Dizzy's Club Coca Cola in New York City

 

Jazz at Lincoln Center Doho - Qatar


Jazz Alley in Seattle, WA

 

Blue Note Jazz Club - Tokyo, Japan

 

Dazzle Restaurant & Lounge in Denver, CO

 

Ronnie Scott's in London

 

 

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Wednesday
Apr072010

JAM 2010: 156 Artists for a New Jazz Experience (Part V)

Good morning! I didn't know if I'd be able to pull this post together today because of some offline sadness smiley icons but here it is.

This is Part V of my contribution to honor JAM (Jazz Appreciation Month) 2010. You'll find out a little background information about musicians such as Enoch Smith Jr, Eric Mingus, Etienne Charles, Frøy Aagre, Geri Allen, Hiromi Uehara, Ingrid Jensen, Jacky Terrasson and Esperanza Spalding.

Enjoy ~

1. (53) Pianist, composer, arranger Enoch Smith Jr. was born in Rochester, NY (1978). At the late age of 14, he began playing piano by ear at his church. This blossomed into a love affair that would prove lasting. By the age of 16, Enoch was determined to become a professional musician. With no formal piano instruction, he auditioned and was accepted to the Berklee College of Music. The rest, as they say, is history.

2. (54) Eric Mingus is a composer, film scorer, vocalist, poet and bassist like his father, Charles Mingus. Eric’s compositions range from blues and rock songs to haunting instrumental melodies and jazz inspired arrangements. This extraordinary broad range of styles is always clearly defined by his unique aesthetic sensibility.

3. (55) The Esbjorn Svensson Trio aka E.S.T. was formed in 1993. E.S.T. were renowned for their vibrant style, often playing in rock venues to young crowds. They achieved great commercial success and critical acclaim throughout Europe. Tragically, pianist Esbjorn Svensson died in a scuba diving accident in 2008.

4. (56) Esperanza Spalding is a bassist, singer. She was one of the youngest professors ever in history of Berklee College of Music when they hired her after graduation from college in 2005. In December 2009, Spalding performed in the Oslo City Hall in honor of the 2009 Laureate President Barack Obama. She was hand picked by Obama personally, as per the tradition of one laureate-invited-artist to perform.

5. (57)  As a musically precocious sixteen-year-old, Etienne Charles attended the summer performance program at Berklee College of Music where he studied with Lin Biviano and Tiger Okoshi.  Three years later, Etienne enrolled on a scholarship at the Florida State University, coming under the influence of the distinguished pianist and teacher Marcus Roberts, and graduated as the College of Music Brautlecht Scholar with a Bachelor of Arts degree in music.

 Etienne received a full scholarship to pursue his Master’s degree at the world-renowned Juilliard School of Music in New York City.  Fascinated with the New York City jazz scene, he began to freelance arduously around NYC. He has performed and recorded with greats in many different genres including Grammy Award winners Roberta Flack, Wynton Marsalis, Johnny Mandel, Ralph MacDonald, Maria Schneider, the Count Basie Orchestra as well as Marcus Roberts, Monty Alexander, Frank Foster, Wycliffe Gordon, Rene Marie, Lord Blakie and David Rudder.

His latest release is “Folklore”.

6. (58) Frøy Aagre is a saxophonist and bandleader from Norway. About her latest release “Circle of Silence”, the UK Vibe critic wrote, “The maturity of the compositions and the playing come across immediately and there is a story telling quality to Froy Aagre’s musicianship that belies her young years and sets her apart from her contemporaries.”

7. (59) Pianist and composer Gerald Clayton was born in Utrecht, Netherlands (1984) and raised in Southern California. He is the son of bassist/bandleader John Clayton and nephew of multi-instrumentalist wind player Jeff Clayton.

Clayton studied classical piano with Linda Buck for eleven years, starting at the age of seven, and jazz piano and composition with Donald Vega, Shelly Berg, Kenny Barron and Billy Childs. He graduated from Los Angeles County High School for the Arts in 2002. At graduation, he was selected by the Music for Youth Foundation as one of four young musicians to receive a scholarship and perform at Steinway Hall. In September, 2002, he received the Shelly Manne Award for emerging young artists from the Los Angeles Jazz Society. In 2006, he received the Bachelor of Arts degree through the Jazz Studies program at USC Thornton School of Music; a program that included his father as senior lecturer. He took second place in the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz Piano Competition.

In the winter of 2006–2007, Gerald Clayton moved to New York City where he currently resides.

