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Soundscape Presents or simply Soundscape is a recording label in jazz and world music, a contributor to music festivals, and a promoter of creative arts education.
Soundscape was founded as a jazz club in New York City in 1979 by Verna Gillis, a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology. Committed to the ideals of multiculturalism, it aimed to showcase contemporary music and musicians from diverse cultural backgrounds, and provided one of the first multi-cultural performance spaces in New York City. Live in Soundscape is a series of 9 CDs on DIW which documents the club's early years, through 1984.
After 1984, Soundscape no longer operated out of just one location. Other venues used included the Purple Barge on the Hudson River, the Miller Pier, the Ritz rock club, La Mama, the Village Gate, Irving Plaza, SOB's, Symphony Space, Alice Tully Hall, Town Hall and the Beacon Theatre. WKCR 89.8 fm (New York) has launched a webpage devoted to Soundscape, including documentation, recordings and photographs. [1]
As a performance space, Soundscape brought together many types of music, regardless of genre. It provided an environment that encouraged experimentation, development, and cultural fusions. It presented both established, well-known musicians and emerging composer/musicians of exceptional promise. Established musicians found a rare environment in which they were encouraged to try out new ideas without commercial pressures, while emerging musicians were given a forum with a reputation for quality and visibility. Many musicians performed and were reviewed for the first time at Soundscape, and have gone on to make significant contributions to contemporary music.[ citation needed ]
In November, 1981, Soundscape produced Interpretations of Monk in two concerts at Columbia University. Eleven major performers and interpreters of Thelonious Monk’s music performed together in different configurations. These momentous performances were taped by National Public Radio and broadcast nationwide, and released in 1994 on DIW. In 1981 and 1982, Soundscape produced summer concert series at the Hudson River Museum; it produced Soundscape Presents Latin New York in 1982 at the Berlin Jazz Festival; and it produced six successful seasons of Latin Jazz for the Center for Inter American Relations, 1982–1987.
Soundscape became the first U.S. presenter of African pop music with the appearance of King Sunny Adé and his African Beats from Nigeria in early 1983, which was heralded as “the pop event of the decade” by Robert Palmer of The New York Times . [2] Late that same year, Soundscape produced the first Hip-Hop performance, “Dance Music New York,” at the Miller Pier.
From 1980 to 1985, Soundscape produced the New Music component of the Kool Jazz Festival and produced a World Pop series for The First New York International Festival of the Arts in 1988. The New York Festival presented talent from India, Japan, and three African countries with performances at The Felt Forum and the Beacon Theatre. In 1991, once again for the New York International Festival of the Arts premiered two groups from Brazil – Paulinho da Viola and Olodum, as well as “Lights in a Fat City.” Soundscape Presents serves as a consultant to festivals and organizations around the world, assisting in the production of concerts and concert series, and developing concepts for their music programming.
In 1986 Soundscape formed its own record label and to date has released two albums by the group Vortex. The first record, C Album, was voted one of the 10 best of the year in 1986 by Cadence Magazine . Two other Soundscape recordings have been licensed to Island Records – the first, Arawe by Daniel Ponce, was released in 1987, and Funky Jibaro by Yomo Toro was released in 1988.
John Zorn is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". His avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, contemporary, surf, metal, soundtrack, ambient, and world music. Rolling Stone noted that "[alt]hough Zorn has operated almost entirely outside the mainstream, he's gradually asserted himself as one of the most influential musicians of our time".
Masada is a musical group with rotating personnel led by American saxophonist and composer John Zorn since the early 1990s.
Dave Douglas is an American jazz trumpeter, composer, and educator. His career includes more than fifty recordings as a leader and more than 500 published compositions. His ensembles include the Dave Douglas Quintet; Sound Prints, a quintet co-led with saxophonist Joe Lovano; Uplift, a sextet with bassist Bill Laswell; Present Joys with pianist Uri Caine and Andrew Cyrille; High Risk, an electronic ensemble with Shigeto, Jonathan Aaron, and Ian Chang; and Engage, a sextet with Jeff Parker, Tomeka Reid, Anna Webber, Nick Dunston, and Kate Gentile.
Samuel Carthorne Rivers was an American jazz musician and composer. Though most famously a tenor saxophonist, he also performed on soprano saxophone, bass clarinet, flute, harmonica, piano and viola.
Rashied Ali, born Robert Patterson, was an American free jazz and avant-garde drummer who was best known for performing with John Coltrane in the last years of Coltrane's life.
Henry Grimes was an American jazz double bassist and violinist.
