Bud Shank

Bud Shank has been an integral member of the international jazz scene for 60 years. A respected saxophonist, composer, and arranger, his soaring dynamic performances have enlivened countless concerts, festivals, nightclubs, and recording sessions.

Shank first came to prominence in the big bands of Charlie Barnet and Stan Kenton during the late 1940s. In the 1950s the saxophonist began a long tenure with Howard Rumsey's Lighthouse All Stars, as well as work with his own quartet. A charter member of the "West Coast" jazz movement, Shank's cool but always strongly swinging sound has made him one of a handful of sax players with an instantly recognizable and always exciting sound. In addition to club and concert dates this period found the musician producing some 50 diverse albums.

During the next two decades Shank augmented his club, university, and festival appearances with a healthy amount of studio work. A first call alto sax and flute player, he was a four-time winner of the coveted Most Valuable Player award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (NARAS).

In the 1970s and 80s Shank joined with Ray Brown, Jeff Hamilton, and Laurindo Almeida to form the world-renowned LA Four, who recorded and toured extensively through the decade. Shank helped to popularize both Latin-flavored and chamber jazz music, and as a musician's musician also performed with orchestras as diverse as the Royal Philharmonic, the New American Orchestra, the Gerald Wilson Big Band, Stan Kenton's Neophonic Orchestra, and the legendary Duke Ellington.

In the 1990s Shank continued to grow and explore, creating the multi-media jazz performance, "The Lost Cathedral," expanding the Bud Shank Jazz Workshop and Jazz Southwest Festival in Albuquerque, and touring with his quartet and sextet. Both bands feature exemplary writing, tight and fiery playing, and a joyous sense of collaboration.

Today, Bud Shank juggles a packed schedule of touring, festivals, and teaching combined with select major club performances and time set aside for composing and arranging. He is in demand as a clinician, and is available in a duo, as leader of his own quartet and sextet, and as a feature soloist with orchestra or big band, or with all star groups. With over 60 years as a professional jazz musician, Bud Shank has more than earned his status as a legend.

Source: Bud Shank Alto.com. 

Bud Freeman

When Bud Freeman first matured, his was the only strong alternative approach on the tenor to the harder-toned style of Coleman Hawkins and he was an inspiration for Lester Young. Freeman, one of the top tenors of the 1930s, was also one of the few saxophonists (along with the slightly later Eddie Miller) to be accepted in the Dixieland world, and his oddly angular but consistently swinging solos were an asset to a countless number of hot sessions.
Freeman, excited (as were the other members of the Austin High School Gang in Chicago) by the music of the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, took up the C-melody sax in 1923, switching to tenor two years later. It took him time to develop his playing, which was still pretty primitive in 1927 when he made his recording debut with the McKenzie-Condon Chicagoans. Freeman moved to New York later that year and worked with Red Nichols' Five Pennies, Roger Wolfe Kahn, Ben Pollack, Joe Venuti, Gene Kardos, and others. He starred on Eddie Condon's memorable 1933 recording "The Eel." After stints with Joe Haymes and Ray Noble, Freeman was a star with Tommy Dorsey's Orchestra and Clambake Seven (1936-1938) before having a short unhappy stint with Benny Goodman (1938). He led his short-lived but legendary Summe Cum Laude Orchestra (1939-1940) which was actually an octet, spent two years in the military, and then from 1945 on, alternated between being a bandleader and working with Eddie Condon's freewheeling Chicago jazz groups. Freeman traveled the world, made scores of fine recordings, and stuck to the same basic style that he had developed by the mid-'30s (untouched by a brief period spent studying with Lennie Tristano). Bud Freeman was with the World's Greatest Jazz Band (1968-1971), lived in London in the late '70s, and ended up back where he started, in Chicago. He was active into his eighties, and a strong sampling of his recordings are currently available on CD.

Source: All Music.com.

