Rashid Bakr (musician)
Rashid Bakr (actually Charles Downs, born October 3, 1943 in Chicago) is an American drummer of the Free and Creative jazz.
Life and work
Rashid Bakr grew up in the Bronx. Under the influence of the music of John Coltrane, he decided to become a musician, especially an uncle of the swing drummer Jo Jones was. Even as a child learned Bakr Art Blakey and Max Roach know when they visited the family; by Roach he got the first Drumsticks. Later models were the drummer Andrew Cyrille, Elvin Jones, Sunny Murray and Milford Graves, but also Kenny Clarke and later Tony Williams. Rashid Bakr attended Queens College, studied chemistry and psychology and graduated from the School of Clinical Psychology at Brooklyn College.
After college and military service saxophonist Bobby Zankel mediated acquaintance with Cecil Taylor, in his Big Band Bakr came in 1973; At this time, he participated in two concerts Taylors, at Columbia University and another at Carnegie Hall. The band also played the bassist William Parker, who gave him Jemeel Moondoc, who worked in New York since 1976; Rashid Bakr then played until 1981 in his ensemble Muntu, with whom he recorded five albums. In the early 1980s played Bakr also with Billy Bang, Roy Campbell, Raphe Malik, David Murray, David S. Ware, Frank Wright. In 1981, he again worked with Cecil Taylor and performed with Jimmy Lyons and William Parker on in Europe.
After his return to New York Bakr worked full time as a social worker in the dummy device Lighthouse and founded in the early 1980s, the formation Other Dimensions in Music with William Parker, Roy Campbell and saxophonist / flutist Daniel Carter. 1983 Bakr came with the Cecil Taylor Unit as part of a new European tour in Germany, too; In 1984 he was involved in Cecil Taylor's album Winged Serpent ( Sliding Quadrants ) ( Soul Note ), on the Bakr also be heard as a singer. 1993 Bakr again worked with the pianist at the FMP album Always a Pleasure with Sirone, Tristan Honsinger and Charles Gayle.
1996 Bakr played in a trio with saxophonist Frode Gjerstad and Parker ( Seeing New York from the ear on Cadence Jazz Records ); 1998 in a trio with saxophonist Glenn Spearman and pianist Matthew Goodheart ( First and Last on Eremite ). He also worked with Arthur Doyle, Charles Gayle, Ras Moshe, as well as with Thomas Borgmann, Peter Brötzmann ( The Cooler Suite).
Disco Graphical instructions
- Rashid Bakr Quintet - Native Earth ( Majic Records, 2001)
Swell
- Bielefeld catalog 1988 & 2002
- Richard Cook & Brian Morton: The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, 6th Edition, London, Penguin, 2002 ISBN 0-14-017949-6.