JAM 2010: 156 Artists for a New Jazz Experience (Part X)
April 14, 2010 at 6:00 AM Good morning! This series is winding down ~ there are only two more parts left of the "JAM 2010: 156 Artists for a New Jazz Experience".
If there is any musician, group or vocalist that you'd like to see an individual blog post about, please let me know. Contact me either via a DM on Twitter (I'm @ElementsOfJazz) or through the contact form here on the website. Thank you. 
Today I'd like to share some information with you about drummers Roy Haynes and Scott McLemore; saxophonists Rudresh Mahanthappa and Shannon Mowday; Mack Avenue recording artists Sachal Vasandani and Sean Jones; vibraphonist Stefon Harris, and groups - The Seatbelts and Soil & "Pimp" Sessions.
Enjoy ~
1. (118) Roy Haynes (born March 13, 1925 in the Roxbury section of Boston, MA) is a drummer and bandleader.
Haynes is one of the most recorded drummers in jazz and in his over 60-year career has played in a wide range of styles ranging from swing and bebop to jazz fusion and avant-garde jazz. He has a highly expressive, personal style ("Snap Crackle" was a nickname given him in the 1950s) and is known to foster a deep engagement in his bandmates.
One of the few jazz musicians alive today whose roots touch the origins of jazz itself, the drum legend has been “hard swinging” since 1942, when he made his professional debut at the age of seventeen in his native Boston.
In the last sixty years, Roy Owen Haynes has shaped some of the most important recordings in Jazz history, transforming the role of the percussionist from timekeeper to front-line collaborator.
2. (119) New York City based alto saxophonist and composer Rudresh Mahanthappa was born in Trieste, Italy (1971).
Guggenheim fellow and 2009 Downbeat International Critics Poll Winner (“Rising Star-Jazz Artist” and “Rising Star-Alto Saxophone”) Mahanthappa is one of the most innovative musicians and composers in jazz today. Named Alto Saxophonist of the Year for 2009 by the Jazz Journalist Association, Rudresh has incorporated the culture of his Indian ancestry and has fused myriad influences to create a truly groundbreaking artistic vision.
As a performer, he leads/co-leads seven groups to critical acclaim. His recent release for Pi Recordings Kinsmen featuring Carnatic saxophone legend Kadri Gopalnath (September 25, 2008) was named one of the Top Jazz CDs of 2008 by over 20 news sources including the New York Times, NPR, BBC, Boston Globe, slate.com, JazzTimes, and the Village Voice to name just a few.
3. (120) Signed to Mack Avenue Records in 2006, vocalist Sachal Vasandani was born in Chicago and grew up in a household where all kinds of music were appreciated. His parents listened to a variety of jazz, from Duke Ellington to Keith Jarrett, which piqued his curiosity.
In pursuing his love for music at the University of Michigan, he began to be recognized as a talent of the future, most notably by DownBeat magazine, which awarded him Collegiate Jazz Vocalist of the year in 1999.
After moving to New York, Vasandani quickly became a part of the jazz scene, and made a musical home in storied clubs like the Zinc Bar. He was also tapped for a number of guest performances and recordings, notably by the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis, Wycliffe Gordon, Eric Reed, T.S. Monk, and countless other peer and mentor musicians.
4. (121) Vocalist Sara Gazarek was born in Seattle. As a senior in high school, she was awarded the first ever Ella Fitzgerald Charitable Foundation Outstanding Jazz Vocalist Award in NYC.
In 2000, she moved to Los Angeles to attend the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California. She would go on to win the Downbeat Student Music Award for Best Collegiate Vocalist in 2003. Gazarek released her first album, "Yours
5. (122) Scott McLemore (b. Feb. 1, 1973 Norfolk, VA) is a drummer based in Reykjavik, Iceland. He began playing music professionally at age 16 with a rock band in high school. Scott joined the rock/funk band Ant Man Bee in 1990 with which he recorded an album and toured the east coast playing the college circuit.
He attended Old Dominion University 1992-93 where he studied jazz performance and composition. In 1993 Scott transfered to William Paterson College and started playing jazz professionally in nearby New York City.
In 1997, he moved to New York where he lived for 8 years and played with such talented musicians as: Sunna Gunnlaugs, Ben Monder, Michael Kanan, Tony Malaby, Angelica Sanchez, David Berkman, Chris Cheek, George Colligan, Kerry Politzer, Mark Helias, and Tim Berne.
His work as a leader has resulted in a recording with Tony Malaby, Ben Monder and Ben Street called "Found Music
6. (123) Scott Tixier (born February 26, 1986, Montreuil, France) is a violinist. He studied classical violin at Conservatoire de Paris. Following that he studied Jazz music under Florin Niculescu.
Tixier has worked in many genres, in the theater, music scores and Hip Hop music, with people like: Pierre Palmade, Pierre Arditi, Alban Capello.
