Russ Sargeant
Russ Sargeant is an electric/double bassist and guitarist based near Birmingham, England. His music is a rhythmic blend of jazz and ambient sounds.
Russ Sargeant is an electric/double bassist and guitarist based near Birmingham, England. His music is a rhythmic blend of jazz and ambient sounds.
As a virtuoso bassist, versatile composer, and acclaimed bandleader, Marc Johnson has been a major innovator on the jazz scene for the past two decades. Born in Nebraska in 1953, Johnson took up bass at the age of 16, having already studied piano and cello. While completing his formal education in the celebrated music program at the University of North Texas, at age 19, Johnson began performing professionally with the Fort Worth Symphony. In 1977, he was on the road with the Woody Herman Band.
Ralph Towner is an American acoustic guitarist. He also plays piano, synthesizer, and trumpet. Born in 1940 in Chehalis, Washington, Towner is one of the most diversely talented musicians of the past half-century, and has made notable recordings of jazz, classical music, folk music, and world music. He began his career as a conservatory-trained classical guitarist, then joined world music pioneer Paul Winter's "Consort" ensemble in the late 1960s.
Kenny Wheeler (born 14th January 1930, Toronto, Canada) is a Canadian composer and trumpet and flugelhorn player, based since the 1950s in the UK. Most of his output is rooted in jazz, but he has also been active in free improvisation and has occasionally contributed to rock music recordings. Highly respected among his peers for his beautiful tone and extensive range on the trumpet and flugelhorn, Wheeler has written over one hundred compositions and is a skilled arranger for small groups and larger ensembles.
Bill Frisell was born in Baltimore, but was raised in Denver, CO. Once a classical clarinetist, he established a firm base in his traditional harmonic knowledge early on in life. Throughout high school and college he also played guitar in various rock and R&B groups in the Denver area. During high school, however, he became profoundly interested in jazz guitar. In 1971 Frisell attended Berklee College of Music in Boston, MA, and also began studying with Jim Hall, one of the prominent jazz guitarists of the 1960s.
The Tord Gustavsen Trio consists of Tord Gustavsen (piano), Harald Johnsen (bass) and Jarle Vespestad (drums). The trio members are among the most in-demand players on the intriguing Norwegian 'extended jazz'-scene. They are also known from other projects including performance on albums and live with Norwegian Jazz singer Silje Nergaard. Their second album The Ground entered the Norwegian sales charts and became the no. 1 selling album in Norway in its second week. The album has also sold well in several other territories, including the USA, UK and France.
Gary Burton (b. January 23, 1943, Anderson, Indiana) is an American jazz vibraphonist and composer. Having been self-taught on the vibraphone, Burton developed a style of four-mallet chording as an alternative to the usual two-mallets. This approach caused Burton to be heralded as an innovator and his sound and technique were widely imitated. Burton has composed for and played with a variety of well-known jazz musicians, including Carla Bley, Gato Barbieri, Jimmy Knepper, Keith Jarrett...
One of the stablemates of the early ECM sound, the Jan Garbarek Group incorporated a smooth ethereal jazz sound led by Norwegian tenor and soprano saxaphonist Jan Garbarek. Their sound also uses ambient elements which at the time of his popularity was not even an established genre. He has collaborated with some famous jazz musicians, most notably, Paul Motian, Gary Burton, Keith Jarrett and Ralph Towner.
Stefano Bollani is a jazz pianist born in Milan on December 5, 1972. He made his professional debut at fifteen and received his diploma in piano from the Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini in Florence. He does classical music, contemporary jazz, Brazilian jazz, and pop rock.
Longlasting has been his collaboration (from 1996) with Enrico Rava: 12 records together, the last was Tati, ECM 2005, in trio with Paul Motian, battery.
Lakshminarayanan Shankar (born April 26, 1950), also known as L. Shankar, Shankar or Shenkar, is a violinist, vocalist and composer. Early life
L. Shankar was born in Madras, Tamil Nadu. Growing up in Jaffna, Ceylon, where his father V. Lakshminarayan was a professor at the Jaffna College of Music, Shankar was exposed to Carnatic music and other styles from an early age. His father was an esteemed violinist, his mother L.