#Randy Weston

[jazzdailyblog]

David Murray: The Revolutionary Voice of Contemporary Jazz

Introduction: David Murray, a towering figure in the world of jazz, has redefined the boundaries of the genre with his innovative approach and virtuosic saxophone playing. With a career spanning over four decades, Murray has captivated audiences around the world with his unique blend of traditional jazz, avant-garde experimentation, and global influences. In this blog post, we will explore the…

[donospl]

Sullivan Fortner „Solo Game”

Artwork Records, 2023 Pierwsze solowe nagrania pianisty i kompozytora Sullivana Fortnera są jednocześnie jego debiutem w wytwórni Artwork Records. Album „Solo Game” to prawie 80 minut muzyki na dwóch płytach. “Solo” i „Game” to tak naprawdę dwa odrębne wydawnictwa, różniące się wykorzystanymi instrumentami, zaprezentowanym programem, podejściem do wykonania. Pierwsza z płyt zawiera fotepianowy…

[maquina-semiotica]

Randy Weston, "Waltz For Sweet Cakes"

[graymads]

How To Spot A HorrorCow

[pearlescent-soda]

🐻Calling all Country Bear Fans: Actor Interview Preparation

I probably should've asked this question like three days ago, but I'm setting up separate email interviews with the remaining cast of the 80s-00s Country Bears. Does anyone have any appropriate and polite questions they'd like me to ask these voice actors:

Curt Wilson (Zeb, Speaking)

Diane Michelle (Bubbles)

Frank Welker (Randy the Skunk and Melvin)

Genia Fuller Crews (Teddi Barra)

Harry Middlebrooks (Zeke and Shaker)

Holaday Mason (Beulah)

Lori Johnson (Bunny)

Mike West (Max)

Mike Weston (Ernest, allegedly)

Peter Renaday (Henry)

Rod Burton (Zeb, Singing, and Ernest, Singing, probably)

I hate to ask, but if anyone knows how to contact Mr. Middlebrooks, Mr. Welker, Mr. West, Ms. Johnson, and Ms. Sherwin, please let me know. Also, I might ask Curt Wilson for an interview way, WAY later, because he recently lost a family member.

[internationaljazzday]

Tangier as city host of the 2024 All-Star Global Concert.

Presented in partnership with the Ministry of Culture of Morocco and the City of Tangier, the four-day celebration (27-30 April) will emphasize the city’s jazz heritage and highlight cultural and artistic ties between people in Morocco, Europe and Africa. A series of education programmes will include events for students of all ages, a special presentation showcasing the significance of Morocco’s Gnawa music and its connection with jazz, and conversations about the history of jazz and its impact on Tangier, among others. A culminating All-Star Global Concert at the beautiful, new Palace of Arts and Culture of Tangier – an architectural masterpiece – will be broadcast during 4 days.

Music enthusiasts can look forward to legendary figures of jazz, blues and beyond electrifying the city of Tangier – and screens throughout the world. Led by iconic pianist Herbie Hancock and Musical Director John Beasley (USA), the All-Star Global Concert will feature performances by an international roster of artists from all corners of the globe, including master Gnawa musician Abdellah El Gourd (Morocco). Other confirmed artists include: Claudia Acuña (Chile), Ambrose Akinmusire (USA), Lakecia Benjamin (USA), Richard Bona (Cameroon), Dee Dee Bridgewater (USA), Moreira Chonguiça (Mozambique), Shemekia Copeland (USA), Kurt Elling (USA), Antonio Faraò (Italy), Melody Gardot (USA), Jazzmeia Horn (USA), JK Kim (Republic of Korea), Magnus Lindgren (Sweden), Romero Lubambo (Brazil), Marcus Miller (USA), Yasushi Nakamura (Japan), Tarek Yamani (Lebanon), and many more to be announced. 

