News & Updates — out-jazz

Pete Cosey / Oct 9, 1943 - May 30, 2012

Pete Cosey / Oct 9, 1943 - May 30, 2012

Pete Cosey is a Chicago guitar legend, a heavy man with a heavy sound. He is best known for his mid-'70s work for Miles Davis. Despite having never recorded as a leader, he has gotten on many sessions and had a notable career as a Hendrix-esque sonic poet. He was born into a jazz family in Chicago, his father played sax with Sidney Bechet, Louis Jordan, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Big Bill Broonzy and Josephine Baker, and his mother was a composer. He spent his teenage years in Tucson but came back to Chicago for some session work at Chess. He...

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Larry Young / Oct 7, 1940 - March 30, 1978

Larry Young / Oct 7, 1940 - March 30, 1978

One of the greatest of jazz Hammond organists, Larry Young (aka Khalid Yasin Abdul Aziz) played with Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis, Elvin Jones, Grant Green, Santana, Booker Ervin and others in a career that played bop, soul-jazz, blues, psych-rock, avant-garde jazz, modal and funk-rock. The Lawrence of Newark was born in Jersey and learned organ and piano from his father. He played R&B in the '50s before working with Kenny Dorham, Lou Donaldson, Hank Mobley and others. He recorded for Prestige and Blue Note in the '60s before hooking up with Hendrix on some well-circulated (and worthy) sessions. He played...

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Roy Campbell Jr / Sept 29, 1952 - Jan 9, 2014

Roy Campbell Jr / Sept 29, 1952 - Jan 9, 2014

On his birthday today we miss our NYC jazz scene trumpeter/composer hero Roy Campbell Jr. I have witnessed his excellence on many, many occasions and his bright tone and world music-influenced free-jazz are greatly missed. He was most definitely one of the greats of progressive jazz trumpet, in lineage with Lee Morgan, Clifford Brown, Booker Little and Don Cherry. A native of the Big Apple, he started playing trumpet at 15 and studied with Morgan and Kenny Dorham. As a teen he played in big bands and as he turned 20 he aligned himself with the avant-garde with his group...

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John Gilmore / Sept 28, 1931 - Aug 20, 1995

John Gilmore / Sept 28, 1931 - Aug 20, 1995

Happy birthday to tenor saxophone hero John Gilmore. A long-time member of Sun Ra's Arkestra, a major influence on John Coltrane and an icon Blowing Out Of Chicago. Gilmore started playing clarinet at 14 and tenor sax at 17 and he played with Earl Hines before joining Sun Ra's fledgling Arkestra in '53. He stayed with Ra for over forty years, recording on every single Arkestra record until '95 (including most of the legendary Ra-produced doo-wop sides). He brought a gifted and harmonically advanced style and could play sweet to ferocious, but bop & blues was always his main language....

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Norris Jones aka Sirone / Sept 28, 1940 - Oct 21, 2009

Norris Jones aka Sirone / Sept 28, 1940 - Oct 21, 2009

Born on this day was the great improvising bassist Sirone, who brought a highly intuitive, yet bluesy improvisational presence to the scene and contributing to several genre-defining classics of the '60s & '70s, not the least of which was his work with the collective Revolutionary Ensemble. From Atlanta, the former Norris Jones took up the trombone as a kid before moving to bass at 17. He started playing locally in the late '50s in a group with saxophonist George Adams. He was a sideman at sessions for Sam Cooke, Smokey Robinson and other R&B artists. In '65 he moved to...

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