Posts filed under ‘Musicians’
Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Learson Marsalis (born October 18, 1961) is an American jazz and Western classical trumpeter and composer. He is Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. He has promoted the appreciation of Classical and Jazz music, often focusing on young audiences.
As a Jazz performer and composer he has made display of his extensive knowledge about jazz and jazz history and for being a classical virtuoso. As of 2006, he has made sixteen classical and more than thirty jazz recordings, has been awarded nine Grammys in both genres, and was awarded the first Pulitzer Prize for Music for a jazz recording.
Life and career
Marsalis was born to Dolores (née Ferdinand) and Ellis Marsalis, Jr., a New Orleans-based music teacher and pianist. He is the second of six sons: Branford (1960), Wynton (1961), Ellis III (1964), Delfeayo (1965), Mboya Kinyatta (1971), and Jason (1977). Branford, Delfeayo, and Jason are also jazz musicians. Ellis is a poet, photographer and network engineer based in Baltimore. Mboya was born with autism.
Marsalis demonstrated an aptitude and interest for music as a youth. Al Hirt gave a six-year-old Marsalis his first trumpet. At age eight he performed traditional New Orleans music in the Fairview Baptist Church band led by banjoist, Danny Barker. At fourteen he was invited to perform with the New Orleans Philharmonic. During his high school years attending De La Salle High School, Marsalis was a member of the New Orleans Symphony Brass Quintet, New Orleans Community Concert Band, under the direction of Peter Dombourian, New Orleans Youth Orchestra, New Orleans Symphony and on weekends he performed in a jazz band as well as in the popular local funk band, the Creators.
Marsalis moved to New York City to attend the Juilliard School of Music in 1978. Two years later in 1980, he joined the Jazz Messengers to study under drummer and bandleader, Art Blakey, during which time Marsalis gleaned from Blakey how to lead a band and how to perform with intensity and consistency. In 1981, Marsalis toured with the Herbie Hancock quartet throughout the USA and Japan, as well as performing at the Newport Jazz Festival with Herbie. During his career Marsalis has played with Jazz artists including, Sarah Vaughan, Dizzy Gillespie, Harry Edison, Clark Terry, and Sonny Rollins.
Marsalis assembled bands and performed over 120 concerts for ten consecutive years. But as audiences for Jazz concerts aged and shrank, Marsalis has given lectures and music workshops. Collaborators and students at Marsalis’s workshops include James Carter, Christian McBride, Roy Hargrove, Harry Connick, Jr. (Marsalis plays on Connick’s album 30, and Your Songs), Nicholas Payton, Eric Reed and Eric Lewis. Marsalis has been commissioned to compose for dance companies including Garth Fagan Dance, Peter Martins at the New York City Ballet, Twyla Tharp for the American Ballet Theatre, and also for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre.
Marsalis collaborated with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in 1995 to compose the string quartet, At The Octoroon Balls, and again in 1998 to create a response to the Stravinsky: A Soldier’s Tale with his composition, A Fiddler’s Tale.
In 1997 his epic oratorio on slavery, Blood on the Fields, became the first jazz composition to win the Pulitzer Prize in music.
In 2006, Marsalis’s US$833,686 annual salary as Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center drew negative attention in an article published by Reader’s Digest magazine regarding overspending by non-profit organizations. Marsalis is a bachelor with sons by Candace Stanley and another son with actress Victoria Rowell.
Musical accomplishments
Marsalis compositions and playing is represented on a quartet of Sony Classical releases, At the Octoroon Balls: String Quartet No. 1, A Fiddler’s Tale, Reel Time and Sweet Release and Ghost Story: Two More Ballets by Wynton Marsalis. All are volumes of an eight-CD series, titled Swinging Into The 21st, a set of albums released in 1999-2000 featuring original compositions and standards, from jazz to classical to ballet, including Jelly Roll Morton, Igor Stravinsky and Thelonious Monk along with Marsalis.