Located at the crossroads of Europe and Africa, Tangier is known as a melting pot of cultural expressions. Tangier boasts a long, rich history of jazz. Among the world-renowned jazz artists who performed and spent time in Tangier were Josephine Baker, Ornette Coleman, Herbie Mann and Archie Shepp. For many years, jazz master Randy Weston lived in Tangier, where he collaborated with Gnawa master Abdellah El Gourd to explore the roots of jazz and African music.

Gnawa-jazz, a fusion of Morocco’s traditional musical style and jazz, is appreciated across Morocco and far beyond. In the 1970s, Weston founded the African Jazz Festival, which became the inspiration for multiple jazz festivals throughout Morocco, including Tanjazz and Jazzablanca.

In addition to the Global Concert, UNESCO encourages schools, universities and non-governmental organizations around the world to celebrate International Jazz Day. Performing arts venues, community centres, town squares, parks, libraries, museums, restaurants, clubs and festivals organize thousands of activities, while public radio and television feature jazz on and around International Jazz Day.

Established by the General Conference of UNESCO in 2011 and recognized by the United Nations General Assembly, International Jazz Day brings together countries and communities worldwide every 30 April. The annual International Jazz Day celebration highlights the power of jazz and its role in promoting peace, dialogue among cultures, diversity and respect for human dignity.

International Jazz Day has become a global movement reaching more than 2 billion people annually on all continents through education programmes, performances, community outreach, radio, television and streaming, along with electronic, print and social media. The Herbie Hancock Institute of Jazz is the lead nonprofit organization charged with planning, promoting and producing International Jazz Day each year.

[projazznet]

Johnny Coles Quartet – The Warm Sound

“Trumpeter Johnny Coles, best-known for his association with Charles Mingus in 1964, made his recording debut as a leader on this Epic session which was reissued on CD in 1995 by Koch. A bop-based trumpeter with a lyrical sound of his own, Coles is showcased here with an excellent quartet (Kenny Drew or Randy Weston on piano, bassist Peck Morrison and drummer Charlie Persip). He is in top form on a pair of standards (including “If I Should Lose You”), his own blues “Room 3” and four Weston originals; the reissue adds an alternate take of “Hi-Fly” to the original program. A fine outing.” – Scott Yanow/AllMusic. Trumpet – Johnny Coles Bass – Peck Morrison Drums – Charlie Persip Piano – Kenny Drew

[mr-imagin8ion]

The "Steven Universe" fusion playlist

One song that best represents every fusion: their outsides, their insides, and my feelings on them!

Opal: "It Takes Two" by Kim Weston and Marvin Gaye

Sugilite: "Anaconda" by Nicki Minaj

Alexandrite: "Hey Mama" by Kanye West

Stevonnie: "She's a Lady" by Tom Jones (which also explains my opinion on the character's gender)

Garnet: "Why Do Fools Fall In Love?" by Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers (but it's a cover version of the song that replaces the word "fools" with "jewels")

Malachite: "We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" by Taylor Swift

Sardonyx: "Broadway, Here I Come" by SMASH

Mega Ruby: "Red" by Taylor Swift

Smoky Quartz: "Short People" by Randy Newman (I meant what I said)

Zebra Jasper: "Animals" by Maroon 5

Topaz: "That's What I Like" by Bruno Mars (because Topaz is doing exactly what fusion is supposed to be used for)

Rhodonite or Fluorite: "Broken" by Lovelytheband

Jade: "Beautiful Mistakes" by Maroon 5

Rainbow Quartz or Sunstone: "Juicy" by Notorious B.I.G.

Obsidian: "Titanium" by Sia

Azurite: "Bad Guy" by Billie Eilish

[sergj7]

Randy Weston Quartet - 1999-03-25, Banlieues Blues Festival, Tremblay, F...

[justforbooks]

The distinctive sound of Pharoah Sanders’ tenor saxophone, which could veer from a hoarse croon to harsh multi phonic screams, startled audiences in the 1960s before acting in recent years as a kind of call to prayer for young jazz musicians seeking to steer their music in a direction defined by a search for ecstasy and transcendence.

