Jason Anick | |
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Born | Framingham, Massachusetts United States | October 3, 1985
Genres | Jazz, World music |
Occupation(s) | Musician, composer, educator |
Instruments | Violin, mandolin |
Website | Official website |
Jason Anick (born October 3, 1985, Framingham, Massachusetts) is an American jazz violinist, mandolin player and composer. He currently resides in Boston, Massachusetts, and teaches at the Berklee College of Music.
Anick started classical violin lessons at age six but it was the summers spent learning fiddle tunes from his father that trained his ear and liberated him early on from the printed page. [1] [2] He was eleven when he met Stephane Grappelli and twelve when he fiddled for President and Mrs. Clinton when they showed up at a fiddle showcase on Martha's Vineyard. [3] In junior high school, he took a detour and started a rock band on guitar, but videos of European Gypsy jazz players piqued a renewed fascination with the violin – and a passion for jazz. He entered the unique "acoustics and music" program at the University of Hartford, combining an engineering degree with music performance studies at the Jackie McLean Institute of Jazz, part of the Hartt School. [4] There he worked with the likes of trombonist Steve Davis and bassist Nat Reeves to hone his straight-ahead and bebop chops. He was still attending college when guitarist John Jorgenson invited him to join his Quintet, having seen a YouTube video of Anick playing at the Montreal Jazz Festival with the Robin Nolan Trio. [5] Anick managed to complete school while touring with Jorgenson, beginning a professional relationship that has lasted for six years. The apprenticeship allowed him to hone his improvisational skills and stage presence while earning him a reputation as one of the top Gypsy jazz/world music violinists on the scene today. [6] He has recorded one CD with the John Jorgenson Quintet, One Stolen Night.
In 2011, Anick released his first solo CD, Sleepless. [7] A modern take on the Gypsy jazz genre, it mixed new arrangements of classic Hot Club tunes with a half dozen original compositions which reflected Jason's penchant for creating musical "short stories". Jason's melodic approach to improvising and his facility for blending traditional and modern jazz sensibilities caught the ear of Berklee College of Music's string department, who hired him as one of the youngest members of the Boston faculty. [8] [9] He currently teaches jazz violin and mandolin, history of jazz violin, and "Django ensemble" while maintaining a busy schedule performing as guest artist and band leader in a range of projects. These include the modern jazz ensemble "Jason Anick Quartet", "Rhythm Future Quartet", a progressive Gypsy jazz ensemble featuring guitarists Olli Soikkeli and Vinny Raniolo (of Frank Vignola Trio), and the "New Hot Club of America" an homage to the original Hot Club of France with guitarist Gonzalo Bergara and fellow violinists Ben Powell and Leah Zeger. He also continues to tour with the John Jorgenson Quintet. [10] In 2014, Anick released his second CD as band leader, Tipping Point [11] Backed up by piano, sax, bass and drums, this presents Anick in a modern jazz context as violin/mandolin player, composer and arranger.
Jean Reinhardt, known to all by his Romani nickname Django, was a Belgian-born Romani-French jazz guitarist and composer. He was the first major jazz talent to emerge from Europe and remains the most significant.
Stéphane Grappelli, born Stefano Grappelli, was a French-Italian jazz violinist who founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands. He has been called "the grandfather of jazz violinists" and continued playing concerts around the world well into his eighties.
Mark O'Connor is an American violinist and composer whose music combines bluegrass, country, jazz and classical.
Darol Anger is an American violinist and founding member of The David Grisman Quintet.
Fishtank Ensemble is a world music group from Los Angeles, California, known for their unique, high-energy and virtuosic stage show that blends a wide range of styles including Balkan, Romanian, gypsy, French hot jazz, flamenco, Turkish, Greek, and a little rock 'n' roll.
William Charles "Diz" Disley was an Anglo-Canadian jazz guitarist and banjoist. He is best known for his acoustic jazz guitar playing, strongly influenced by Django Reinhardt, for his contributions to the UK trad jazz, skiffle and folk scenes as a performer and humorist, and for his collaborations with the violinist Stéphane Grappelli.
