- published: 12 Feb 2007
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Billy Higgins (October 11, 1936 – May 3, 2001) was an American jazz drummer. He played mainly free jazz and hard bop.
Higgins was born in Los Angeles, California. Higgins played on Ornette Coleman's first records, beginning in 1958. He then freelanced extensively with hard bop and other post-bop players, including Donald Byrd, Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, Milt Jackson, Jackie McLean, Pat Metheny, Hank Mobley, Thelonious Monk, Lee Morgan, David Murray, Art Pepper, Sonny Rollins, Mal Waldron, and Cedar Walton. He was one of the house drummers for Blue Note Records and played on dozens of Blue Note albums of the 1960s.
On a whole, he played on over 700 recordings, including recordings of rock and funk. He appeared as a jazz drummer in the 2001 movie Southlander.
In 1989, Higgins cofounded a cultural center, The World Stage, in Los Angeles to encourage and promote younger jazz musicians. The center provides workshops in performance and writing, as well as concerts and recordings. Higgins also taught in the jazz studies program at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Willis Robert "Billy" Drummond, Jr. (b. Newport News, Virginia, June 19, 1959) is an American jazz drummer.
Drummond learned jazz from an early age from his father, who was a drummer and a jazz enthusiast and whose record collection included many recordings of Miles Davis, Art Blakey, Max Roach, Buddy Rich and Elvin Jones, among others. He played in bands from age eight and studied at Shenandoah Conservatory. He moved to New York at the behest of Al Foster in 1986 and shortly thereafter joined the Blue Note band, Out of the Blue (OTB) with whom he recorded their last CD. He subsequently joined the Horace Silver sextet, with whom he toured extensively. He is currently a long-time member of Carla Bley's Lost Chords Quartet. He has played and recorded with Nat Adderley, Ralph Moore (1989 and subsequently), Buster Williams (1990–93), Charles Tolliver (1991), Lew Tabackin and Toshiko Akiyoshi, Hank Jones (1991), James Moody (early 1990s), Sonny Rollins (1994–95), Andy LaVerne (1994), Lee Konitz (1995), Dave Stryker (1996), George Colligan (1997), Ted Rosenthal, Bruce Barth, Andrew Hill (from 1997–2000), Larry Willis (2006 to the present), Toots Thielmans, and Freddie Hubbard (mid-1990s). Influences include Tony Williams, Max Roach, Philly Joe Jones, Al Foster, Jack DeJohnette, and Billy Hart, among others. He also leads a New York-based band called Freedom of Ideas. In addition to touring he is currently Professor of Jazz Drums at the Juilliard School of Music and NYU in New York.
John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz. He organized at least fifty recording sessions as a leader during his recording career, and appeared as a sideman on many other albums, notably with trumpeter Miles Davis and pianist Thelonious Monk.
As his career progressed, Coltrane and his music took on an increasingly spiritual dimension. His second wife was pianist Alice Coltrane, and their son Ravi Coltrane is also a saxophonist. Coltrane influenced innumerable musicians, and remains one of the most significant tenor saxophonists in jazz history. He received many posthumous awards and recognitions, including canonization by the African Orthodox Church as Saint John William Coltrane. In 2007, Coltrane was awarded the Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for his "masterful improvisation, supreme musicianship and iconic centrality to the history of jazz."
Actors: Richard Lane (actor), Eddie Dunn (actor), Eddie Acuff (actor), Berton Churchill (actor), Kernan Cripps (actor), Samuel S. Hinds (actor), Tommy Bupp (actor), Billy Engle (actor), Martin Faust (actor), Eddie Fetherston (actor), Dick Foran (actor), John Gallaudet (actor), Jack Gardner (actor), Charley Grapewin (actor), Russ Powell (actor),
Genres: Drama,