8. (60) Geri Allen (born June 12, 1957 in Pontiac, Michigan) is a post bop jazz pianist, producer, and music educator from Detroit, Michigan, who has worked with many of the greats of modern jazz, including Dave Holland, Ron Carter, Ravi Coltrane, Tony Williams, Jack DeJohnette, Ornette Coleman, Betty Carter, Mary Stallings, and Charles Lloyd. She cites her primary influences to be Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock and Bill Evans.

9. (61) Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Greg Osby studied at Howard University, where he majored in Jazz Studies, and then at the Berklee College of Music, with Andy McGhee. He played on Jack DeJohnette's Special Edition, and has recorded with Steve Coleman, Jim Hall and Andrew Hill (setting the stage for Hill and Hall's later appearance on Osby's The Invisible Hand).

He began recording albums under his own name for JMT Records in the 1980s, but his most celebrated work has been a run of records for Blue Note. Like Coleman, Osby likes to discover fresh talent and give players a chance to grow within his own band: he was responsible for giving exposure to the young pianist Jason Moran, who appeared on most of Osby's 1990s albums (including the live album "Banned In New York" and an experiment with adding a string quartet to the band, "Symbols Of Light (A Solution)")

10. (62) Pianist, composer & bandleader Hiromi Uehara was born on 26 March 1979 in Hamamatsu, Japan.  She is known for her virtuosic technique, energetic live performances and blend of musical genres such as jazz, progressive rock, classical and fusion in her compositions.

11. (63)  Horace Silver began his career as a tenor saxophonist but later switched to piano. His tenor saxophone playing was highly influenced by Lester Young, and his piano style by Bud Powell. Silver was discovered in the Sundown Club in Hartford, Connecticut in 1950 by saxophonist Stan Getz. Getz was playing at the club with Silver’s trio backing him up. Getz liked Silver’s band and brought them on the road, eventually recording three of Silver’s compositions. It was with Getz that Silver made his recording debut.

His early influences included the styles of boogie-woogie and the blues. It includes but is not limited to Art Tatum, Teddy Wilson, Nat “King” Cole, and Thelonious Monk. He liked to quote other musicians within his own work and would often recreate famous solos in his original pieces as something of a tribute to the greats who influenced him. 

After Silver's long tenure with Blue Note ended, he continued to create vital music. The 1985 album, Continuity of Spirit (Silveto), features his unique orchestral collaborations. In the 1990s, Silver directly answered the urban popular music that had been largely built from his influence on It's Got To Be Funky (Columbia, 1993). Now living surrounded by a devoted family in California, Silver has received much of the recognition due a venerable jazz icon. In 2005, the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS) gave him its President's Merit Award. The SFJazz Collective will focus on Horace Silver's music for their 2010 season.

 

12. (64) Born in Vancouver and raised in Nanaimo, Canada, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen headed east after receiving a number of scholarships to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston. Since graduating in 1989, her life has contained a whirlwind of musical activities. From her early days playing in the subways of New York, to establishing herself as a leader and soloist in a wide array of musical genres, Ingrid has made her mark. Her three CDs for the ENJA label and her CD, "At Sea", won her nominations from the Canadian Juno Awards, including an award in 1995 for "Vernal Fields".

Her performances as a leader and as a featured soloist have taken her around the world from Canada to Japan, Australia, South America, the Caribbean and to almost every country in Europe and Scandinavia.

13. (65) Jacques-Laurent Terrasson (born on 27 November 1966 in Berlin) is a jazz pianist better known as Jacky Terrasson. He was born in Germany, but his mother was American and his father French. He studied at the Berklee College of Music before playing in Chicago and New York City clubs. He gained increased attention on winning the 1993 Thelonious Monk Piano Competition. He did early work with Betty Carter and in 1997 he worked on Rendezvous with Cassandra Wilson.

Reader Comments (2)

Oh no! I hope you are okay! Reading the first line of your post made me very concerned. I love all the individuals you have highlighted. I definitely will be listening to them all. You hang in there. My prayers go out to you! xo

April 7, 2010 | Unregistered Commenter2Serenity

Donna,

I wish you well through this sadness. If there is any way we can help, let us know.

Wow, this is the first part that I have read and I need to go read I-IV! Thank you for all the great information and vids. The more I learn, the more I crave to learn and you are wonderful to share it with us, Donna.

Please take care.

-Deborah E

April 7, 2010 | Unregistered CommenterDeborah E
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