You are browsing the archives of 2008 August.

Sidney Bechet was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on May 14, 1897. Music was important in his family. His father played the flute and encouraged all of his children to learn to play music. Bechet started learning to play the clarinet when he was 8.
When Bechet became a teenager his interest in dance hall bands [...]

Johnny Hodges was born in July 25, 1906 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He started out playing the drums and piano. When he was 14, he started playing the saxophone. He was self taught, but later took some lessons on the soprano saxophone with Sidney Bechet. He played with Bechet in various groups in the early and [...]

John Coltrane was born in Hamlet, North Carolina on September 23, 1926. He grew up in High Point, North Carolina. Early on Coltrane started to play E-flat horn and clarinet. In high school he switched to playing alto saxophone. In his early years of playing he was influenced by Lester Young and

Ellis Marsalis, Jr. was born on November 14, 1934 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Marsalis was trained in music formally. When he was 11, he started studying music at the Xavier University junior school of music. Even though he grew up in New Orleans in his youth he had no interest in Dixieland music. He was [...]

Ornette Coleman was born in Fort Worth, Texas on March 9, 1930. His father died when he was seven and his mother worked as a seamstress. When he was 14 he got his first saxophone and taught himself how to play. Before long he was playing in local R & B shows. When he was [...]

Michael Brecker was born on March 29, 1949 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He grew up in Cheltenham Township, a Philadelphia suburb. Brecker was exposed to jazz from an early age. His father was an amateur jazz pianist. He started playing the drums when he was quite young. When he was 7, he started playing the [...]

Wynton Marsalis was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on October 18, 1961. He is the son of jazz pianist, Ellis Marsalis, Jr. Marsalis was raised in a large musical family. He has 5 brothers. He started playing the trumpet at age 6 when he was given a trumpet by his father’s friend. By 8 [...]

Don Cherry was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma on November 18, 1936. Cherry’s family moved to Los Angeles when he was quite young, and he was raised there. He started playing the trumpet in his early teens. In his late teens, he started playing professionally.
In the 1950’s he met Ornette Coleman in a record [...]

Joshua Redman was born in Berkeley, California on February 1, 1969. Redman grew up in a musical family his father is saxophonist Dewey Redman. Redman was raised by his mother, Renee Shedroff, in Berkeley where she studied South Indian dance at the Center for World Music in Berkeley.
Redman’s father didn’t teach him how to play [...]

Art Farmer was born in Council Bluffs, Iowa on August 21, 1928. When he was 4, his family moved to Phoenix, Arizona. Farmer learned to play the piano and violin when he was in elementary school. Later, when he joined his school marching band he was assigned to play the sousaphone. He also played the [...]