Don Byron
Don Byron ( born November 8, 1958 in New York City ) is an American jazz musician, clarinetist, saxophonist and composer from the Bronx. He moves for many years consistently in ever changing environment and deals with a variety of music genres.
Life and work
Byron's parents were working as a musician; the mother was a pianist and his father bassist in a calypso band. They recognized and encouraged his musical talent early on. So he found a good access to classical music, ballet and jazz. He studied music at George Russell at New England Conservatory in Boston. He also starred in the founded by his fellow students Hankus Netsky Klezmer Conservatory Band ( with whom he recorded only five plates until 1988 ).
International Byron first appeared in 1983 in Hamiet Bluietts Clarinet Family next to JD Parran and David Murray at the Berlin Jazz Festival in appearance. With albums under his own name, he showed that his artistic range in addition to Klezmer ( Plays the Music of Mickey Katz) and jazz, such as the swing of Small bands of Raymond Scott, John Kirby or Duke Ellington ( Bug Music ), just as Afro-Caribbean traditions (Music for Six Musicians ) that the Soul by Junior Walker as funk and hip -hop (Nu Blaxploitation ), but also adaptations of composers of European art music such as Robert Schumann (on his debut album, Tuskegee Experiments) and Gustav Mahler ( with Uri Caine ). He is a master of quotes, but there is always a representative of the Modern Creative style.
Over the years he has taken, inter alia, with Craig Harris, Vernon Reid, Ralph Peterson, Bobby Previte, Anthony Braxton, Steve Coleman, Bill Frisell, Joe Henry, Lalo Schifrin and many others. The new music ensemble Bang on a Can has recorded with him in 2006 a CD of his compositions.
Don Byron is a member of the Black Rock Coalition.
As a guest professor at the State University of New York at Albany, he currently teaches music theory, saxophone, improvisation and composition.
Prizes and awards
He was elected by the jazz magazine Down Beat Jazz Musician of the Year back in 1992. 2004, his bass clarinet solo was nominated for I Want to Be Happy on his album Ivey - Divey for a Grammy Award.
Disco printing specifications
- Tuskegee Experiments ( Nonesuch, 1992)
- Plays the Music of Mickey Katz ( Nonesuch, 1993) with Dave Douglas, Mark Feldman, JD Parran, Josh Roseman, Uri Caine, Steve Alcott, Richie Black, Lorin Sklamberg, Avi Hoffman and Jay Berliner
- Music for Six Musicians ( Nonesuch, 1995)
- Bug Music ( Nonesuch, 1996)
- Don Byron & Existential Dred: Nu Blaxploitation ( Blue Note, 1998)
- Romance with the Unseen ( Blue Note, 1999)
- A Fine Line: Arias and Songs ( Blue Note, 2000)
- You Are # 6: More Music for Six Musicians ( Blue Note, 2001) with James Zollar, JD Parran, Milton Cardona
- Ivey - Divey ( Blue Note, 2004) with Lonnie Plaxico, Jack DeJohnette
- Bang on a Can All Stars & Don Byron: A Ballad for Many ( Cantaloupe, 2006)
- Do the Boomerang - The Music of Junior Walker " ( Blue Note, 2006 )
Recordings of compositions Byron
- Ethel ( string quartet ): Four Thoughts on Marvin Gaye, Thought # 3 on Light ( 2006)