Connie Crothers
Constance Rhea Crothers (born May 2, 1941 in Palo Alto , California - † August 13, 2016 ) was an American pianist and composer of modern jazz .
Life
Connie Crothers received classical piano lessons as a young girl and performed publicly as a musical prodigy at the age of 12 . She began studying composition at the University of California, Berkeley at the age of 18, but dropped out when she found she could not express herself musically adequately in the language of serialism . In search of ways to express her creativity, she discovered jazz and studied with Lennie Tristano . In 1972 she made her first public appearance at Carnegie Recital Hall .
Crothers was an important improviser playing in the Tristano tradition and was a co-founder of the Lennie Tristano Jazz Foundation . Crothers worked with a number of jazz musicians such as Max Roach , with whom she recorded the duo album Swish (1982), or with Henry Grimes . Since the 1970s she has made a number of solo, duo and quartet recordings with her own compositions under her own name on the New Artists label she founded , on which she played as a soloist, as well as Roach, Joe Solomon , Roger Mancuso and Richard Tabnik , Richard Twardzik , Lenny Popkin , Cameron Brown , Carol Tristano and Rich Califano contributed. She also played u. a. with Lee Konitz , Jemeel Moondoc (Vision Festival 2003) and Roscoe Mitchell . She also worked as a music teacher and had a large group of students.
Crothers died in August 2016 of complications from cancer.
Discographic notes
- Concert at Cooper Union (New Artists, 1984)
- Love Energy (1988, # 1 "Record of the Year" on "Wire")
- New York Night (New Artists, 1989)
- Jazz Spring (New Artists, 1993)
- Deep into the Center (New Artists, 1993-94)
- Session (New Artists, 1996)
- Live at Outpost Performance Space (New Artists, 2005)
- Spontaneous Suite for Two Pianos ( RogueArt , 2009), with David Arner
- Pauline Oliveros & Connie Crothers: Live at the Stone (2017)
Web links
- Hans-Jürgen Schaal : pianist, Tristano student, label president - an encounter with Connie Crothers . Website by Hans-Jürgen Schaal, 2000
- Connie Crothers: Ideas for a Jazz Renaissance . All About Jazz , November 15, 2006 (English)
- New Artists Records
- Lennie Tristano Symposium. Jazz History Database, April 15, 2007, archived from the original on May 27, 2011 ; accessed on August 13, 2016 .
- Obituary by Chris Becker
literature
- Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD . 6th edition. Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ RIP Connie Crothers , Avant Music News, August 13, 2016 (English)
- ^ Leslie Gourse: Madame Jazz: Contemporary Women Instrumentalists . Oxford University Press, New York, 1995, ISBN 0-19-508696-1 , p. 221 (English).
- ↑ Richard Tabnik: Notification on Facebook , 13 August 2016 (English).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Crothers, Connie |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Crothers, Constance Rhea |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American pianist and composer of modern jazz |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 2, 1941 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Palo Alto , California |
| DATE OF DEATH | August 13, 2016 |