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Steve Swell | |
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 Steve Swell by Thomas Hohlbein | |
| Background information | |
| Born | December 6, 1954 Newark, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Genres | Jazz, free jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Musician |
| Instrument(s) | Trombone |
| Years active | 1975–present |
| Website | www |
Steve Swell (born in Newark, New Jersey, December 6, 1954) is an American free jazz trombonist, composer, and educator.
Swell studied at Jersey City State Teachers College [1] before moving to New York City in 1975 where he began his musical life, playing in top 40 bands, salsa bands, big bands (most notably those of Buddy Rich and Lionel Hampton) and performed on Broadway in Bob Fosse's Dancin' . He then became a member of Makanda Ken McIntyre's band which led to tours and recordings with Tim Berne, Joey Baron, Herb Robertson, Jemeel Moondoc, Anthony Braxton, Cecil Taylor, William Parker, Bill Dixon, Butch Morris, John Zorn, Dave Burrell, Elliott Sharp, Rob Mazurek, Perry Robinson, Ken Vandermark.
He is greatly influenced by Roswell Rudd, with whom he studied in the mid-1970s. [1] He was also a student of Grachan Moncur III and Jimmy Knepper.
Swell has led a number of projects, including Slammin' the Infinite (w/Sabir Mateen, Matthew Heyner, Klaus Kugel), Fire Into Music (with William Parker, Jemeel Moondoc, Hamid Drake), Unified Theory of Sound (with Cooper-Moore, Matt Lavelle) and his large ensemble Nation of We (aka NOW Ensemble).
Swell has received a number of awards including a USArts International (NEA) travel grant in 2006, grants from MCAF (LMCC) in 2008 & 2012, Foundation for Contemporary Arts and was nominated for Trombonist of Year, 2008, 2011 & 2020 by the Jazz Journalists Association. He was chosen Trombonist of the Year 2008-2010, 2012 & 2014-2021 by El Intruso, the Argentine jazz journal. In 2008 he received a fellowship award from The Jubilation Foundation of the Tides Foundation for his work in the New York City public school system and was selected by the Down Beat Critics Poll in the Trombone category 2010-2022. He also received the 2014 Creative Curricula grant from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. Steve earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music from SUNY in 2016.
With Slammin' the Infinite
With Ullmann/Swell 4 with Barry Altschul and Hilliard Greene
With Nation of We
With Inner Ear
With Marshall Allen
Digital release
With Active Ingredients (Chad Taylor, Jemeel Moondoc, Tom Abbs, Swell)
With Joey Baron
With Tim Berne
With Anthony Braxton
With Rob Brown
With Jaki Byard and the Apollo Stompers
With Bill Dixon
With Jemeel Moondoc
With William Parker
With Roswell Rudd
With Alan Silva
With Cecil Taylor
With Ken Vandermark
With Tom Varner
William Parker is an American free jazz double bassist. Beginning in the 1980s, Parker played with Cecil Taylor for over a decade, and he has led the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra since 1981. The Village Voice named him "the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time" and DownBeat has called him "one of the most adventurous and prolific bandleaders in jazz".
Test is a free jazz cooperative.
Sabir Mateen is an American musician and composer from Philadelphia. His musical style is primarily avant-garde jazz. He plays tenor and alto saxophone, B♭ and alto clarinet, and flute.
Roy Sinclair Campbell Jr. was an American trumpeter frequently linked to free jazz, although he also performed rhythm and blues and funk during his career.
Tom Abbs is an American multi-instrumentalist and filmmaker. He works primarily in jazz, free jazz, and free improvisation, and plays double bass, tuba, cello, violin, didgeridoo, and wooden flute, often playing several instruments simultaneously.
Rashid Bakr is an American free jazz drummer.
Jemeel Moondoc was a jazz saxophonist who played alto saxophone. He was a proponent of a highly improvisational style.
Matt Lavelle is a jazz trumpet, flugelhorn, alto clarinet, and bass clarinet player.
Assif Tsahar is an Israeli tenor saxophonist and bass clarinetist. He has lived in New York City since 1990.
Creative Improvised Music Projects, usually abbreviated CIMP or C.I.M.P., is an American jazz record company and label. It is associated with Cadence Magazine and Cadence Jazz Records. The label is noted for its minimal use of electronic processing and its spare microphoning technique. Bob Rusch founded CIMP in 1995, with his son Marc Rusch as the recording engineer and his daughter Kara Rusch producing cover art.
Spirit House is an album by American jazz saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc, which was recorded live in 2000 at the Magic Triangle Jazz Series organized by the University of Massachusetts Amherst and released on the Eremite label. It was the debut recording by the Jus Grew Orchestra, a large ensemble founded by Moondoc in the early 80s. For this concert Moondoc studied Butch Morris's conduction techniques of guided improvisation with hand gestures. Morris was the original conductor of the band.
Live at the Vision Festival is an album by American jazz saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc, which was recorded live at the 2001 Vision Festival and released on Ayler Records, a Swedish label founded by Jan Ström and Åke Bjurhamn. It was the second recording by the Jus Grew Orchestra, a large ensemble founded by Moondoc in the early 80s.
Slammin' the Infinite is an album by American jazz trombonist Steve Swell, which was recorded in 2003 and released on Cadence Jazz. He leads a quartet with Sabir Mateen on reeds and flute, Matthew Heyner on bass and Klaus Kugel on drums.
Remember Now is an album by American jazz trombonist Steve Swell, which was recorded in 2005 and released on the Polish Not Two label. It was the second release by Slammin' the Infinite, a quartet with Sabir Mateen on reeds, Matthew Heyner on bass and Klaus Kugel on drums.
Live @ the Vision Festival is an album by American jazz trombonist Steve Swell, which was recorded at the 2006 Vision Festival and released on the Polish Not Two label. It was the third release by Slammin' the Infinite, this time a quintet with guest pianist John Blum.
News from the Mystic Auricle is an album by American jazz trombonist Steve Swell, which was recorded in 2007 and released on the Polish Not Two label. He presents a new band called Rivers of Sound Ensemble, extending Slammin' the Infinite with trumpeter Roy Campbell and Hilliard Greene instead of Matthew Heyner on bass.
5000 Poems is an album by American jazz trombonist Steve Swell, which was recorded in 2007 and released on the Polish Not Two label. It was the fourth release by Slammin' the Infinite and the second as a quintet with pianist John Blum. The title takes its name from an essay by Walt Whitman.
Hilliard Greene is an American bassist specializing in modern creative, improvised, and jazz music, as well as a music educator.
Eremite Records is an independent American jazz record label founded in 1995 by Michael Ehlers, with early involvement from music writer Byron Coley. Ehlers was a student of Archie Shepp's at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. After college, he began producing concerts in the Amherst area, and Eremite evolved from those events. The label name came from an alternate title to the Thelonious Monk tune "Reflections": "Portrait of an Eremite". The label's logo, designed by Savage Pencil, is an image of a robed Joe McPhee playing soprano saxophone. Eremite organized a concert series in Western Massachusetts that ran through 2008 and produced roughly 100 concerts, including five Fire in the Valley festivals. From 1998–2018, Eremite managed a touring organization that arranged hundreds of concerts across North America for its artists.
John Blum is an American jazz pianist and composer.
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