The Elephant 6 Recording Company is a loosely defined musical collective from the United States. Notable bands associated with the collective include the Apples in Stereo, Beulah, Circulatory System, Elf Power, the Minders, Neutral Milk Hotel, of Montreal, and the Olivia Tremor Control. Although bands in Elephant 6 explore many different genres, they have a shared interest in psychedelic pop of the 1960s, with particular influence from bands such as the Beach Boys, the Beatles, and the Zombies. Their music sometimes features intentionally low fidelity production and experimental recording techniques.
John Lenwood "Jackie" McLean was an American jazz alto saxophonist, composer, bandleader, and educator, and is one of the few musicians to be elected to the DownBeat Hall of Fame in the year of their death.
Robert Dwayne Womack was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. Starting in the early 1950s as the lead singer of his family musical group the Valentinos and as Sam Cooke's backing guitarist, Womack's career spanned more than 60 years and multiple styles, including R&B, jazz, soul, rock and roll, doo-wop, and gospel.
Rashied Ali, born Robert Patterson was an American free jazz and avant-garde drummer best known for playing with John Coltrane in the last years of Coltrane's life.
Hugh Blumenfeld is an American folk musician and singer-songwriter from Connecticut. He was born in Jamaica, Queens, New York City, graduated with degrees in Biology and Humanities from M.I.T. in 1980, and got a master's degree in English Literature from the University of Chicago in 1981. He was active in the Greenwich Village music scene in the 1980s, attending the Cornelia Street Songwriters Exchange and performing at Folk City and Speak Easy while working on a PhD in Poetics from New York University. He also helped to edit the Fast Folk Musical Magazine and recorded songs for a dozen issues. After earning his PhD in 1991, he worked as an English professor until 1994, when he began writing and performing full-time. Over the next 10 years he toured mainly in the Northeast and Midwest, with several short tours in Europe and one in Israel. In 1999 he was appointed Connecticut State Troubadour.
Douglas Arthur Wimbish is an American bass player, primarily known for being a member of rock band Living Colour and funk/dub/hip hop collective Tackhead, and as a session musician with artists such as Sugarhill Gang, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, The Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger, Depeche Mode, James Brown, Annie Lennox, and Barrington Levy.
Jackie-O Motherfucker is an American experimental music group that formed in Portland, Oregon in 1994.
Ben Allison is an American double bassist, composer, producer, bandleader, educator. In addition to his work as a performer, he co-founded the non-profit Jazz Composers Collective and served as its Artistic Director for twelve years. Allison is an adjunct professor at New School University and serves on the board of the New York chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, where he serves as President.
Paulo Sergio "Jared" Gomes, also known as Jahred and M.C.U.D.("MC Underdog") is an American singer, musician and social activist, best known as the lead vocalist of the band Hed PE.
Wayne Escoffery is an American jazz saxophonist.
John Simon is an American music producer, composer, writer and performer. Recognized as one of the top record producers in the United States during the late 1960s and the 1970s, Simon produced numerous classic albums that continue to sell more than 50 years later, including the Band’s Music from Big Pink, The Band, and The Last Waltz, Cheap Thrills by Big Brother & the Holding Company featuring Janis Joplin, Songs of Leonard Cohen by Leonard Cohen, and Child Is Father to the Man by Blood, Sweat & Tears.
Javon Anthony Jackson is an American jazz tenor saxophonist, bandleader, and educator. He first became known as a member of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers from 1987 until Blakey's death in 1990. and went on to release 22 recordings as a bandleader and tour and record on over 150 CDs with jazz greats including Elvin Jones, Freddie Hubbard, Charlie Haden, Betty Carter, Cedar Walton, Ron Carter, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Stanley Turrentine and Ben E. King.
Brandee Younger is an American harpist. Younger infuses classical, jazz, soul, and funk influences to the harp tradition pioneered by her predecessors and idols Dorothy Ashby and Alice Coltrane. Younger leads her own ensemble, performs as a soloist and has worked as a sideman for such musicians as Pharoah Sanders, Jack DeJohnette, Charlie Haden, Bill Lee and Reggie Workman, and other popular artists including Lauryn Hill, John Legend, Common, Ryan Leslie, Drake, Maxwell, The Roots, Moses Sumney and Salaam Remi. Younger is noted for her work with saxophonist Ravi Coltrane, who was featured on her 2019 release, Soul Awakening. Currently, she records and tours with drummer and producer Makaya McCraven, following the release of his 2018 recording Universal Beings.
Reggie Fisher is an American record producer. Fisher worked with many popular artists on recordings that encompassed blues, jazz, pop, rock, country and soul records.
Animal Collective is an American experimental pop band formed in Baltimore, Maryland. Its members consist of Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Geologist, and Deakin. The band's work is characterized by an eclectic exploration of styles, including psychedelia, freak folk, noise, and electronica, with the use of elements such as loops, drones, sampling, vocal harmonies, and sound collage, alongside complex production techniques. AllMusic's Fred Thomas suggests that the group "defined the face of independent experimental rock during the 2000s and 2010s."
Louis Landon is a composer, Steinway Artist, solo pianist for peace, singer-songwriter, recording artist, and touring musician from New York City, currently residing in Sedona, AZ. He toured and recorded with renowned musician John Payne as a member of the John Payne Band. He has performed and toured with Mikhail Baryshnikov, John Payne, Rupert Holmes, John Hall, and Pucho & His Latin Soul Brothers.
The Jazz Messengers were a jazz combo that existed for over thirty-five years beginning in the early 1950s as a collective, and ending when long-time leader and founding drummer Art Blakey died in 1990. Blakey led or co-led the group from the outset. "Art Blakey" and "Jazz Messengers" became synonymous over the years, though Blakey did lead non-Messenger recording sessions and played as a sideman for other groups throughout his career.
"Yes sir, I'm gonna to stay with the youngsters. When these get too old, I'm gonna get some younger ones. Keeps the mind active."
Luques Curtis is an American bassist from Hartford, Connecticut. Now based in New York City, Luques has been performing nationally and internationally with artists such as Eddie Palmieri, Ralph Peterson, Jr, Christian Scott, Gary Burton, and others. He is one of the owners and co-founders of independent jazz label Truth Revolution Records.
Paul Brown "PB", was an American jazz bassist. He was the founder of the Monday Night Jazz Series in Hartford, Connecticut, which was recognized by the Library of Congress as the oldest and longest-running free festival for jazz in the United States and featured jazz greats such as Cannonball Adderley, McCoy Tyner, Herbie Hancock, Roy Haynes, Ron Carter, Thelonious Monk, Tito Puente, Woody Shaw, Sun Ra, Bobby Hutcherson, Roy Haynes, Freddie Hubbard, Slide Hampton Horace Silver, Hugh Masekela, and the "MJQ" Modern Jazz Quartet just to name a few. Brown also founded The Greater Hartford Festival of Jazz in 1992 to commemorate 25 years of the Monday night jazz series which in 2016, the Hartford Jazz Society renamed "Paul Brown Monday Night Jazz". He was co-founder of Hartford's Artists Collective, Inc.
Progressive soul is a type of African-American music that uses a progressive approach, particularly in the context of the soul and funk genres. It developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s through the recordings of innovative black musicians who pushed the structural and stylistic boundaries of those genres. Among their influences were musical forms that arose from rhythm and blues music's transformation into rock, such as Motown, progressive rock, psychedelic soul, and jazz fusion.
