Douglas Ewart
Douglas Ewart ( born 1946 in Kingston, Jamaica) is an American jazz multi-instrumentalist (flutes, saxophones, clarinets, bassoon, didgeridoo, percussion, rainmaker, vocals), composer, music teacher and instrument maker.
Life and work
Douglas Ewart developed as a child a passion for mobile and home-made musical instruments such as bamboo flutes or hand drums. In 1963 he emigrated to the United States and completed an apprenticeship as a tailor until 1967, after which he studied music theory, composition, saxophone and clarinet at the music school of the AACM. Among his teachers were Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman, the mentors were important for his musical development. Ewart, who later became chairman of the AACM and music teacher at the facilities was also taught, inter alia, the Contemporary Art Center (New Orleans), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Field Museum of Natural History ( Chicago ), at the DuSable Museum of African - American Art ( Chicago), the University of Illinois, Norfolk State University and at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.
He went on, inter alia, with Muhal Richard Abrams, George Lewis, Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill, Mwata Bowden and Wadada Leo Smith. Ewart founded his label in 1983 Arawak Records, on which her albums Red Hills, Banboo Meditations at Banff and the suite Bamboo Forest appeared. 1987 Ewart was awarded the Creative Arts Fellowship of the Japan -US Friendship Commission Award and received a scholarship to study architecture and play the shakuhachi flute a year in Japan.
His compositions Red Hills and migration of Whales have been performed by a clarinet ensemble from Don Byron, Anthony Braxton, Edward Wilkerson, Roscoe Mitchell and Henry Threadgill. His composition Ewartology is in the spiritual tradition of Charles Mingus ' Wednesday Night Prayer Meeting. He also participated in recordings of Chico Freeman ( Morning Prayer, 1976), George Lewis ( Shadowgraph 5, 1977), Dennis Gonzalez ( Namesake, 1987) and Roscoe Mitchell ( 1978).
Disco Graphical Notes
- George Lewis / Douglas Ewart - Jila - Save! Mon - The Imaginary Suite ( Black Saint, 1979)
- Douglas Ewart and Inventions Clarinet Choir - Angles Of Entrance ( Arawak, 1998)
- Douglas Ewart - Songs of Sunlife. Inside The didjeridu ( Innova Recordings, 2003), with Adam Lane and Stephen Goldstein