:Converts to Buddhism Category:Members of Soka Gakkai Category:Keytarists
an:Herbie Hancock bn:হার্বি হ্যানকক ca:Herbie Hancock cs:Herbie Hancock da:Herbie Hancock de:Herbie Hancock es:Herbie Hancock eo:Herbie Hancock fr:Herbie Hancock gl:Herbie Hancock io:Herbie Hancock id:Herbie Hancock it:Herbie Hancock he:הרבי הנקוק ka:ჰერბი ჰენკოკი hu:Herbie Hancock nl:Herbie Hancock ja:ハービー・ハンコック no:Herbie Hancock oc:Herbie Hancock nds:Herbie Hancock pl:Herbie Hancock pt:Herbie Hancock ru:Хэнкок, Херби sk:Herbie Hancock fi:Herbie Hancock sv:Herbie Hancock th:เฮอร์บี แฮนค็อก tr:Herbie Hancock uk:Гербі ГенкокThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
name | Wayne Shorter |
---|---|
background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
born | August 25, 1933Newark, New Jersey, United States |
instrument | Saxophone |
genre | Modal jazz, crossover jazz, post-bop, hard bop, jazz fusion |
occupation | Musician, composer |
years active | 1959–present |
label | Blue Note, Columbia, Verve |
associated acts | Art Blakey, Miles Davis, Weather Report |
notable instruments | }} |
Wayne Shorter (born August 25, 1933) is an American jazz saxophonist and composer, commonly regarded as one of the most important American jazz musicians of his generation. He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer. Shorter's output within the field has earned worldwide recognition, critical praise and various commendations, including multiple Grammy Awards. The virtuoso has recorded over 20 albums as a leader, and appeared on dozens more with others including Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers in the late 1950s, Miles Davis's second great quintet in the 1960s and the jazz fusion band Weather Report, which Shorter co-led in the 1970s. Many of his compositions have become standards.
In 1959, Shorter joined Art Blakey. He stayed with Blakey for five years, and eventually became musical director for the group.
Miles' so-called "second great quintet" (to distinguish it from the quintet with Coltrane) that included Hancock and Shorter has frequently been cited by musicians and critics as one of the most influential groups in the history of jazz, and Shorter's compositions are a primary reason for the group's unique sound. Shorter composed extensively for Miles Davis (e.g. "Prince of Darkness", "E.S.P.", "Footprints", "Sanctuary", "Nefertiti", and many others); on some albums, he provided half of the compositions, typically hard-bop workouts with spaced-out long melody lines above the beat.
Herbie Hancock said of Shorter's tenure in the group, "The master writer to me, in that group, was Wayne Shorter. He still is a master. Wayne was one of the few people who brought music to Miles that didn't get changed." Davis said, "Wayne is a real composer. He writes scores, write the parts for everybody just as he wants them to sound... Wayne also brought in a kind of curiosity about working with musical rules. If they didn't work, then he broke them, but with musical sense; he understood that freedom in music was the ability to know the rules in order to bend them to your own satisfaction and taste."
Shorter remained in Davis's band after the breakup of the quintet in 1968, playing on early jazz fusion recordings including ''In a Silent Way'' and ''Bitches Brew'' (both 1969). His last live dates and studio recordings with Davis were in 1970.
Until 1968, he played tenor saxophone exclusively. The final album on which he played tenor in the regular sequence of Davis albums was ''Filles de Kilimanjaro''. In 1969, he played the soprano saxophone on the Davis album ''In a Silent Way'' and on his own ''Super Nova'' (recorded with then-current Davis sidemen Chick Corea and John McLaughlin). When performing live with Miles Davis, recordings from summer 1969 to early spring 1970 he played both soprano and tenor saxophones. By the early 1970s, however, he chiefly played soprano saxophone.
''JuJu'' and ''Speak No Evil'' are well known recordings from this era. Shorter's compositions on these albums are notable for their use of:
The later album ''The All Seeing Eye'' was a free-jazz workout with a larger group, while ''Adam's Apple'' of 1966 was back to carefully constructed melodies by Shorter leading a quartet. Then a sextet again in the following year for ''Schizophrenia'' with his Miles Davis band mates Hancock and Carter plus trombonist Curtis Fuller, alto saxophonist/flautist James Spaulding and strong rhythms by drummer Joe Chambers. These albums have recently been remastered by Rudy Van Gelder.
