Capable of solo sets of the most beguiling inventiveness, featuring drums, gamelan-like metallic objects, tiny strings, saxophone mouthpieces and whatever else he has at hand. Probably more famous for being a member of improvisational groups featuring the likes of Thurston Moore, Paul Flaherty, Ben Chasny, Wally Shoup, Jim O'Rourke and Keiji Haino.
Andrew Hill (born June 30, 1931 – April 20, 2007) was an American jazz pianist and composer. Hill first recorded as a sideman in 1955, but his reputation was made by his Blue Note recordings as leader from 1963 to 1969, which featured several other important post-bop musicians including Eric Dolphy, Bobby Hutcherson, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Woody Shaw, and Tony Williams, as well as two of John Gilmore's rare outings away from Sun Ra.
James "Blood" Ulmer (born February 2, 1942 in St. Matthews, South Carolina) is an American avant-garde jazz and blues guitarist and singer. Ulmer's distinctive guitar sound has been described as "jagged" and "stinging." His singing has been called "raggedly soulful." Ulmer began his career playing with various soul jazz ensembles, and first recorded with organist John Patton in 1969. After moving to New York in 1971, Ulmer played with Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, Joe Henderson, Paul Bley, Rashied Ali and Larry Young.
The experimental jazz zeitgeist of the 1960s and 1970s made possible any number of unconventional instrumental groupings. The basic horn-piano-bass-drums lineup of the modern jazz era lost its mandate, as more musicians searched for fresh and unusual sonorities. Ornette Coleman's bands did away with the piano; Cecil Taylor's trio with Jimmy Lyons and Sunny Murray eliminated the bass. Musicians associated with the Chicago-based AACM occasionally did away with one or more (or all) elements of the rhythm section; for example, in its first incarnation the Art Ensemble of Chicago had no drummer.
John Martin Tchicai (born April 28, 1936) is a Danish jazz saxophonist. He was one of the earliest European free jazz musicians. He is of Danish and Congolese descent. Tchicai studied violin in his youth, and in his mid-teens began playing clarinet and alto saxophone, focusing on the latter. By the late 1950's he was travelling around northern Europe, playing with many musicians. After moving to New York City in 1963, Tchicai fell into the free jazz scene, co-forming the New York Contemporary Five and the New York Art Quartet, and playing on John Coltrane's epochal Ascension.
Hans Koller, one of Europe's most beloved jazz performers and an acclaimed abstract painter, died of pneumonia on Monday, December 21, 2003 in his hometown of Vienna. He was 82 years old. A saxophone prodigy, Koller immediately impressed the faculty of the Vienna Music Academy upon his arrival at the age of 14. Within a few years he was playing professionally in jazz and dance bands. In 1941 Koller was drafted into the Nazi army; he spent most of the war as an American POW, at which time he organized a detention camp band.
The avant-jazz guitarist Mary Halvorson has been making a stir in downtown New Music circles for a while now. She is noted for her collaborations with the violist Jessica Pavone, among many others. Halvorson's strong 2008 debut, DRAGON'S HEAD features her new trio, comprised of the extraordinarily fluent bassist John Hebert and drummer Ches Smith (of indie-rockers Xiu-Xiu). Together, they make a far-ranging, expansive, and even accessible sound.
Sun Ra (1914
Bohren & der Club of Gore are a noir jazz band founded in 1992 in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Germany by Thorsten Benning (drums), Morten Gass (keys), Reiner Henseleit (guitar), and Robin Rodenberg (upright / double bass). They play a crossover of jazz and ambient, which they self described as an "unholy ambient mixture of slow jazz ballads, Black Sabbath doom and down tuned Autopsy sounds". Over the years they have continously reduced and compressed their music to extremes.
There is more than one artist with this name. 1) FES was founded in 1998, when no-nonsense artist, former architect, clarinettist, saxophonist, keyboard player, composer and producer Peter Vermeersch, wanted to explore new horizons after having convinced music lovers all over the word with Maximalist! and the cult legend band X-legged Sally. Vermeersch, who worked with international artists like Josse De Pauw, Wim Vandekeybus, Vincent Bal, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Fred Frith, The Simpletones and Jazzwork from Berlin and wrote music for the Arditti Quartet...