Ravi Coltrane is an American jazz saxophonist. Co-owner of the record label RKM Music, he has produced pianist Luis Perdomo, guitarist David Gilmore, and trumpeter Ralph Alessi.
Doudou Ndiaye Rose was a Senegalese drummer, composer and band leader, and was the recognized modern master of Senegal's traditional drum, the sabar. He was the father of a musical dynasty that includes some of the most successful traditional musicians of contemporary West Africa. He was one of the first musicians to bring Senegalese traditional music to the attention of the world.
Mbalax is the national popular dance music of Senegal and the Gambia. In the 1970s, mbalax emerged as the distinctive sound of postcolonial Senegal. Derived from a fusion of indigenous Wolof sabar drumming with popular music principally from the African diaspora and African popular music, and to a lesser extent Western pop and afropop. Although the fusion of indigenous music with urban dance music from the diaspora and west is not new, the pan-ethnic quality of urban Wolofness provided a space for the inclusion and representation of a plethora of ethnic sounds of the Pulaar/Tukulor, Sereer, Soce, Mande and other groups from the Greater Senegambia Region. The name mbalax derives from the accompanying rhythms of the Wolof sabar and was coined by Youssou N'Dour even though, as he has stated, there were many other groups in urban Senegal fusing these traditional sounds with modern music.
Joey Newman is an American film composer, orchestrator, arranger and conductor working in the fields of film and television.
Ashley Maher is a Canadian singer and songwriter who has meshed the rhythmic impulses of West Africa and Latin America with Western song structures.
Sean Bradley is an American conductor, composer, violinist, music theorist, educator, impresario, and technologist. Bradley is conductor of the Bradley String Orchestra, and president of Concert Talent—a production company which provides corporate entertainment, engagement marketing, talent management and logistical support for major label recording and touring artists. He is also the founder of BlogBlimp—a consulting firm providing custom web application development and cloud computing professional services. In recent years, his activities as an entrepreneur have increasingly included funding and leading a variety of music-related projects on the World Wide Web. He is a leading subject-matter expert on the topic of music and artificial intelligence, and was the founder of Bravoflix, the first online subscription video service in the U.S. dedicated exclusively to the performing arts. As a musician, he performs regularly on stages in the U.S., China, and Mexico.
Abdoulaye Diakité was an influential djembe master drummer and teacher from Tambacounda, Senegal. He was the lead djembe player of the National Ballet of Senegal for 18 years before emigrating to the United States.
Ralph Farris is an American violist, violinist, composer, arranger, producer and conductor, best known as a founding member and artistic director of the ensemble ETHEL. Farris is an electric string player with a lengthy career that spans the gamut of musical genres from rock and jazz to Broadway. His instruments are outfitted with a piezoelectric pickup which allows him to play amplified. Amplification was initially adopted early in Farris's career in order to facilitate the playing of various "contemporary classical" pieces that involve electronic components. It continues to be integral to his signature sound.
MAMADOU is a Senegalese music band. Originally called "Mamadou Diop and the Jolole Band", the group was founded in early 1998, later simplifying their name to "MAMADOU" in late 2000.
Otmaro Ruiz is a Venezuelan pianist, keyboardist, composer, arranger and educator. Son of Óscar Ruiz Beluche and Omaira Prado Hurtado, both medical doctors. He has a sister named Orlena, also a musician and educator.
Nelson Bragg is an American percussionist, vocalist and songwriter based in Los Angeles, California.
Paulinho da Costa is a Brazilian percussionist. Beginning his career as a samba musician in Brazil, he moved to the United States in the early 1970s and worked with Brazilian bandleader Sérgio Mendes. He went on to perform with many American pop, rock and jazz musicians and participated in thousands of albums. DownBeat magazine call him "one of the most talented percussionists of our time." He played on such albums as Earth, Wind & Fire's I Am, Michael Jackson's Thriller, Madonna's True Blue, Celine Dion's Let's Talk About Love, hit singles and movie soundtracks, including Saturday Night Fever, Dirty Dancing and Purple Rain among others. He has also toured with Diana Krall. He plays over 200 instruments professionally, and has worked in a variety of music genres including Brazilian, blues, Christian, country, disco, gospel, hip hop, jazz, Latin, pop, rhythm and blues, rock, soul, and world music. He was signed to Norman Granz's Pablo Records for three of his solo albums, Agora, Happy People and Sunrise, as well as Breakdown. Da Costa received the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences' Most Valuable Player Award for three consecutive years. He also received the Musicians Emeritus Award.
Nana Kimati Dinizulu was an American virtuoso percussionist, widely acclaimed for his artistry with African percussion in jazz, folk, classical, popular, ballet, and musical theater.
Thomas Jefferson High School, usually referred to as Jefferson High School, is a public high school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Founded in 1916, it is the fourth oldest high school in the school district. Located in South Los Angeles, its surrounding communities are Downtown, Central-Alameda, Florence, Historic South-Central and South Park. Jefferson's school colors are kelly green and gold and the sports teams are called the Democrats, or Demos for short. In 2006, a pilot program called New Tech: Student Empowerment Academy began in the northeast portion of the school. New Tech has since become a separate charter school housed in the Jefferson building. In 2016 New Tech closed down and the available space is now used by Nava College Preparatory Academy a pilot school that was established in 2014.
James Roland "J. R." Mitchell was an American jazz drummer and educator who sought to promote awareness of the African American music experience. In the early 1980s, jazz journalist and Washington Post music critic W. Royal Stokes wrote, "J. R. Mitchell is the renaissance man of jazz."
Bobby Thomas was a Kittitian-American jazz drummer. A member of Junior Mance's trio in 1960, Thomas recorded with the Montgomery Brothers in New York in January 1960.
Hip-hop theater is a form of theater that presents contemporary stories through the use of one or more of the four elements of hip-hop culture—b-boying, graffiti writing, MCing (rapping), and DJing. Other cultural markers of hip-hop such as spoken word, beatboxing, and hip-hop dance can be included as well although they are not always present. What is most important is the language of the theatrical piece and the plot's relevance to the world. Danny Hoch, the founder of the Hip-Hop Theater Festival, further defines it as such: "Hip-hop theatre must fit into the realm of theatrical performance, and it must be by, about and for the hip-hop generation, participants in hip-hop culture, or both."
Derek Gleeson is an Irish/American musician. Born in Dublin, Ireland. He is currently the music director and conductor of the Dublin Philharmonic Orchestra and has been the conductor at the Anna Livia Dublin International Opera Festival. Since 2012 Gleeson is also music director & conductor of the Rachmaninov Festival Orchestra. Since January 2016 Gleeson is Principal Guest Conductor or The Harbin Symphony Orchestra, Harbin, China. He also composes musical scores for film and television and of symphonic music for the concert hall.
Leon Milo is an American composer, percussionist and sound artist.
Lenny Castro is an American studio percussionist from the Los Angeles area.