Sanders, who has died age 81, made an impact at both ends of a long career. In 1965 he was recruited by John Coltrane, an established star of the jazz world, to help push the music forward into uncharted areas of sonic and spiritual exploration.

He had just turned 80 when he reached a new audience after being invited by Sam Shepherd, the British musician and producer working under the name Floating Points, to take the solo part on the widely praised recording of an extended composition titled Promises, a concerto in which he responded with a haunting restraint to the minimalist motifs and backgrounds devised by Shepherd for keyboards and the strings of the London Symphony Orchestra.

By then he had become a vital figure in the recent revival of “spiritual jazz”, whose young exponents took his albums as inspirational texts. When he was named a Jazz Master by the US National Endowment for the Arts in 2016, musicians of all generations, from the veteran pianist Randy Weston to the young saxophonist Kamasi Washington, queued up to pay tribute.

Farrell Sanders was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, a segregated world where his mother was a school cook, his father was a council worker and he grew up steeped in the music of the church. He studied the clarinet in school before moving on to the saxophone, playing jazz and rhythm and blues in the clubs on Little Rock’s West Ninth Street, backing such visiting stars as Bobby Bland and Junior Parker. After graduating from Scipio A Jones high school, he moved to northern California, studying art and music at Oakland Junior College. Soon he was immersing himself in the local jazz scene, where he was known as “Little Rock”.

In 1961 he arrived in New York, a more high-powered and competitive but still economically straitened environment. While undergoing the young unknown’s traditional period of scuffling for gigs, he played with the Arkestra of Sun Ra, a devoted Egyptologist. Sanders soon changed his name from Farrell to Pharoah, giving himself the sort of brand recognition enjoyed by all the self-styled Kings, Dukes, Counts and Earls of earlier jazz generations.

Amid a ferment of innovation in the new jazz avant garde, Sanders formed his own quartet. The poet LeRoi Jones (later known as Amiri Baraka) was the first to take notice, writing in his column in DownBeat magazine in 1964 that Sanders was “putting it together very quickly; when he does, somebody will tell you about it”.

That somebody turned out to be Coltrane, who invited him to take part in the recording of Ascension, an unbroken 40-minute piece in which 11 musicians improvised collectively between ensemble figures handed to them at the start of the session. When it was released on the Impulse! label in 1966, critics noted that the leader, one of jazz’s biggest stars, had given himself no more solo space than any of the other, younger horn players, implicitly awarding their creative input as much value as his own.

Coltrane also invited Sanders to join his regular group, then expanding from the classic quartet format heard at its peak on the album A Love Supreme, recorded in 1964. With Alice Coltrane and Rashied Ali replacing McCoy Tyner and Elvin Jones at the piano and the drums respectively, and other young musicians coming in and out as the band toured the US, the music became less of a vehicle for solo improvisation and more of a communal rite, sometimes involving the chanting of mantras and extended percussion interludes.

While some listeners were dismayed, accusing Coltrane of overdoing his generosity to young acolytes, others were exhilarated. For both camps, Sanders became a symbol of the shift. “Pharoah Sanders stole the entire performance,” the critic Ron Welburn wrote after witnessing Coltrane’s group in Philadelphia in 1966. The poet Jerry Figi reviewed a performance in Chicago and described Sanders as “the most urgent voice of the night”, his sound “a mad wind screeching through the root-cellars of Hell”. Sceptics believed Sanders was leading Coltrane down the path to perdition.

When Coltrane died of liver cancer in 1967, aged 40, Sanders began his own series of albums for Impulse!, starting with Tauhid (1967) and Karma (1969), which included an influential extended modal chant called The Creator Has a Master Plan. He continued to work with Alice Coltrane, appearing on several of her albums as well as those of Weston, Tyner, Don Cherry, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Sharrock, the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra, Norman Connors and others.

In 2004 he was inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame. Ten years later, he travelled from his home in Los Angeles to Little Rock, the city where his classmates had tried, in 1957, to desegregate the local whites-only high school, for an official Pharoah Sanders Day.