Shorter also recorded occasionally as a sideman (again, mainly for Blue Note) with Donald Byrd, McCoy Tyner, Grachan Moncur III, Freddie Hubbard, Lee Morgan, and bandmates Hancock and Williams.
On the title track of Steely Dan's 1977 album ''Aja'', he played a solo that moved the critic writing the album's liner notes to the point that he called it "suitable for framing" (meaning 'beautiful' rather than 'wooden').
Concurrently, in the late 1970s and the early 1980s, he toured in the V.S.O.P. quintet. This group was a revival of the 1960s Miles Davis quintet, except that Freddie Hubbard filled the trumpet chair instead of Miles. Shorter appeared with the same former Davis bandmates on the Carlos Santana double LP ''The Swing of Delight'', for which he also composed a number of pieces.
From 1977 through 2002, he appeared on ten Joni Mitchell studio albums, gaining him a wider audience.
In 1995, Shorter released the album ''High Life'', his first solo recording for seven years. It was also Shorter's debut as a leader for Verve Records. Shorter composed all the compositions on the album and co-produced it with the bassist Marcus Miller. ''High Life'' received the Grammy Award for best Contemporary Jazz Album in 1997.
Shorter would work with Hancock once again in 1997, on the much acclaimed and heralded album ''1+1''. The song "Aung San Suu Kyi" (named for the Burmese pro-democracy activist) won both Hancock and Shorter a Grammy Award.
In 2009, he was announced as one of the headline acts at the Gnaoua World Music Festival in Essaouira, Morocco.
Shorter's 2003 album ''Alegría'' (his first studio album for ten years, since ''High Life'') received the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Jazz Album; it features the quartet with a host of other musicians, including pianist Brad Mehldau, drummer Terri Lyne Carrington and former Weather Report percussionist Alex Acuña. Shorter's compositions, some new, some reworked from his Miles Davis period, feature the complex Latin rhythms that Shorter specialised in during his Weather Report days.
Shorter met Ana Maria in 1964 and they were married in 1970. In 1986, their daughter Iska died of a grand mal seizure at age 14. Ana Maria and the couple's niece Dalila were both killed in 1996 on TWA Flight 800 while en route to see him in Italy. Shorter married Carolina Dos Santos, a close friend of Ana Maria, in 1999. He is a Nichiren Buddhist and a member of Sōka Gakkai.
Category:Jazz composers Category:Modal jazz saxophonists Category:Crossover jazz saxophonists Category:Jazz fusion saxophonists Category:Hard bop saxophonists Category:Post-bop saxophonists Category:Jazz tenor saxophonists Category:American jazz composers Category:American jazz saxophonists Category:American jazz soprano saxophonists Category:American jazz tenor saxophonists Category:American composers Category:American saxophonists Category:African American musicians Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Miles Davis Category:People from Newark, New Jersey Category:American Buddhists Category:Members of Soka Gakkai Category:1933 births Category:Living people Category:Blue Note Records artists Category:Vee-Jay Records artists Category:Weather Report members
cs:Wayne Shorter da:Wayne Shorter de:Wayne Shorter es:Wayne Shorter eo:Wayne Shorter fr:Wayne Shorter id:Wayne Shorter it:Wayne Shorter he:ויין שורטר hu:Wayne Shorter nl:Wayne Shorter ja:ウェイン・ショーター no:Wayne Shorter pl:Wayne Shorter pt:Wayne Shorter sc:Wayne Shorter fi:Wayne Shorter sv:Wayne ShorterThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
name | Ron Carter |
---|---|
landscape | yes |
background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
birth date | May 04, 1937 |
origin | Ferndale, Michigan, U.S. |
instrument | Double bassCello, Piccolo bass |
genre | Orchestral jazzMainstream jazzThird Stream |
occupation | ProfessorClinicianJazz musician |
years active | 1960–present |
notable instruments | }} |
His first jobs as a jazz musician were with Jaki Byard and Chico Hamilton. His first records were made with Eric Dolphy (another former member of Hamilton's group) and Don Ellis, in 1960. His own first date as leader, ''Where?'', with Dolphy and Mal Waldron and a date also with Dolphy called ''Out There'' with George Duvivier and Roy Haynes and Carter on cello; its advanced harmonies and concepts were in step with the third stream movement.
