Jack Wright

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Jack Wright (* 1942 in Pittsburgh ) is an American free jazz and improvisation musician ( saxophone , piano ).

Live and act

Wright grew up in the Philadelphia area and Chicago; In 1952 he started playing the saxophone and singing in church choirs. He also appeared as a singer until 1964, a. a. in a bluegrass trio, with which the first recordings were made ( Undertaking Bluegrass ). He attended Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, where he studied European history and literature. In 1964 he continued his history studies at Johns Hopkins University . Until 1972 he taught history at the City University of New York in New York and at Temple University . During this time he became politically active and finally left the teaching career. In the late 1970s he began to improvise music and in the 1980s he worked in New York and on the east coast of the USA. From 1983 to 1986 he toured Europe in search of partners, mainly in Berlin, Hamburg and London. He also began touring North America, where there was no prior experience of free improvisation. Because of this, Davey Williams called him the " Johnny Appleseed of Free Improvisation." In 1984 and 1985 he organized the East Coast Free Music Festival in Philadelphia, which brought together American improvisers and some Europeans - Roger Turner , Wittwulf Malik, Max Stehle, and Lars Rudolph.

In the United States he played a. a. with Toshi Makihara , Jim Meneses , William Parker , Todd Whitman , in Europe with Hannes Bauer , Joe Sachse , Wigald Boning , Lars Rudolph , Peter Hollinger , Wittwulf Malik, Max Stehle and Bernhard Arndt . In 1988 he moved to Boulder, Colorado , where he began painting, focused on writing and returned to private studies of European literature and philosophy. He also performed locally, organized The Front Range Improvisers Orchestra (FRIO) and continued touring. In 2000 Wright toured the American west coast with Bhob Rainey , with whom he also recorded. In 2003 he returned to the east coast and was active in the Philadelphia improvisation scene, with Ron Stabinsky for example . Since then he has performed at several improvisation festivals in the USA, in 2005 at the New York Museum of Modern Art , in 2006 at the Irtijal Festival in Beirut (Lebanon), in 2007 with Andrew Drury at the NO (not only) Jazz Festival in Zagreb and in 2008 with Olivier Toulemonde and Agnes Palier at the ContemporaneaMente Festival in Lodi (Lombardy) .

Since 2000 Wright publishes his recordings on his own label Spring Garden Music , u. a. Cooperations with musicians like Fred Lonberg-Holm and Bob Marsh . Further recordings were made with Andrea Centazzo , Michel Doneda , Tatsuya Nakatani , Joe McPhee and Michael Zerang . Since then he has also performed in Europe a. a. with Sebastian Cirotteau , Phil Durrant , Michael Griener , Urs Leimgruber , Eve Risser and Sabine Vogel . In the field of free improvisation, he was involved in 53 recording sessions between 1982 and 2006.

In 2017 his book The Free Musics was published , which deals with the situation of musicians in North America who have been playing free jazz and free improvisation since the 1960s.

Wright's most important tour partners since 2000 are Zachary Darrup, guitar; Evan Lipson, double bass; Ben Bennett, drums; Bob Marsh, cello, voice, electronics; Ben Wright (his son), double bass; Ron Stabinsky, keyboards, and Patrick Crossland, trombone. Since 2002 he has been touring Europe again, especially in England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Finland, Russia and Italy.

Wright lives in the Philadelphia area.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tom Lord : The Jazz Discography (online, accessed April 1, 2015)
  2. ↑ tours in europe and japan. Retrieved April 11, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Wright, Jack
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American free jazz and improvisation musician (saxophone, piano)
DATE OF BIRTH 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Pittsburgh