Arthur Blythe

Arthur Murray Blythe ( born July 5, 1940 in Los Angeles ) is an American jazz musician (alto saxophone, soprano saxophone), composer and arranger.

Life and work

Blythe arrived in Los Angeles to the world, grew up in San Diego, where his parents had moved in 1944 and learned from the age of nine alto saxophone. The mid-1950s he had with the former Jimmie Lunceford saxophonist Kirtland Bradford lessons. Since the age of thirteen he was playing with local rhythm and blues bands before he turned to teenage jazz. In the late 1950s he returned to his native town, and soon became known in the local avant-garde jazz scene. From 1963 to 1973 he worked with Horace Tapscott, with his first recordings were made ( The Giant is Awakening, 1969), in 1967 Owen Marshall and then to 1973 with Stanley Crouch's Black Music Infinity.

In 1974 he moved to New York City, where he worked with Leon Thomas, Julius Hemphill and Chico Hamilton ( 1975-77 ). From 1976 to 1978 he played with Gil Evans ( Priestess ), besides also at Lester Bowie (1978) and over a longer period with Jack DeJohnettes Formation Special Edition as well as with McCoy Tyner, Charles Tyler, Ted Daniel and Julius Hemphill. After his retirement, he briefly took its place in the World Saxophone Quartet.

From 1977, he also led his own bands, with whom he recorded records. He initially published on the independent label India Navigation, then at Columbia, and then with Enja and Savant to find labels that are committed to the avant-garde jazz. For his often unusual instrumented albums he worked with musicians like Abdul Wadud, Bobby Battle, Kelvyn Bell, Steve McCall, Fred Hopkins and John Hicks. In 1979 he recorded for Columbia Album Lenox Avenue Breakdown, including the tuba player Bob Stewart, Guilherme Franco and guitarist James Blood Ulmer. In the same year he participated in Jack DeJohnettes Album Special Edition. He also took up some duo albums with James Newton, Art Davis and Malachi Favors (1980). In his various ensembles Arthur Blythe integrated alongside conventional rhythm section african drums, Turkish percussion, violins, violas, electric guitar and tuba. From 1980, the year of his final breakthrough, he played almost every year at major festivals such as the Berlin Jazz Festival, the Montreux Jazz Festival and the Newport Jazz Festival. The early 1980s he experimented briefly with pop music; from 1986 Blythe was a founding member of the All -Star lineup The Leaders.

Blythe took in 1991 for Enja album Hipmotism on; with his " electric " formation followed in 1993 Retroflection. Ssirus W. According Pakzad he was " the high expectations with age not just. Many own publications showed that although he still was able to play music of high density, but artistically turned only in circles, since it is always the same limited, well-known compositions on the threading. " He won a renewed attention in the late 1990s in the group of Joey Baron, 2002 Blythe played the marimba Gust Tsilis, Bob Stewart and Cecil Brooks III on the label Savant album Focus one.

Appreciation

I " am not just avant -garde: Blythe, one of his musician - models Charlie Parker, Coltrane, Harold Land and Eric Dolphy and Ellington and Monk as a composer, said in an interview. I like to play all types of music as much as I can play, straight -ahead or whatever they call that. I like rhythm and blues. I like music with form, not atonal or AForm. I am not only there. Sometimes They put me into a weird bag and want me to be weird, inaccessible. I think I am accessible. "

For Ian Carr Blythe is one of the most talented and creative saxophonists of the 1970s; Leonard Feather and Ira Gitler emphasize his emotioales game that blends its roots in gospel and blues with the derived Eric Dolphy more abstract game of the avant-garde. According to Ulrich Olshausen reflects " be sweeter tone " - without being imitative - models such as Johnny Hodges and Benny Carter. "In the height of this may sound before radiance almost whistle or come in the near soprano saxophonist, like circus clowns they play. In contrast, the depth he gets body and the typical Ornette Coleman robustness. "

For Martin Kunzler the repertoire of Blythe, who called one of his band Projects In The tradition goes, by Johnny Hodges Charlie Parker and Cannonball Adderley to the extreme avant-garde.