At the Octoroon Balls contains Marsalis’s first string quartet, performed by the Orion Quartet, a work commissioned by the Lincoln Center, and premiered in 1995 in conjunction with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. The composition has been recorded by the Harlem Quartet. A Fiddler’s Tale, also commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for Marsalis/Stravinsky, a joint project of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and Jazz At Lincoln Center, a narrated work about a musician who sells her soul to a record producer. It premiered on April 23, 1998, at Hill Auditorium in Ann Arbor, Michigan. A version without narration was appeared on the album At the Octoroon Balls: String Quartet No. 1. Reeltime is Marsalis’s score for John Singleton’s film Rosewood. This original music, featuring vocals by Cassandra Wilson and Shirley Caesar, was never used in the film. Marsalis also provided the score for the 1990 film Tune in Tomorrow, in which he also makes a cameo appearance as a New Orleans trumpeter with his band. Sweet Release and Ghost Story was premiered in New York city by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Zhong Mei Dance Company.
On Sony Classical, Marsalis has won critical acclaim for the recording In Gabriel’s Garden (SK/ST 66244), featuring Baroque music for trumpet and orchestra. It includes performances of the Bach: Brandenburg Concerto no. 2 and Mouret: Rondeau, a video of which has been adopted as the new theme for PBS Masterpiece Theatre. The San Francisco Examiner wrote, “Marsalis continues to define great music making…[the pieces] are all articulated with dazzling clarity and enthusiasm.” The album features the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Anthony Newman, and was produced by Steven Epstein.
Awards and recognition
Statue dedicated to W. Marsalis in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain
Marsalis has been awarded the 2005 National Medal of Arts of the United States, the Grand Prix du Disque of the Charles Cros Academy and the Edison Award of the Netherlands, and was elected an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in Britain. He has received several honorary doctoral degrees, and a variety of other recognitions from Brandeis University, Brown University, Columbia University, Denison University, Harvard University, Haverford College, Johns Hopkins University, the Manhattan School of Music, New York University, Northwestern University, Princeton University, the University of Miami, Southern Methodist University(SMU) and Yale University.
Marsalis has toured 30 countries on every continent except Antarctica, and nearly five million copies of his recordings have been sold worldwide.
Accolades
- Johns Hopkins University – George Peabody Medal
- Northwestern University – Honorary Doctor of Arts
- Royal Academy of Music – Honorary Member
- Harvard University – Doctor of Music
- Teachers College, Columbia University – Medal for Distinguished Service
- Southern Methodist University(SMU) – Algur H. Meadows Award For Excellence in the Arts
Music Awards
- 1997 Blood on the Fields, oratorio
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Individual or Group
Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance (with orchestra)
- 1983 Raymond Leppard (conductor), Wynton Marsalis & the National Philharmonic Orchestra for Haydn: Trumpet Concerto in E Flat/L. Mozart: Trumpet Concerto In D/Hummel: Trumpet Concerto in E Flat
- 1984 Raymond Leppard (conductor), Wynton Marsalis & the English Chamber Orchestra for Wynton Marsalis, Edita Gruberova: Handel, Purcell, Torelli, Fasch, Molter
Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Solo
- 1983 Think of One
- 1984 Hot House Flowers
- 1985 Black Codes From the Underground
Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album for Children
- 2000 Listen to the Storyteller
Discography
With Art Blakey:
With Chico Freeman:
With Herbie Hancock:
With Joe Henderson:
As Leader:
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Ray Charles
Ray Charles (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American musician. Charles was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm & blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings for Atlantic Records. He also helped racially integrate country and pop music during the 1960s with his crossover success on ABC Records, most notably with his Modern Sounds albums. During his tenure with ABC, Charles became one of the first African-American musicians to be given artistic control by a mainstream record company.
Rolling Stone ranked Charles number 10 on their list of “100 Greatest Artists of All Time” in 2004, and voted him number two on their November 2008 list of “100 Greatest Singers of All Time”.
Hall of Fame and other honors
Statue in Ray Charles Plaza in Albany, Georgia
In 1979, he was one of the first honorees of the Georgia State Music Hall of Fame being recognized for being a musician born in the state. Ray’s version of “Georgia On My Mind” was made into the official state song for Georgia. In 1981, he was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and was one of the first inductees to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame at its inaugural ceremony in 1986. He received the Kennedy Center Honors in 1986.