Gypsy jazz is a style of small-group jazz originating from the Romani guitarist Jean "Django" Reinhardt (1910–53), in conjunction with the French swing violinist Stéphane Grappelli (1908–97), as expressed in their group the Quintette du Hot Club de France. Because its origins are in France, Reinhardt was from the Manouche clan, and the style has remained popular amongst the Manouche gypsies, gypsy jazz is often called by the French name "jazz manouche", or alternatively, "manouche jazz" in English language sources. Some scholars have noted that the style was not named manouche until the late 1960s; the name "gypsy jazz" began to be used around the late 1990s.
The Quintette du Hot Club de France, often abbreviated "QdHCdF" or "QHCF", was a jazz group founded in France in 1934 by guitarist Django Reinhardt and violinist Stéphane Grappelli and active in one form or another until 1948.
Tim Kliphuis is a Dutch violinist renowned for mixing gypsy jazz with classical and folk music.
Matt Glaser is an American jazz and bluegrass violinist. He served as the chair of the string department at the Berklee College of Music for more than twenty-five years. He is now the founder and artistic director of Berklee's American Roots Music Program.
John Richard Jorgenson is an American musician. Although best known for his guitar work with bands such as the Desert Rose Band and The Hellecasters, he is also proficient on the mandolin, mandocello, Dobro, pedal steel guitar, piano, upright bass, clarinet, bassoon, and saxophone. While a member of the Desert Rose Band, he won the Academy of Country Music's "Guitarist of the Year" award three consecutive years.
Jazz violin is the use of the violin or electric violin to improvise solo lines. Early jazz violinists included: Eddie South, who played violin with Jimmy Wade's Dixielanders in Chicago; Stuff Smith; and Claude "Fiddler" Williams. Joe Venuti was popular for his work with guitarist Eddie Lang during the 1920s. Improvising violinists include Stéphane Grappelli and Jean-Luc Ponty. In jazz fusion, violinists may use an electric violin plugged into an instrument amplifier with electronic effects.
David Balakrishnan is the founder of the Turtle Island Quartet.
The John Jorgenson Quintet is an American gypsy jazz band led by guitarist John Jorgenson, a pioneer of the American gypsy jazz movement. The band was formed in 2004 for the release of Franco-American Swing.
American fiddle-playing began with the early settlers who found that the small viol family instruments were portable and rugged. According to Ron Yule, "John Utie, a 1620 immigrant, settled in the North and is credited as being the first known fiddler on American soil". Early influences were Irish fiddle styles as well as Scottish and the more refined traditions of classical violin playing. Popular tunes included "Soldier's Joy", for which Robert Burns had written lyrics, and other such tunes as "Flowers of Edinburgh" and "Tamlin," which were claimed by both Scottish and Irish lineages.
Ian Cooper is an Australian violinist. He was commissioned to compose and perform the "Tin Symphony" for the opening ceremony of the Games of the XXVII Olympiad in Sydney. The event was televised worldwide with an estimated 2.85 billion viewers. He performs many musical styles including Classical, Gypsy, Jazz, Irish & Country music and has appeared with Tommy Emmanuel, James Morrison, Olivia Newton-John, Barry White, Simon Tedeschi, Deni Hines, and Silverchair.
Randy Sabien is an American jazz violinist, composer, and music educator known for his live performances and numerous recordings, many of them on Flying Fish Records and Red House Records. At the age of 21 he founded and chaired the Jazz Strings department at Boston's Berklee College of Music and since 2009 has been the chair of the Strings department of McNally Smith College of Music.
Franz "Schnuckenack" Reinhardt was a gypsy jazz musician (violinist), composer and interpreter. He was considered the "great violin virtuoso of Sinti music." He was a German Sinto; his music was mostly published and categorized under the contemporary names gypsy jazz or "Musik deutscher Zigeuner". He "made this music accessible to a broad public" and made the most significant contribution to the presentation of gypsy music and jazz in Germany into a concert form. He was the pioneer of this style of music in Germany and directly or indirectly inspired many of the succeeding generation of gypsy jazz players in that country, as well as preserving on record a great many folkloric and gypsy compositions for future generations.
Häns'che Weiss was a German gypsy jazz and modern jazz guitarist in the tradition of Django Reinhardt. From 1969-1972 he played with the Schnuckenack Reinhardt Quintett, after which he made five albums with his own ensemble playing acoustic gypsy jazz along with self-composed and traditional gypsy tunes. From the early 80s to his death he played in a more mainstream/bebop jazz style with other German jazz artists including the violinist Martin Weiss, and the double bass player Vali Mayer.