This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page . (Learn how and when to remove these messages)
|
Verna Gillis (born 1942) 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.
Gillis has been the subject of a number of press articles, with The New York Times describing her as "the closest thing world music has to a doyenne". [1]
From 1972 to 1978, Gillis recorded traditional music in Afghanistan, Iran, Kashmir, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Peru, Surinam, and Ghana. In 1979, she opened Soundscape, the first multi-cultural performance space in New York City, on west 52nd Street which she directed for the next five years. Gillis, Soundscape and the music played there is the subject of a web based project by WKCR Radio 89.9 NY. [2]
From 1984, Gillis worked on career development with international musicians including Youssou N'dour from Senegal ( The Guide (Wommat) ), Yomo Toro from Puerto Rico; Salif Keita form Mali, and Carlinhos Brown from Brazil.
In 1996, she was hired as a consultant by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to accompany musicians on a trip to Angola, Liberia, Kenya and South African, to witness first hand the results of ethnic cleansing. Gillis worked with the ICRC to produce a CD.
Twenty-five of Gillis' recordings have been released by Smithsonian Folkways and Lyrichord. As well, there have been nine releases on DIW of Live from Soundscape tapes, made during the years that the performance space which was located at 500 West 52nd Street was open.
In 2000, she was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Producer category for the Archie Shepp/Roswell Rudd Quartet Live in New York , and again in 2001 for Roswell Rudd's MALIcool .
She has performed "sit down comedy" – and has a One Older Woman show Tales from Geriassic Park - On the Verge of Extinction which won Best Comedic Script in 2014 at the United Solo Theatre Festival in NYC> She has published three books, I Just Want to be Invited - I Promise Not to Come,I'll Never Know If I Would Have Gotten The Same Results if I'd Been Nice. and "The I of the Storm."
She lived and collaborated with trombonist/composer Roswell Rudd from 1999 - 2017 when he died. They formed a group they call The Olders. Their video AWEMSONE & GRUESOME can be seen on Youtube.
Guy Hughes Carawan Jr. was an American folk musician and musicologist. He served as music director and song leader for the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee.
Ella Jenkins is an American singer-songwriter. Called "The First Lady of the Children's Folk Song", she has been a leading performer of folk and children's music. Her album, Multicultural Children's Songs (1995), has long been the most popular Smithsonian Folkways release. She has appeared on numerous children's television programs and in 2004, she received a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. According to culture writer Mark Guarino, "across her 67-year career, Jenkins firmly established the genre of children's music as a serious endeavor — not just for artists to pursue but also for the recording industry to embrace and promote."
Harold Courlander was an American novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist and an expert in the study of Haitian life. The author of 35 books and plays and numerous scholarly articles, Courlander specialized in the study of African, Caribbean, Afro-American, and Native American cultures. He took a special interest in oral literature, cults, and Afro-American cultural connections with Africa.
William Godvin "Beaver" Harris was an American jazz drummer who worked extensively with Archie Shepp.
Jean Ruth Ritchie was an American folk singer, songwriter, and Appalachian dulcimer player, called by some the "Mother of Folk". In her youth she learned hundreds of folk songs in the traditional way, many of which were Appalachian variants of centuries old British and Irish songs, including dozens of Child Ballads. In adulthood, she shared these songs with wide audiences, as well as writing some of her own songs using traditional foundations.
Roswell Hopkins Rudd Jr. was an American jazz trombonist and composer.
WKCR-FM is a radio station licensed to New York, New York. 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.
Tom Gray is a bluegrass musician widely considered one of the best bass players in the genre. He is best known for his bass playing with The Country Gentlemen and The Seldom Scene. In 1996, as a member of The Country Gentlemen, he was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Honor.
Rudd is a surname of Norse (Danish) origin.
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.