When asked to explain the philosophy behind the music that Baraka described as “long tissues of sounded emotion”, he replied: “I was just trying to see if I could play a pretty note, a pretty sound.” In later years, those who arrived at his concerts expecting the white-bearded figure to produce the squalls of sound that characterised Coltrane’s late period were often surprised by the gentleness with which he could enunciate a ballad. “When I’m trying to play music,” he said, “I’m telling the truth about myself.”

🔔 Pharoah (Farrell) Sanders, saxophonist and composer, born 13 October 1940; died 24 September 2022

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[jazzdailyblog]

Ben Riley: The Artistry of Time and Groove

Introduction: We shall explore renowned drummer Ben Riley’s enthralling musical path in this post. Riley’s career is a monument to his talent, adaptability, and steadfast devotion to his craft, from his early beginnings in the jazz scene to his collaborations with legendary performers. Join us as we examine the turning points, obstacles, and victories that have influenced Ben Riley’s impressive…

[elleventures]

March is the month of women's history month. Let's start off the month by recognizing some of the picture books that bring forward some of the difficult experiences and perspectives women had in overcoming sexism, racism, and injustice.

Little Melba and Her Big Trombone • {Katheryn Russell Brown | 2014}

 Little Melba and Her Big Trombone is a 40-page picture book written by Katheryn Russell Brown, and it was published in 2014 for young children between the ages of 3 - 9 years old.

The story is based on a girl named Melba who loved music her whole life — music takes over her mind when she sleeps, she hums along to radio tunes, and is constantly daydreaming her own beats and lyrics. At the age of seven, Melba got her own big, shiny trombone and quickly fell in love with it by teaching herself how to play — she struggled at first, but her family continued to support her journey. As Melba becomes a teenager, she joins the school band and is seen as a gifted musician. Melba continues to pursue her passion for jazz by joining a band led by Gerald Wilson, who was the trumpet player of the band, and tours around the country. Soon later, Melba becomes a famed trombone player, arranger, and composer by collaborating with some of the greatest jazz hits of the twentieth century for Randy Weston, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, Quincy Jones, and many more. 

Based on this picture book, the story was very encouraging in terms of seeing how Melba was able to work her way to becoming a famous trombone player, overcoming her struggles as a black woman. This is illustrated through the images when Melba was primarily the only woman in the band, which indicates that the music industry is typically dominated by men, and it is often rare to see women playing the trombone. That said, some of the important themes this book touches on are the power of music, overcoming the obstacles of race and gender, family support, and perseverance. And lastly, this book also sheds light on Melba's impactful contribution to the music industry by paving the way for future women musicians to be taken seriously and not overlooked. 

Looking at the illustrations of the picture book, the book is illustrated with crisp, powerful images by Frank Morrison. The illustrations of the book are primarily done with the use of paint, using an orange-brown color palette. The illustrations within the books also tie the overall story together by the use of a dynamic expression of the facial features as well as the body language to emphasize her love for music. To add on, each of the illustrations adds powerful importance to the message, for example, Melba being isolated from her band members who are all men which reinforces the theme of sexism. 

[male-yn-simping]

Fandoms+characters I'll write for:

-stranger things

-Steve Harrington

-Eddie Munson

-Jonathon Byers

-Billy Hargrove

-Nancy Wheeler

-Robin Buckley (platonic of family)

-any of the kids (platonic of family)

-Wednesday

-Ajax Petropolus

-Xavier Thorpe

-Tyler Galpin

-Enid Sinclair

-Wednesday addams (platonic or family)

- Once Upon A Time

-Killian Jones/Hook

-Peter Pan

-Felix

-Devin

-Henry (platonic or family)

-Scream

-Billy Loomis

-Stu Macher

-Ethan Landry

-Chad Meeks-Martin

-Tara Carpenter

-Randy Meeks

-Umbrella Academy

-Five

-Klaus

-Diego

-Marvel

-Peter Parker (Andrew or Tom)