Carter came to fame via the second great Miles Davis quintet in the early 1960s, which also included Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter and Tony Williams. Carter joined Davis's group in 1963, appearing on the album ''Seven Steps to Heaven'' and the follow-up ''E.S.P.'', the latter being the first album to feature only the full quintet. It also featured three of Carter's compositions (the only time he contributed compositions to Davis's group). He stayed with Davis until 1968 (when he was replaced by Dave Holland), and participated in a couple of studio sessions with Davis in 1969 and 1970. Although he played electric bass occasionally during this period, he has subsequently eschewed that instrument entirely, and now plays only acoustic bass. Carter was close to Davis and even revealed to an interviewer in 1966 that the famous trumpeter's favorite color was fuchsia.
Carter also performed on some of Hancock, Williams and Shorter's recordings during the sixties for Blue Note Records. He was a sideman on many Blue Note recordings of the era, playing with Sam Rivers, Freddie Hubbard, Duke Pearson, Lee Morgan, McCoy Tyner, Andrew Hill, Horace Silver and others.
After leaving Davis, Carter was for several years a mainstay of CTI Records, making albums under his own name and also appearing on many of the label's records with a diverse range of other musicians. Notable musical partnerships in the 70's and 80's included Joe Henderson, Houston Person, Hank Jones, and Cedar Walton. During the 1970s he was a member of the New York Jazz Quartet.
He appears on the alternative hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest's influential album ''The Low End Theory'' on a track called "Verses from the Abstract". He also appears as a member of the jazz combo the Classical Jazz Quartet.
In 1994, Carter appeared on the Red Hot Organization's compilation album, ''Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool''. The album, meant to raise awareness and funds in support of the AIDS epidemic in relation to the African American community, was heralded as "Album of the Year" by Time Magazine. In 2001, Carter collaborated with Black Star and John Patton to record "Money Jungle" for the Red Hot Organization's compilation album, ''Red Hot + Indigo'', a tribute to Duke Ellington.
Carter was Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the Music Department of The City College of New York, having taught there for twenty years, and received an honorary Doctorate from the Berklee College of Music, in Spring 2004. He joined the faculty of the Juilliard School in New York City in 2008, teaching bass in the school's Jazz Studies program.
Carter made a notable appearance in Robert Altman's 1996 film Kansas City. The end credits feature him and fellow bassist Christian McBride duetting on Solitude.
Ron Carter sits on the ''Advisory Committee'' of the Board of Directors of The Jazz Foundation of America as well as the ''Honorary Founder's Committee''. Ron has worked with the Jazz Foundation since its inception to save the homes and the lives of America's elderly jazz and blues musicians including musicians that survived Hurricane Katrina.
Carter appeared as himself in an episode of the HBO series Treme entitled "What Is New Orleans."
With Tadd Dameron
With Miles Davis
With Herbie Hancock
With Horace Silver
With Charles Tolliver
With McCoy Tyner
With others
Category:African American musicians Category:American jazz double-bassists Category:City College of New York faculty Category:Eastman School of Music alumni Category:Grammy Award winners Category:Hard bop double-bassists Category:Mainstream jazz double-bassists Category:Manhattan School of Music alumni Category:Miles Davis Category:Musicians from Detroit, Michigan Category:New York Jazz Quartet members Category:Orchestral jazz double-bassists Category:People from Oakland County, Michigan Category:Post-bop double-bassists Category:Third Stream double-bassists Category:1937 births Category:Living people Category:Blue Note Records artists Category:Verve Records artists Category:Prestige Records artists Category:Milestone Records artists
da:Ron Carter de:Ron Carter es:Ron Carter eo:Ron Carter fr:Ron Carter it:Ron Carter he:רון קרטר hu:Ron Carter nl:Ron Carter ja:ロン・カーター pl:Ron Carter pt:Ron Carter fi:Ron Carter sv:Ron CarterThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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