Frank Hamilton is an American folk musician, collector of folk songs, and educator. He co-founded the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, Illinois in 1957. As a performer, he has recorded for several labels, including Folkways Records. He was a member of the folk group The Weavers in the early 1960s, and appeared at the first Newport Folk Festival in 1959. He was the house musician – playing guitar and other folk instruments – for Chicago's Gate of Horn, the nation's first folk music nightclub. After many years of teaching, playing, and singing in California he married a third time, and with his wife relocated to Atlanta, where he performs on banjo, guitar, ukulele, voice, and other instruments and co-founded the Frank Hamilton School in 2015.
Edith Fowke, (néeMargaret Fulton; 30 April 1913 Lumsden, Saskatchewan – 28 Mar 1996 Toronto) was a Canadian folklorist. Fowke was educated at the University of Saskatchewan. She hosted the CBC Radio program Folk Song Time from 1950 to 1963. She wrote numerous books in collaboration with folklorist and composer Richard Johnston, including Folk Songs of Canada, Folk Songs of Quebec, Chansons canadiennes françaises, and More Folk Songs of Canada. She is particularly noted for recording the songs of traditional singers O. J. Abbott, LaRena Clark, and Tom Brandon. Edith Fowke died in Toronto in 1996.
Leyla Sarah McCalla is an American classical and folk musician. She was a cellist with the Grammy Award–winning string band Carolina Chocolate Drops, but left to focus on her solo career.
Martha Ellen Davis is an emeritus professor from the University of Florida, anthropologist and ethnomusicologist known for her multifarious work on African diasporic religion and music. Professor Davis' research has defied conventional tenets about Haitian and Dominican folk music, and her cultural preservation projects has raised awareness of the significance of the Samaná Americanos' enclave.
Vaccine are rudimentary single-note trumpets found in Haiti and, to a lesser extent, the Dominican Republic as well as Jamaica. They consist of a simple tube, usually bamboo, with a mouthpiece at one end.
Blown Bone is an album by trombonist Roswell Rudd. It was recorded in March 1976 at Blue Rock Studios in New York City, and was released on LP by Philips Japan in 1979. On the album, Rudd is joined by clarinetist Kenny Davern, saxophonists Steve Lacy and Tyrone Washington, trumpeter Enrico Rava, vocalist Sheila Jordan, pianist Patti Bown, guitarist and vocalist Louisiana Red, bassist Wilbur Little, and drummers Jordan Steckel and Paul Motian. The album was reissued on CD by Emanem Records in 2006 with a different track sequence, and with an additional track recorded in 1967 featuring another ensemble.
Embrace is an album by trombonist Roswell Rudd, vocalist Fay Victor, pianist Lafayette Harris, and bassist Ken Filiano. It was recorded at Potterville International Sound in Kingston, New York, and was released by RareNoiseRecords in 2017.
August Love Song is an album by trombonist Roswell Rudd and singer Heather Masse. It was recorded in 2016 at Nevessa Production in Woodstock, New York, and was released by Red House Records later that year. On the album, Rudd and Masse are joined by guitarist Rolf Sturm and bassist Mark Helias.
El Espíritu Jíbaro is an album by trombonist Roswell Rudd and cuatro player Yomo Toro. It was recorded during 2002–2006 at various locations, and was released by Sunnyside Records in 2007 as part of their Soundscape Series. On the album, Rudd and Toro are accompanied by drummer, percussionist Bobby Sanabria and his ensemble Ascensión. Sanabria acted also as co-producer with Verna Gillis and arranger. El Espíritu Jíbaro is a continuation of the cross-cultural experiments that Rudd began pursuing with 2002's Malicool and 2005's Blue Mongol.
Atis Indepandan is a New York–based music group that plays in a traditional Haitian troubadour style with influences from contemporary American folk music and Brazilian tropicália. They released two albums of Haitian protest songs: Haiti: Ki Sa Pou-N Fe? What is to Be Done? in 1975 and Haiti: Canti Di Lotta E Di Ribellione / Songs Of Struggle And Rebellion in 1976, during the repressive reign of Jean-Claude Duvalier. Their lyrics bear a strong socialist message, becoming a landmark in Haitian revolutionary music and reference during the struggle against the Duvalier dictatorship.