Over the last five years, Scott was invited to several master classes with some of the finest jazz musicians, including: McCoy Tyner, Steve Coleman...
In 2007, he was awarded the first prize of "Trophées du Sunside", one of the most important award for a young jazz musician in France.
7. (124) The Seatbelts (シートベルツ Shītoberutsu, also known as Seat Belts or SEATBELTS) was a Japanese blues/jazz band led by composer and instrumentalist Yoko Kanno.
The band performed the whole soundtrack of the anime series Cowboy Bebop Remix Complete Collection (Anime Legends)
Since the band was focused mostly on instrumental work, The Seatbelts had no lead singer. However, Steve Conte (from The Contes and Crown Jewels) and Mai Yamane participated and sang on many of their songs. The lyrics of these songs were written mainly by Tim Jensen and Yoko Kanno herself. Singers Soichiro Otsuka and Gabriela Robin (rumored to be a pseudonym for Kanno) were responsible for the backing vocals on songs such as "Blue".
After a few years in hibernation, The Seatbelts regrouped in 2004 to perform the soundtrack for the second Cowboy Bebop video game, which is currently available in Japan. They all disbanded once they released the last album.
There are a lot of well-known musicians who played on these tracks like Joshua Redman, Nicholas Payton, Peter Bernstein, Stanley Clarke, Al Foster, James Carter and many others in that group. Paris musicians include guitarist, Pierre Bensusan and six percussionists.
8. (125) Trumpeter Sean Jones was born in Warren, OH. He is a firebrand musician with a bent toward muscular post-bop. Jones has been the lead trumpet on the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra under the direction of Wynton Marsalis. Currently, he is a Professor of Music at Duquesne University and the interim Artist Director of the Cleveland Jazz Orchestra.
9. (126) Shannon Mowday is acknowledged internationally as a gifted saxophone player. She is also an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, covering the range of the woodwind family as well as piano. Additionally, Mowday is an accomplished composer, arranger and lyricist as well as being an experienced and passionate educator. She is known as an extremely adept and versatile musician, having performed in a variety of styles which include: performances as soloist with a symphonic orchestra and live recordings as part of a classical saxophone quartet.
10. (127) Soil and "Pimp" Sessions is an energetic Japanese club jazz band that have started to receive international recognition.
The band's adrenalin-fuelled live sets started to create a buzz on the Tokyo live scene, and in 2003 they became the first unsigned band to perform at Japan's Fuji Rock Festival. They were well received there and in the following months record companies were scrambling to offer contracts. JVC Victor won the battle, and summer 2004 saw the release of the mini-album "Pimpin'".
The album was a critical and, for a jazz release, commercial success, and this together with constant touring paved the way for the release of their first full album, "Pimp Master" in early 2005. The album captures the sheer power of their live performances as well as higlighting their individual musical talents. Two tracks in particular, "Waltz For Goddess" and their cover of "A Wheel Within a Wheel", caught the attention of DJs abroad, they began to receive heavy air-play on Gilles Peterson's Worldwide radio program on BBC Radio 1 in the U.K.
11. (128) Soren Moller is a pianist and composer raised in a small town in Denmark. He began playing piano at the age of 8, learning both classical and jazz piano from local public school teachers in the community. At the age of 16, Moller was making a living as a piano teacher as well as an accompanist and had started taking lessons in jazz piano from some of Denmark most well known pianists.
At 19 he was admitted to the Rhythmic Music Conservatory in Copenhagen, Denmark. After graduation Soren Moller continued his studies at the Manhattan School of Music in New York. Here he studied with piano great Kenny Barron as well as Garry Dial and Fred Hersch as a Fulbright Scholarship recipient.
Together with trombone player Chris Washburne and saxophonist Ole Mathisen, he founded the NYNDK Jazz Collective. It is an ensemble that consists of established musicians from the Scandinavian and New York City jazz scenes.
12. (129) 2010 Grammy nominated vibraphonist Stefon Harris was born in 1973. In 1999, the Los Angeles Times called him "one of the most important young artists in jazz" who is "at the forefront of new New York music" and "much in demand as a star sideman". Harris has played with several jazz luminaries including Kenny Barron, Steve Turre, Kurt Elling, and Charlie Hunter, in addition to releasing several of his own critically well-regarded albums.
13. (130) Pianist Stefano Bollani was born in Milan, Italy (1972). He made his professional debut at fifteen and received his diploma in piano from the Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini in Florence. He performs classical music, smooth jazz, Brazilian jazz, and pop rock.
In 1998, Musica Jazz magazine voted him Best Jazz Talent of the Year and later he would be awarded for jazz by a New Swing group in Japan. Recently he attended the Jarasum Jazz festival in Jarasum, South Korea. While he is mostly known for his collaborations with Enrico Rava, he has made several albums as a leader, and has been favourably acknowledged by several long established jazz musicians, such as Martial Solal.