Walt Weiskopf

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Walt Weiskopf

Walt Weiskopf (born July 30, 1959 in Augusta , Georgia ; full name Walter David Weiskopf ) is an American post-bop musician ( tenor saxophone , soprano saxophone , clarinet ) and music teacher.

Live and act

Weiskopf grew up in Syracuse , attended Jamesville-DeWitt High School in the New York suburb of DeWitt and graduated from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester . He first played the alto saxophone; when he was offered a job in the big band of Buddy Rich , he switched to tenor; In 1981 and 1982 he played with Buddy Rich ( Concert for the Americas with Frank Sinatra ). He then became a member of Toshiko Akiyoshi's Jazz Orchestra featuring Lew Tabackin in New York , with whom he a. a. on the albums Ten Gallon Shuffle (1984) and Wishing Peace (1986), as well as their performance at Carnegie Hall in 1992. For a long time he was also a member of Roland Vazquez's quintet .

With the rhythm section of his younger brother, the pianist Joel Weiskopf , he recorded his first albums under his own name in 1989/90, Exact Science , followed by Mindwalking . He caused a sensation in Europe with the album Simplicity , which was recorded with an expanded line-up and was released on Criss Cross and contained his own compositions such as Subordination and Brazilia . Since then Weiskopf has been working on his own projects - such as in the nonet for Song for My Mother in 1995 and 1999 for Siren - with Billy Drummond , Drew Gress , Conrad Herwig , Joe Locke , Tony Reedus , Scott Robinson , Renee Rosnes , Jim Snidero , among others . In 2002 he began working with trombonist John Mosca and alto saxophonist Andy Fusco ( Sight to Sound ) in his new sextet. In 2019 Weiskopf led a quartet consisting of Peter Zak (piano), Paul Gill (bass) and Steve Fidyk (drums).

Weiskopf also worked as a classical clarinetist and performed the Clarinet Concerto by Aaron Copland with the Gothham Chamber Orchestra . Session musician u. a. with Toshiko Akiyoshi on her solo album ( Night and Dream , 1994), Andy LaVerne and Fritz Renold . In 2003 he worked on the album Everything Must Go by the fusion band Steely Dan , as well as on Donald Fagens Morph the Cat (2006).

Weiskopf wrote the books Coltrane: A Player's Guide to His Harmony and The Augmented Scale in Jazz with his former saxophone teacher Ramon Ricker in 1990 . In 1994 Weiskopf published the textbook Intervalic Improvisation . He is a professor at Princeton University .

The authors Richard Cook and Brian Morton see Walt Weiskopf's postbop style of playing in the tradition of John Coltrane and Sonny Rollins , with echoes of the Jan Garbarek / Bobo Stenson Quartet of the 1970s.

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personal data
SURNAME Weiskopf, Walt
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Weiskopf, Walter David (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American post-bop musician (tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone, clarinet) and music teacher
DATE OF BIRTH July 30, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Augusta , Georgia , USA