Ray Anderson (musician)

Last updated
Ray Anderson
Ray-anderson.jpg
Background information
BornOctober 16, 1952 (age 72)
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Genres Jazz
OccupationJazz Musician
Instrument(s)Trombone, jazz trumpet, vocals
Years active1973–present
Labels Enja
Website www.rayanderson.org

Ray Anderson (born October 16, 1952) is an American jazz trombonist. [1] Trained by the Chicago Symphony trombonists, he is regarded as someone who pushes the limits of the instrument, including performing on alto and soprano trombone. He is a colleague of trombonist George E. Lewis. Anderson also plays sousaphone (marching tuba) and sings. [2] He was frequently chosen in DownBeat magazine's Critics Poll as best trombonist throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. [3]

Contents

Biography

After studying in California, he moved to New York in 1972 and freelanced. [4] In 1977, he joined Anthony Braxton's Quartet (replacing George E. Lewis) and started working with Barry Altschul's group. [4] In addition to leading his own groups since the late 1970s including the funk-oriented Slickaphonics, [4] in which he began taking an occasional good-humored vocal, where he shows the ability to sing two notes at the same time (a minor third apart). Anderson has worked with George Gruntz's Concert Jazz Band.

Anderson has worked with David Murray, Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, Dr. John, Luther Allison, Bennie Wallace, Gerry Hemingway, Henry Threadgill, John Scofield, Roscoe Mitchell, Randy Sandke's Inside Out Band, Sam Rivers' Rivbea Orchestra, Bobby Previte, George Russell and others. Anderson is a member of Jim Pugh's Super Trombone with Dave Bargeron and Dave Taylor. He received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for a series of solo trombone concerts.

Anderson has frequently returned to his early love of New Orleans music for inspiration. His Alligatory Band and Pocket Brass Band, featuring tuba player Bob Stewart or sousaphonist Matt Perrine and trumpeter Lew Soloff, are rooted in its tradition. [5] [6] Since 2003 he has taught and conducted at Stony Brook University.

Discography

As leader/co-leader

With BassDrumBone

With Slickaphonics

As sideman

With Barry Altschul

With Anthony Braxton

With Charlie Haden

With Julius Hemphill

With Roscoe Mitchell

With Sam Rivers' Rivbea All-star Orchestra

With Bobby Previte & Bump

With Hank Roberts

With George Russell's New York Band

With Bob Thiele Collective

With Roseanna Vitro and Kenny Werner

Related Research Articles

Mark Dresser is an American double bass player and composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">George E. Lewis</span> American composer, performer, and music scholar

George Emanuel Lewis is an American composer, performer, and scholar of experimental music. He has been a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) since 1971, when he joined the organization at the age of 19. He is renowned for his work as an improvising trombonist and considered a pioneer of computer music, which he began pursuing in the late 1970s; in the 1980s he created Voyager, an improvising software he has used in interactive performances. Lewis's many honors include a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the American Book Award received for his book A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music. Lewis is the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music, Composition & Historical Musicology at Columbia University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Howard Johnson (jazz musician)</span> American musician (1941–2021)

Howard Lewis Johnson was an American jazz musician, known mainly for his work on tuba and baritone saxophone, although he also played the bass clarinet, trumpet, and other reed instruments. He is known to have expanded the tuba’s known capacities in jazz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bobby Previte</span> American drummer

Bobby Previte is a drummer, composer, and bandleader. He earned a degree in economics from the University at Buffalo, where he also studied percussion. He moved to New York City in 1979 and began professional relationships with John Zorn, Wayne Horvitz, and Elliott Sharp.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Mangelsdorff</span> German jazz trombonist

Albert Mangelsdorff was a German jazz trombonist. Working mainly in free jazz, he was an innovator in multiphonics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin Eubanks</span> American jazz trombonist

Robin Eubanks is an American jazz and jazz fusion slide trombonist, the brother of guitarist Kevin Eubanks and trumpeter Duane Eubanks. Younger brother Shane Eubanks, twin to Duane Eubanks, is a DJ. His uncles are jazz pianist Ray Bryant and bassist Tommy Bryant. His mother, Vera Eubanks, was famed pianist Kenny Barron's first piano teacher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellery Eskelin</span> American tenor saxophonist

Ellery Eskelin is an American tenor saxophonist raised in Baltimore, Maryland and residing in New York City. His parents, Rodd Keith and Bobbie Lee, were both professional musicians. Rodd Keith died in 1974 in Los Angeles, California, and became a cult figure after his death in the little-known field of "song-poem" music. Organist Bobbie Lee performed in local nightclubs in Baltimore in the early 1960s and provided Eskelin an introduction to standards from the Great American Songbook as well as inspiring an early interest in jazz music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mark Helias</span> American double bassist and composer

Mark Helias is an American double bass player and composer born in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marty Ehrlich</span> Musical artist

Marty Ehrlich is a multi-instrumentalist and is considered one of the leading figures in avant-garde jazz.

