News & Updates — reeds

One of the (gentle) giants of American music, the career Brother Yusef Lateef stretches way back to the '40s and he has played with many greats and inspired many others. The man played tenor sax, flute, oboe, basson, shenai, koto and many other obscure or Eastern instruments, as well as electronics. He was an early fusionist of "world music" and jazz. His base was very bluesy, and his music also touched on funk, new age, film music, gospel, avant-garde, bop, electro-acoustic, European classical and various Eastern and African forms. He was born in Chattanooga but grew up as William Evans in...

By comparison to some of his other fellow Chicagoan jazz brothers and sisters, the music of Von Freeman is fairly traditional sounding--that is to say blues, ballads, bossa, bop and a touch of soul-jazz, although his phrasing and mentoring was influential to a rising avant-garde in the city. He may have been less well-known than his funky guitarist brother George and son Chico (there was a less-well-known drummer brother Bruz as well), but he continued with his creative outlet until the end. He was born in Chicago, the son of a cop. Louis Armstrong was a good friend of the...

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....

One of my favorite multi-reed improvisors, Sam Rivers was born on this day in 1923. He came from Oklahoma, his father and grandfather were gospel singers and helped give little Sammy the music bug. After some time as a youth in Chicago & Little Rock, he started his professional career on the West Coast in the '40s, playing in Jimmy Witherspoon's band, as well as with Quincy Jones. In Boston he started working with teenage drummer Tony Williams, who in turn brought him into the Miles Davis Quintet in '64, if only for a brief spell (captured on the Miles In...

Julian "Cannonball" Adderley became one of the highly respected alto saxophonists of the hard bop and soul-jazz eras. Indeed, with his bluesy wail and accessible style he was one of jazz's most popular and visible artists in the late '60s and into the '70s before his death from a stroke. Originally from Tampa, he and his brother Nat, a cornetist, grew up in Tallahassee FL, both of them earning early professional experience in the early '40s backing Ray Charles in Florida. Cannon moved to Ft Lauderdale for awhile before a move to NYC in '55, the year he first recorded...