-Miles Morales

-Loki

-Pietro

-Musicals

-Michael Mell (BMC)

-Jeremy Heere (BMC)

-Jake Dillinger (BMC)

-Rich Goranski (BMC)

-Jared Klienman (DEH)

-Connor Murphy (DEH)

-JD (heathers)

-Miscellaneous

-Felix Weston (Love, Victor)

-Stanley Barber (I am not okay with this)

-Spencer Reid (Criminal Minds)

-Reggie Peters (Julie and the Phantoms)

-Vigilante/Adrian Chase (Peacemaker)

-Rodrick Heffley (Diary of a wimpy kid)

-Jack Frost (rise of the guardians)

-Kurt Kunkle (Spree)

Making requests:

I'm open to requests, but if I'm not comfortable and don't want to write something, I won't.

I will write for male and gender neutral readers.

I will write smut, fluff and angst, but mostly fluff.

All I ask is that you don't be weird or creepy and you respect that I might not want to do a request.

[ausetkmt]

He first gained wide recognition for his work with John Coltrane. He went on to a fertile, prolific career, releasing dozens of albums as a leader.

The saxophonist Pharoah Sanders in performance in Brooklyn in 2015.Credit...Sam Polcer for The New York Times

Published Sept. 24, 2022Updated Sept. 25, 2022

Pharoah Sanders, a saxophonist and composer celebrated for music that was at once spiritual and visceral, purposeful and ecstatic, died on Saturday in Los Angeles. He was 81.

His death was announced in a statement by Luaka Bop, the company for which he had made his most recent album, “Promises.” The statement did not specify the cause.

The sound Mr. Sanders drew from his tenor saxophone was a force of nature: burly, throbbing and encompassing, steeped in deep blues and drawing on extended techniques to create shrieking harmonics and imposing multiphonics. He could sound fierce or anguished; he could also sound kindly and welcoming.

He first gained wide recognition as a member of John Coltrane’s groups from 1965 to 1967. He then went on to a fertile, prolific career, with dozens of albums and decades of performances.

Mr. Sanders played free jazz, jazz standards, upbeat Caribbean-tinged tunes and African- and Indian-rooted incantations such as “The Creator Has a Master Plan,” which opened his 1969 album, “Karma,” a pinnacle of devotional free jazz. He recorded widely as both a leader and a collaborator, working with Alice Coltrane, McCoy Tyner, Randy Weston, Joey DeFrancesco and many others.

Looking back on Mr. Sanders’s career in a 1978 review, Robert Palmer of The New York Times wrote, “His control of multiphonics on the tenor set standards that younger saxophonists are still trying to live up to, and his sound — huge, booming, but capable of great delicacy and restraint — was instantly recognizable.”

Mr. Sanders told The New Yorker in 2020: “I’m always trying to make something that might sound bad sound beautiful in some way. I’m a person who just starts playing anything I want to play, and make it turn out to be maybe some beautiful music.”

Pharoah Sanders was born Farrell Sanders in Little Rock, Ark, on Oct. 13, 1940. His mother was a cook in a school cafeteria; his father worked for the city.

He first played music in church, starting on drums and moving on to clarinet and then saxophone. (Although tenor saxophone was his main instrument, he also performed and recorded frequently on soprano.) He played blues, jazz and R&B at clubs around Little Rock; during the era of segregation, he recalled in 2016, he sometimes had to perform behind a curtain.

In 1959 he moved to Oakland, Calif., where he performed at local clubs. His fellow saxophonist John Handy suggested he move to New York City, where the free-jazz movement was taking shape, and in 1962, he did.

At times in his early New York years he was homeless and lived by selling his blood. But he also found gigs in Greenwich Village, and he worked with some of the leading exponents of free jazz, including Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry and Sun Ra.

It was Sun Ra who persuaded him to change his first name to Pharoah, and for a short time Mr. Sanders was a member of the Sun Ra Arkestra.