In 1987, he was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In 1991, he was inducted to the Rhythm & Blues Foundation. In 1993, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. In 1998 he was awarded the Polar Music Prize together with Ravi Shankar in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2004 he was inducted to the Jazz Hall of Fame, and inducted to the National Black Sports & Entertainment Hall of Fame. The Grammy Awards of 2005 were dedicated to Charles.
On December 7, 2007, Ray Charles Plaza was opened in Albany, Georgia, with a revolving, lighted bronze sculpture of Charles seated at a piano. Later that month, on December 26, 2007, Ray Charles was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame. He was also presented with the George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement, during the 1991 UCLA Spring Sing.
Ray Charles Post Office Building
On Tuesday, July 12, 2005, President George Bush signed into law a bill (PL 109-25), sponsored by Congresswoman Diane E. Watson (CA-33rd), designating the U.S. postal facility located at 4960 W. Washington Blvd. in Los Angeles, California, as the Ray Charles Post Office Building. On August 24, 2005, the United States Congress honored Charles by dedicating and renaming the former West Adams Station post office in Los Angeles the “Ray Charles Station”.
Miles Davis
Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991) was an American 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, and Keith Jarrett; guitarists John McLaughlin, John Scofield and Mike Stern; bassists Paul Chambers, Ron Carter, Dave Holland, Marcus Miller and Darryl Jones ; and drummers Philly Joe Jones, Tony Williams, Billy Cobham, Jack DeJohnette, and Al Foster.
On October 7, 2008, his album Kind of Blue, released in 1959, received its fourth platinum certification from the RIAA, signifying sales of 4 million copies. 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.
Awards
- Winner; Down Beat Reader’s Poll Best Trumpet Player 1955
- Winner; Down Beat Reader’s Poll Best Trumpet Player 1957
- Winner; Down Beat Reader’s Poll Best Trumpet Player 1961
- Grammy Award for Best Jazz Composition Of More Than Five Minutes Duration for Sketches of Spain (1960)
- Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance, Large Group Or Soloist With Large Group for Bitches Brew (1970)
- Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist for We Want Miles (1982)
- Sonning Award for Lifetime Achievement In Music (1984; Copenhagen, Denmark)
- Doctor of Music, honoris causa (1986; New England Conservatory)
- Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist for Tutu (1986)
- Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Soloist for Aura (1989)
- Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Performance, Big Band for Aura (1989)
- Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award (1990)
- Australian Film Institute Award for Best Original Music Score for Dingo, shared with Michel Legrand (1991)
- Knighted into the Legion of Honor (July 16, 1991; Paris)
- Grammy Award for Best R&B Instrumental Performance for Doo-Bop (1992)
- Grammy Award for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Performance for Miles & Quincy Live at Montreux (1993)
- Hollywood Walk of Fame Star (February 19, 1998)
- Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction (March 13, 2006)
- Hollywood’s Rockwalk Induction (September 28, 2006)
- RIAA Quadruple Platinum for Kind of Blue
- St. Louis Walk of Fame
Discography
Sidemen
- Rhythm Section
- 1950: Pianist John Lewis, bassist Al McKibbon, drummer Max Roach
- 1951: Pianist Walter Bishop, Jr., bassist Tommy Potter, drummer Art Blakey
- 1956: Pianist Tommy Flanagan, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Art Taylor
- 1955–58: Pianist Red Garland, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Philly Joe Jones
- 1959–63: Pianist Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Jimmy Cobb
- 1963–68: Pianist Herbie Hancock, bassist Ron Carter, drummer Tony Williams
- 1971: Pianist Keith Jarrett, bassist Michael Henderson, drummer Jack DeJohnette, percussionist Airto Moreira
- 1969–72: Pianists Joe Zawinul, Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock, Larry Young, Harold Williams, Hermeto Pascoal, Lonnie Liston Smith, Cedric Lawson
- 1970s: Guitarists John McLaughlin, Reggie Lucas, Pete Cosey, David Creamer, Dominique Gaumont, Cornell Dupree
The ARMAHN Group
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