Hans Wendl is a producer. He began his career in the music business with the record label ECM Records in his hometown of Munich in the mid-1970s and was associated with the German label for twelve years before moving to the United States in 1986. He was also director of the Gramavision Records label for Rykodisc for three years during the mid-1990s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tom Varner</span> American jazz horn player and composer (born 1957)

Tom Varner is an American jazz horn player and composer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lew Soloff</span> American jazz trumpeter, composer, and actor

Lewis Michael Soloff was an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and actor. He was original founding band member of the acclaimed Blood, Sweat and Tears

Arthur John Baron is an American jazz trombonist. He also plays didgeridoo, conch shell, penny-whistle, alto and bass recorder, and tuba.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herb Robertson</span> American jazz musician (1951–2024)

ClarenceC. "Herb" Robertson was an American jazz trumpeter and flugelhornist. He was born in Plainfield, New Jersey, on February 21, 1951, and attended the Berklee College of Music. He recorded solo albums and worked as a sideman for Tim Berne, Anthony Davis, Bill Frisell, George Gruntz, Paul Motian, Bobby Previte, and David Sanborn. Robertson died in Whiting, New Jersey, on December 10, 2024, at the age of 73.

Gary Valente is a jazz trombonist.

In the 1990s in Jazz, jazz rap continued progressing from the late 1980s and early 1990s, and incorporated jazz influence into hip hop. In 1988, Gang Starr released the debut single "Words I Manifest", sampling Dizzy Gillespie's 1962 "A Night in Tunisia", and Stetsasonic released "Talkin' All That Jazz", sampling Lonnie Liston Smith. Gang Starr's debut LP, No More Mr. Nice Guy, and their track "Jazz Thing" for the soundtrack of Mo' Better Blues, sampling Charlie Parker and Ramsey Lewis. Gang Starr also collaborated with Branford Marsalis and Terence Blanchard. Groups making up the collective known as the Native Tongues Posse tended towards jazzy releases; these include the Jungle Brothers' debut Straight Out the Jungle and A Tribe Called Quest's People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm and The Low-End Theory.

Anthony Cox is an American jazz bass player. He is known for his work with several leading musicians including Geri Allen, Dewey Redman, Dave Douglas, John Scofield, Pat Metheny, Gary Thomas, Marty Ehrlich, Ed Blackwell, Joe Lovano, and Dave King.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jerome Harris</span> American jazz musician

Jerome Harris is an American jazz musician specializing in electric and acoustic bass guitar, electric guitar, voice, and occasionally lap steel and small percussion.

<i>Dont Mow Your Lawn</i> Studio album by Ray Anderson Alligatory Band

Don't Mow Your Lawn is an album by trombonist Ray Anderson and his Alligatory band which was released on the Enja label in 1994.

<i>Somewhere Else</i> (Barry Altschul album) 1979 live album by Barry Altschul Trio

Somewhere Else is a live album by the Barry Altschul Trio, led by drummer Altschul, and featuring trombonist Ray Anderson and double bassist Mark Helias. It was recorded on June 2, 1979, at the 8th Moers International New Jazz Festival in Moers, Germany, and was released on vinyl later that year by Moers Music.

References

  1. Cook, Richard (2005). Richard Cook's Jazz Encyclopedia. London: Penguin Books. pp. 14–15. ISBN   0-141-00646-3.
  2. "Ray Anderson | Biography & History". AllMusic . Retrieved 23 July 2021.
  3. "1988 DownBeat Critics Poll". Archived from the original on 2012-03-06.
  4. 1 2 3 Colin Larkin, ed. (1992). The Guinness Who's Who of Jazz (First ed.). Guinness Publishing. p. 14. ISBN   0-85112-580-8.
  5. "Montalvo Arts Center | Ray Anderson". www.montalvoarts.org. Retrieved 2020-11-12.
  6. "Where Home Is - Ray Anderson, Ray Anderson Pocket Brass Band | Songs, Reviews, Credits". AllMusic . Retrieved 2020-11-12.