2013 September

The Earfull Episode 2 – Chris Washburne

This podcast, released on September 25th, comes just in time for Christopher Washburne‘s Birthday! In this episode, Washburne discusses trying to play trombone like Jimmy Page, meeting the Queen of Jordan, working with Tito Puente & Celia Cruz and surviving cancer.

cjw

Chris Washburne is one of those rare musicians whose musical activities cross many styles and cultural borders. From early in his career he refused to be pigeon-holed as just being a jazz or classical player, but instead has continually pursued a diverse path. Chris is currently freelancing as a studio musician and performing trombone, bass trombone, tuba, didjeridu and percussion with various classical, jazz, rock and Latin groups in New York City. He also tours extensively with various groups and has concertized throughout the North America, Europe, Asian, Africa, South America, Central America and the Caribbean.

Chris received his Bachelors of Music in classical trombone performance from the University of Wisconsin where he studied with William Richardson, Richard Davis and Les Thimmeg. In 1988, he completed a Masters degree from the New England Conservatory in Third Stream Studies where he studied with John Swallow, Ran Blake and Bob Moses. He was the winner of the 1988 New England Conservatory Graduation Concerto Competition. He spent two months living in Zambia in 1985, studying the traditional music of that region, and in 1993, received a Mellon Fellowship to travel to and explore the rich musical traditions of Cuba.

In 1999 he completed his Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology at Columbia University. He is currently Associate Professor of Music and Found Director of the Louis Armstrong Jazz Performance Program at Columbia University in New York. He has published numerous articles on jazz, Latin jazz, and salsa. He is author of the book “Sounding Salsa: Performing Latin Music in New York” (2008) and editor of the book “Bad Music” (2004).

He has performed with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, Tito Puente, Eddie Palmieri, Justin Timberlake, Celia Cruz, Ruben Blades, Marc Anthony, Celine Dion, Anthony Braxton, Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, the Bang On A Can All-stars, David Byrne, Bjork, Muhal Richard Abrams, Gloria Estefan, They Might Be Giants, Chico O’Farrill, Don Richols, John Cale, Grady Tate, Baba Olatunje, Leslie Uggams, the Smithereens, Ray Barretto, Roscoe Mitchell, Jackie Byard, Danilo Caymmi, Arturo Sandoval, Paquito D’Rivera, Dinosaur Annex directed under Gunther Schuller, Walter Thompson, the SEM Ensemble, Freddie Cole, Lawrence “Butch” Morris, among many others.

He leads his own highly acclaimed groups SYOTOS and NYNDK and is a member of FFEAR (Forum for Electo-Acoustic Research).

For more on Chris Washburne visit www.chriswashburne.com

9781592133161_p0_v1_s260x420

Book cover for Chris Washburne’s “Sounding Salsa: Performing Latin Music in New York City

IMG_1134-ChWashburne

The SYOTOS Band (from left to right): Ole Mathison (tenor sax), Armando Gola (bass), Ludwig Afonso (drums), Chris Washburne (trombone), Cristian Rivera (congas), and John Walsh (trumpet)

Recordings featured in this podcast (in order of appearance):

Methane Mambo” performed by the SYOTOS Band live in Washington DC, August 8th, 2010. Composed by John Walsh.

Moonglow” performed by the Benny Goodman quartet (with Teddy Wilson, Gene Krupa and Lionel Hampton)

Max Roach Drum Solo from “Session”

Para Los Rumberos” performed live by Tito Puente‘s Orchestra

Mr. Sandman” by The Chordettes (1954)

Uncontrollable Urge” by Devo from Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (1978)

Various Live Jimmy Page Solos

My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” by Brian Eno and David Byrne (1981)

‘Round Midnight” performed by Howard Johnson & Gravity (1996)

Sound 1” by Roscoe Mitchell Sextet (1966)

La Danza de La Chiva” performed by Tito Puente and Celia Cruz (1969)

Paginas de Mujer” by Eddie Palmieri from the White Album (1981)

All the Things You Are” performed live by Dizzy Gillespie, Slide Hampton, Johnny Griffin, Hank Jones, Ed Gomez, Ed Thipgen (1987)

El Tema Del Apollo” performed live by the SYOTOS Band live in Washington DC, August 8th, 2010. Composed by Eddie Palmieri.