Branford Marsallis

World-renowned saxophonist Branford Marsalis, born in 1960, has always been a man of numerous musical interests, from jazz, blues and funk to such classical music projects as his Fall 2008 tour with Marsalis Brasilianos.  The three-time Grammy winner has continued to exercise and expand his skills as an instrumentalist, a composer, and the head of Marsalis Music, the label he founded in 2002 that has allowed him to produce both his own projects and those of the jazz world’s most promising new and established artists.
The New Orleans native was born into one of the city’s most distinguished musical families, which includes patriarch/pianist/educator Ellis and Branford’s siblings Wynton, Delfeayo and Jason.  Branford gained initial acclaim through his work with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers and his brother Wynton’s quintet in the early 1980s before forming his own ensemble.  He has also performed and recorded with a who’s-who of jazz giants including Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Herbie Hancock and Sonny Rollins.
Known for his innovative spirit and broad musical scope, Branford is equally at home on the stages of the world’s greatest clubs and concert halls, where he has performed jazz with his Quartet and his own unique musical approach to contemporary popular music with his band Buckshot LeFonque.  In recent years, Branford also has become increasingly active as a featured soloist with such acclaimed orchestras as the Chicago, Detroit, Düsseldorf and North Carolina Symphonies and the Boston Pops, in a growing repertoire that includes compositions by Copland, Debussy, Glazunov, Ibert, Mahler, Mihaud, Rorem and Vaughan Williams.
As Marsalis continues to establish his presence in the classical realm, his propensity for innovative and forward thinking compels him to seek new and challenging works by modern classical composers.  One such composer, Sally Beamish, after hearing Branford perform her composition “The Imagined Sound of Sun on Stone” at the 2006 North Sea Jazz Festival, was inspired to reconceive a piece in progress, “Under the Wing of the Rock,” which he premiered as part of the Celtic Connections festival Beamish’s home country of Scotland in January 2009.  This performance followed on the heels of his two month classical tour with the Philarmonia Brasileira in a program featuring the music of Brazil’s master composer Heitor Villa Lobos and his friend, French composer Darius Milhaud, allowing the saxophonist the opportunity to more thoroughly engage the music and make it his own.

Marsalis’s nearly two dozen recordings in these various styles have received numerous accolades, with his latest CD, Metamorphosen, scheduled for release in March 2009.  Metamorphosen marks the tenth anniversary of Marsalis’ quartet, which features pianist Joey Calderazzo, bassist Eric Revis and drummer Jeff “Tain” Watts, and includes original compositions by all four members in a variety of moods, as well as features for Marsalis on tenor, soprano and alto saxophones.
His previous disc, the Grammy-nominated Braggtown, was acknowledged as his quartet’s greatest recorded achievement to date.  The Marsalis quartet’s Eternal also received a Grammy nomination as well as virtually universal inclusion in lists and polls for the best jazz recording of 2004.  Marsalis’ playing on the DVD Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme’ Live in Amsterdam also received a Grammy nomination for best instrumental jazz solo, while also garnering awards for music and video excellence from the DVD Association.
Marsalis is also dedicated to changing the future of jazz in the classroom.  He has shared his knowledge at such universities as Michigan State, San Francisco State, Stanford and North Carolina Central, with his full quartet participating in an innovative extended residency at the NCCU campus.  Beyond these efforts, he is also bringing a new approach to jazz education to student musicians and listeners in colleges and high schools through Marsalis Jams, an interactive program designed by Marsalis in which leading jazz ensembles present concert/jam sessions in mini-residencies.  Marsalis Jams has visited campuses in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast and Southwest, and established an ongoing Marsalis Berklee Jams series with the Berklee College of Music in 2008.
These diverse interests are also reflected in Marsalis’ other activities.  He spent two years touring and recording with Sting, and was the musical director of The Tonight Show with Jay Leno for two years in the 1990s.  He has collaborated with the Grateful Dead and Bruce Hornsby, acted in films including Throw Mama from the Train and School Daze, provided music for Mo’ Better Blues and other films and hosted National Public Radio’s syndicated program Jazz Set.
Among the most socially conscious voices in the arts, Marsalis quickly immersed himself in relief efforts following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.  He is the honorary chair of the New Orleans Habitat for Humanity effort to rebuild the city, and together with his friend Harry Connick, Jr. conceived the Habitat Musicians' Village currently under construction in the city's historic Ninth Ward.
Whether on the stage, in the recording studio, in the classroom or in the community, Branford Marsalis represents a commitment to musical excellence and a determination to keep music at the forefront.

Source: Branford Marsallis.com.