Mr. Sanders made his first album as a leader, “Pharoah,” for ESP-Disk in 1964. John Coltrane invited him to sit in with his group, and in 1965 Mr. Sanders became a member, exploring elemental, tumultuous free jazz on seminal albums like “Ascension,” “Om” and “Meditations.”

After Coltrane’s death in 1967, Mr. Sanders went on to record with his widow, the pianist and harpist Alice Coltrane, on albums including “Ptah, the El Daoud” and “Journey in Satchidananda,” both released in 1970.

Mr. Sanders had already begun recording as a leader on the Impulse! label, which had also been Coltrane’s home. The titles of his albums — “Tauhid” in 1967, “Karma” in 1969 — made clear his interest in Islamic and Buddhist thought.

His music was expansive and open-ended, concentrating on immersive group interaction rather than solos, and incorporating African percussion and flutes. In the liner notes to “Karma,” the poet, playwright and activist Amiri Baraka wrote, “Pharoah has become one long song.” The 32-minute “The Creator Has a Master Plan” moves between pastoral ease — with a rolling two-chord vamp and a reassuring message sung by Leon Thomas — and squalling, frenetic outbursts, but portions of it found FM radio airplay beyond jazz stations.

During the 1970s and ’80s, Mr. Sanders’s music moved from album-length excursions like the kinetic 1971 “Black Unity” toward shorter compositions, reconnections with jazz standards and new renditions of Coltrane compositions. (He shared a Grammy Award for his work with the pianist McCoy Tyner on the 1987 album “Blues for Coltrane.”) His recordings grew less turbulent and more contemplative. On the 1977 album “Love Will Find a Way,” he tried pop-jazz and R&B, sharing ballads with the singer Phyllis Hyman. He returned to more mainstream jazz with his albums for Theresa Records in the 1980s.

But his explorations were not over. In live performances, he might still bear down on one song for an entire set and make his instrument blare and cry out. During the 1990s and early 2000s he made albums with the innovative producer Bill Laswell. He reunited with the blistering electric guitarist Sonny Sharrock — who had been a Sanders sideman — on the 1991 album “Ask the Ages,” and he collaborated with the Moroccan Gnawa musician Maleem Mahmoud Ghania on “The Trance of Seven Colors” in 1994.

Information on Mr. Sanders's survivors was not immediately available.

Mr. Sanders had difficult relationships with record labels, and he spent nearly two decades without recording as a leader. Yet he continued to perform, and his occasional recorded appearances — including his wraithlike presence on “Promises,” his 2021 collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sam Shepherd, the electronic musician known as Floating Points — were widely applauded.

Reviewing “Promises” for The Times, Giovanni Russonello noted that Mr. Sanders’s “glistening and peaceful sound” was “deployed mindfully throughout the album,” adding, “He shows little of the throttling power that used to come bursting so naturally from his horn, but every note seems carefully selected — not only to state his own case, but to funnel the soundscape around him into a precise, single-note line.”

In 2016 Mr. Sanders was named a Jazz Master, the highest honor for a jazz musician in the United States, by the National Endowment for the Arts.

In a video made in recognition of his award, the saxophonist Kamasi Washington said, “It’s like taking fried chicken and gravy to space and having a picnic on the moon, listening to Pharoah.” The saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin said, “It’s like he’s playing pure light at you. It’s way beyond the language. It’s way beyond the emotion.”

[kd-22]

Randy Weston

I didn't know that much about Randy Weston until this course so I found it important to note it on this!

He had a huge influence on jazz, he was the synthesis of African traditions and modern jazz. He was said to fit the standard of bebop music, he sharply cut harmonies, an Afrocentric sensibility, intense rhythms, and more. He performed in several concerts and taught several classes that emphasized the African roots of jazz. He drew inspiration from musicians of the Gnawa tradition, which included complex, commingled rhythms, and low drones.

He was actually drafted into the Army in 1944 while World War II was underway, serving three years in an all-black unit under the military's segregationist policies.

Albums included:

African Cookbook

Highlife

Uhuru Afrika

The Spirits of our Ancestors

I found a link with his full discography!