This episode of the Earfull Podcast was originally recorded on July 11th and released on September 25th, 2013, which is also Chris Washburne’s Birthday!!! The cover art for the Earfull was made by Hallie Bean. I’d like to thank Chris Washburne for sitting down with me and you for listening. For more information on Chris Washburne, you can visit his website at www.chriswashburne.com. You can find the Earfull on the iTunes music store, soundcloud, and Facebook.

The Earfull Episode 1 – William Shadrack Cole

This is the debut show of the Earfull: the podcast that explores the lives of musicians through music! In this episode, William Shadrack Cole (my dad), talks about his experiences growing up in Pittsburgh during the height of the steel mills; becoming an amateur boxer at 11 years old; organizing the first sit-in in the history of Pittsburgh during the Civil Rights Movement; his mentor, Nigerian philosopher Fela Sowande; his controversial tenure at Dartmouth College; and, of course, his life as a multi-instrumentalist. Listen on iTunes.

216221_193963363974083_3491880_n

Bill Cole (b. October 11th, 1937) is an American jazz musician, composer, educator and author.  An admired innovator in the music world, Cole successfully combines Eastern sounds with an American art form – jazz.  Cole specializes in non-Western wind instruments, especially double reed horns – including Chinese sonas, Korean hojok and piri, Indian nagaswarm and shenai and Tibetan trumpet, as well as the Australian digeridoo and Ghanaian flute.  Cole is the leader of the Untempered Ensemble which he founded in 1992. He has performed with Sam Rivers, Billy Bang, Jayne Cortez, Julius Hemphill, Ornette Coleman, James Blood Ulmer, William Parker, Fred Ho, Gerald Veasley and others, at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Town Hall, Symphony Space and venues around the U.S., and has recorded for Boxholder Records.

All About Jazz has written: “Cole has explored the expressive capabilities of Asian double reed instruments in a jazz context for almost four decades. His virtuosity on digeridoo, Chinese sona, Ghanian flute, Indian shenai and nagaswarm infuses his writing and improvising with a pan-global authenticity that avoids dilettantish exoticism.”  “Cole takes solo after solo that allows a lifetime of immersion in Jazz to reveal itself through the extraordinary timbral resources of his chosen instruments.” (Michael Parker) In the early 1980’s Professor Fela Sowande gave Cole a collection of 500 proverbs from the Yoruba of Nigeria. Since then Cole has written musical compositions based on almost 100 of the proverbs, many of which are among the Ensemble’s repertoire.  From 1975 – 1982 Cole wrote seven major works based on the philosophy of the Ibo of Nigeria, which holds that the human soul reincarnates seven times.  Each of the “Seven Cycles” increased in length and size – ranging from the First Cycle (featuring Cole with Sam Rivers and Warren Smith) to later Cycles that included as many as 40 musicians, drumming ensembles and Gospel choirs.

Cole served as professor of music at Amherst College until 1974, and then at Dartmouth College until 1990 (for more on his controversial time at Dartmouth, click here).  He retired in 2010 as Chair of the Department of African American Studies at Syracuse University.  Cole has authored books about two jazz legends: “Miles Davis: The Early Years” (1974, William Morrow/1994, Da Capo Press), and “John Coltrane” (1976, Schirmer/2001 Da Capo Press), and has published numerous reviews and critical essays.