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival is an annual celebration of local music and culture held at the Fair Grounds Race Course in New Orleans, Louisiana. Jazz Fest attracts thousands of visitors to New Orleans each year. The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Foundation Inc., as it is officially named, was established in 1970 as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (NPO). The Foundation is the original organizer of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival presented by Shell Oil Company, a corporate financial sponsor. The Foundation was established primarily to redistribute the funds generated by Jazz Fest into the local community. As an NPO, their mission further states that the Foundation "promotes, preserves, perpetuates and encourages the music, culture and heritage of communities in Louisiana through festivals, programs and other cultural, educational, civic and economic activities". The founders of the organization included pianist and promoter George Wein, producer Quint Davis and the late Allison Miner.
Herman Davis "Dave" Burrell is an American jazz pianist. He has played with many jazz musicians including Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Marion Brown and David Murray.
Roswell Hopkins Rudd Jr. was an American jazz trombonist and composer.
WKCR-FM is a radio station licensed to New York, New York, United States. The station is owned by Columbia University and serves the New York metropolitan area. Founded in 1941, the station traces its history back to 1908 with the first operations of the Columbia University Radio Club (CURC). In 1956, it became one of the first college radio stations to adopt FM broadcasting, which had been invented two decades earlier by Professor Edwin Howard Armstrong. The station was preceded by student involvement in W2XMN, an experimental FM station founded by Armstrong, for which the CURC provided programming. Originally an education-focused station, since the Columbia University protests of 1968, WKCR-FM has shifted its focus towards alternative musical programming, with an emphasis on jazz, classical, and hip hop.
The John G. Shedd Institute for the Arts, is a performing arts company, cultural arts center, and community music school in Eugene, Oregon, United States. The institute has three performance venues, various community meeting rooms, and extensive music education facilities. It presents annually an array of culturally diverse festivals, concert series and educational programs that focus on, but are not limited to, American music.
Fred Hopkins was an American double bassist who played a major role in the development of the avant-garde jazz movement. He was best known for his association with the trio Air with Henry Threadgill and Steve McCall, and for his numerous performances and extensive recordings with major jazz musicians such as Muhal Richard Abrams, Arthur Blythe, Oliver Lake, and David Murray. He was a member of the AACM, and a frequent participant in the loft jazz scene of the 1970s. He also co-led a number of albums with the composer and cellist Diedre Murray. Gary Giddins wrote that Hopkins' playing "fused audacious power with mercuric reflexes." Howard Reich, writing in the Chicago Tribune, stated that "many connoisseurs considered [Hopkins] the most accomplished jazz bassist of his generation" and praised him for "the extraordinarily fluid technique, sumptuous tone and innovative methods he brought to his instrument."
Verna Gillis is an American freelance record producer, who has gained recognition for her work promoting and producing music from various cultural backgrounds. Gillis holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology. She was an assistant professor at Brooklyn College from 1974 to 1980 and at Carnegie Mellon University from 1988 to 1990.
School of Jazz and Contemporary Music is the second conservatory of The New School. It is located on West 13th Street in New York City's Greenwich Village neighborhood. It was known as The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music before it was rebranded as School of Jazz and Contemporary Music and becoming part of College of Performing Arts at The New School in 2015.
Arthur Rhames was an American guitarist, tenor saxophonist, and pianist.
Live from Soundscape is a 1994 released album of a live 1981 performance by the New York based No Wave music group Material.
James Williams was an American jazz pianist.
Terry Waldo is an American pianist, composer, and historian of early jazz, blues, and stride music, and is best known for his contribution to ragtime and his role in reviving interest in this form, starting in the 1970s. Says Wynton Marsalis in his introduction to Waldo's book: "He teaches Ragtime, he talks about Ragtime, he plays it, he embodies it, he lives it, and he keeps Ragtime alive." The book, This is Ragtime, published in 1976, grew out of the series of the same title that Waldo produced for NPR in 1974. Waldo is also a theatrical music director, producer, vocalist, and teacher. He is noted for his wit and humor in performance, as "a monologist in the dry, Middle Western tradition." Eubie Blake describes his first impression of Waldo's performance thus: "I died laughing...that's one of the hardest things to do—make people laugh. Terry's ability to do this, combined with his musicianship, actually reminds me of Fats Waller."
The Music Gallery is an independent performance venue in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is known as a space for musical and interdisciplinary projects in experimental genres. The Music Gallery is publicly funded through arts grants from the city, province, and country, and through membership and ticket sales.
Daniel Ponce was a Cuban-American jazz percussionist.