Roscoe Mitchell

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Roscoe mitchell, moers festival 2009
Roscoe Mitchell

Roscoe Mitchell (born August 3, 1940 in Chicago , Illinois ) is an American jazz musician ( alto , tenor , soprano , baritone and bass saxophone , clarinet , flute , oboe , percussion , vocals ), music teacher and composer . With his initially rough and ironic, later increasingly lyrical tone and his wealth of ideas, he stands for new jazz.

Live and act

Shaped by church music and blues alike, Mitchell began studying clarinet and baritone saxophone in high school at the age of eleven . He performed his military service in Heidelberg , where he played in a military band; During this time he also played in sessions with Albert Ayler . He then worked with Henry Threadgill and, since 1961, has directed a hard bop sextet in Chicago , which gradually opened up to the new musical trends. He then became a member of Muhal Richard Abrams ' Experimental Band and was one of the founding members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in 1965 , which opened up new avenues for free improvisation. Mitchell also spent ten years at the AACM music school. In 1966 his album Sounds was released (with Lester Bowie and Malachi Favors ). When Joseph Jarman and Phillip Wilson (later Famoudou Don Moye ) joined, Mitchell's sextet became the band Art Ensemble of Chicago , one of the most popular groups of the jazz avant-garde, which still exists today . Mitchell, on whose concept the group was based, used stylistic devices such as silence in addition to high-energy play and used children's instruments such as horns, clarinet, flute, piccolo, oboe, as well as baritone and bass saxophone.

Since then he has been working on a fundamental reorientation of music, whereby technology, structure, composition and improvisation are primarily aimed at researching and shaping the sound and ultimately on the development and placement of sound in space against the background of silence and on breaking down given materials into their elements and whose transformation are directed.

Mitchell played over a hundred albums with the Art Ensemble , as a band leader in other formations and as a sideman. Under his own name, he created albums for the Delmark , Nessa , Sackville, Moers Music, 1750 Arch, Black Saint , Cecma and Silkheart Records labels . Mitchell worked in a spectrum from large ensembles to unaccompanied solo concerts, such as 1973/74 in the USA, Canada and Finland, and 1977 in a duo with Richard Teitelbaum and in a trio with Joseph Jarman and Anthony Braxton at the Moers Jazz Festival . Mitchell emphasizes the juxtaposition of improvisation and composition and uses "notated improvisations" to free the game from routine processes. The preoccupation with improvisation was also important to him for another reason: "If you can't think like a composer, you will never be able to construct long pieces." In 1980, Mitchell's cello quartet was premiered at San Francisco State University . Further pieces for chamber orchestra were written over the next few years, but also Bells of 59th Street for alto saxophone and gamelan orchestra or 9-9-99 for violin and piano.

After his activities within the AACM, Mitchell was active as a music teacher for a long time; From 1974 to 1977 he worked at the Creative Arts Collective in East Lansing . In the 1970s and 1980s he held numerous workshops, including a. at the University of Wisconsin and the Banff Center in Alberta .

Prizes and awards

For his services in music education, Mitchell was recognized by the National Association of Jazz Education in 1988 , and in 1991 he was honored with the Jazz Masters Award . In 2014 he received the $ 275,000 Doris Duke Artist Award . In 2020 he received the title of Jazz Master of the National Endowment for the Arts and thus the highest honor in jazz in the USA.

Discography (selection)

Kongsberg Jazz Festival 2017

literature

Web links

Commons : Roscoe Mitchell  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Doris Duke Artist Award 2014 in JazzTimes