For more about Bill Cole please visit his website at http://billcole.org/

400565_4991037813915_1130477480_n

Bill Cole in 1948

996181_10200148412733242_1296630706_n

Portrait of Bill Cole taken sometime in the late 1950s

1017520_10200301076389738_1602283383_n

Bill Cole (left) performing with Baikida Carroll (center), Julius Hemphill (right), Abdul Wadud and Philip Wilson (not pictured) – Aug 1979

179822_1828204795361_7372799_n

Bill Cole with the Untempered Ensemble, performing at the Brecht Forum in 2010. From left to right: Joseph Daly, Warren Smith, Ras Moshe, Shayna Dulberger, Bill Cole, and Bill Cole’s son Atticus Cole.

531366_10150712634084916_86447618_n

Bill Cole’s duet album with Billy Bang released in 2009

550018_772449767349_1470095075_n

Bill Cole performing with Joseph Daly and Warren Smith in a tribute to Jayne Cortez earlier this year

Recordings featured in this podcast (in order of appearance):

Don’t Wait For The Day of Battle Before Getting Your Weapons Ready“, from Proverbs for Sam by Bill Cole’s Untempered Ensemble, Boxholder Records 2008

Peter and the Wolf, Op. 67” by Prokofiev, Leopold Stokowski conducting the All American Orchestra. Basil Rathbone, narrator. Recorded July, 1941.

A Tisket A Tasket” performed by Ella Fitzgerald from Ella Fitzgerald: Ken Burns Jazz, Verve Records 2000

Excerpt from the “Nat King Cole Show” on NBC 4, starring Nat King Cole and featuring Peggy Lee and Julius LaRosa

“Raindrop” Prelude, Op 28, No. 15, Frederic Chopin

A Night in Tunisia” from Musings of Miles by Miles Davis, Original Jazz Classics 1955

Will You Still Be Mine?” from Musings of Miles by Miles Davis, Original Jazz Classics (Prestige) 1955

Bye-Ya” from Thelonious Monk Trio by Thelonious Monk, Original Jazz Classics (Prestige) 1954

Bach Cello Suite No. 1 – Allemande” performed by Mstislav Rostropovich

Piano Concerto N.º 2 Op. 21 in F minor – II Larghetto” by Frederic Chopin, performed by Arthur Rubinstein and the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by André Previn, 1975

The Old Country” from Nancy Wilson / Cannonball Adderley by Nancy Wilson, Capitol Records 1962

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers performing in Tokyo in 1961

We As a People Will Get to the Promised Land” Martin Luther King Speech

Walter Cronkite Announces Death of JFK” November 22, 1963

Footage from “Death of Martin Luther King” 1968

String Quintet No. 4 in G minor, K. 516” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Turn on, Tune In, Drop Out” video by Timothy Leary

City Blues” from The Gardens of Harlem by Clifford Thornton and The Jazz Composers Orchestra, JCOA Records 1975

Wesleyan Gamelan Final Part” 2008

“Song for Clifford Thornton” from Untempered Trio by the Untempered Trio, 1992

Beatrice” by Sam Rivers, performed by the Sam Rivers Quartet, 1989

“A Man of Outstanding Quality is Preeminent Among His Comrades” from Untempered Ensemble by Untempered Ensemble, 2011

This episode of the Earfull Podcast was originally recorded on July 7th and released on September 18th, 2013. It was edited from 3 hours down to a little over an hour. The cover art for the Earfull was made by Hallie Bean. I’d like to thank Bill Cole for sitting down with me and you for listening. For more information on Bill Cole, you can visit his website at BillCole.org. You can find the Earfull on the iTunes music store, soundcloud, and Facebook.

New Earfull Cover Art!!!!!

earfull_icon_01

This beautiful piece of high-class artistic mastery was done by none other than the brilliant Hallie Bean. It’s the title of my show in the shape of an ear!!!!! I love it! The premier episode should be out this Tuesday. IF you’d like Hallie to make a beautiful graphic for you, you can contact her on linkedin, maybe (she hasn’t given me permission to give her e-mail address because she’s really popular).