Word: saxophonists
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Archaeologists travel the earth to dig for ancient artifacts, but for music archivists a buried treasure can be as close as a widow's dusty attic or a record company's forgotten storehouse. Consider the legacy of saxophonist John Coltrane. Though he died in 1967 and his best work has been available for decades, a cache of recently uncovered tapes offers fresh insights into the unique style and recording methods of one of jazz's revolutionaries...
What made Coltrane great? For some it was his sheer lung power and gale-wind force. "'Trane was the loudest, fastest saxophonist I've ever heard...he was possessed when he put that horn in his mouth," said trumpeter Miles Davis, who made about a dozen albums with him. For others it was his highly textured "sheets of sound," a rapid-fire, rhythmic attack that conjured up aural images of runaway trains, meteor showers and volcanic eruptions. Still others point to Coltrane's importance in bringing African and Eastern influences to jazz and helping bridge the worlds of jazz...
...with the music, visitors will get an education. The museum places heavy emphasis on rock's roots. One exhibit, called "The Beat Goes On," consists of several touch-screen computers showing video clips of rockers along with the performers who influenced them--Chuck Berry, for example, is linked with saxophonist Louis Jordan. Other exhibits are devoted to important rock precursors, such as blues greats Lead Belly and Howlin' Wolf. There are plenty of intriguing curios on display as well--such as the Who drummer Keith Moon's grade school report card, saying he "is inclined to play the fool." There...
...with George), but his cerebral, challenging compositions possess depths that cannot always be fully explored in the sometimes constraining format of musical theater. Those depths are plumbed here. Each track on Color and Light features one or more jazz musicians performing a Sondheim show tune. Singer Peabo Bryson and saxophonist Joshua Redman join forces on a version of Sondheim's Pretty Women (from the musical Sweeney Todd) that is mature and mysterious, dark and sweet. Grover Washington Jr., with charismatic sax runs, turns the understated melody of Every Day a Little Death (from A Little Night Music) into something direct...
DIED. JULIUS HEMPHILL, 57, jazz saxophonist and composer; of complications from diabetes; in New York City. As a soloist, Hemphill offered a steel-edged, intense tone; as a composer, he reveled in the provocative. His work for the World Saxophone Quartet featured a reedy thicket of sax sound, freely drawing on musical forms from gospel to big band to cool jazz to blues...