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Chris Anderson

Chris Anderson was born in Chicago on February 26, 1926. He passed away just before his 82nd birthday two years after suffering a stroke. His lifelong fascination with harmony, sparked by movie scores, began well before the age of 10. He was already teaching himself to play on the family piano, so well indeed that he never took lessons -- a clue to the startling originality of his harmonic ideas. Before Chris finished high school, he was playing blues gigs in South Side bars. An after-high school job in a record store exposed him to Nat King Cole, Art Tatum and Duke Ellington; from then on, jazz was his music.

After those first three great mentors, Chris rarely listened to pianists. As he put it, "I'd be more interested in listening to an arranger than to a pianist. Gil Evans for example, or Nelson Riddle -- they fascinated me. The things Riddle did for Sinatra knocked me out." Consistent with his interest for harmony and arrangement, his classical listening favored the great impressionist orchestrators, Debussy and Ravel.

By the time he was 18, he was playing piano for Leo Blevins, an influential Chicago guitarist who knew almost all the Jazz stars. That year, due to Leo, Chris started playing with Sonny Stitt. Within two years, he was playing the famous Pershing Ballroom concerts with Charlie Parker and Howard McGhee; two of these have been preserved on record. He was 20, and due to steadily worsening cataracts, became completely blind.

For the next 15 years as house pianist for several of Chicago's best jazz clubs, Chris played with a steady stream of the greats: Sonny Rollins, Clifford Brown, Gene Ammons, Max Roach, Stan Getz, Johnny Griffin, Roland Kirk.

At the same time he was playing with and influencing a whole generation of young Chicago musicians, many of them destined for greatness. Among them were Wilbur Ware, Clifford Jordan, Von Freeman, Billy Wallace, George Coleman, Wilbur Campbell and Harold Maburn. Chris, with characteristic modesty, speaks of them not as followers, but as close musical brothers. "Heck, they influenced me as much as I influenced them."

In 1960, Herbie Hancock heard Chris Anderson play. "Chris' music has affected the core of my music very deeply. After hearing him play just once, I begged him to let me study with him. Chris Anderson is a master of harmony and sensitivity. I shall be forever indebted to him and his very special gift."

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17
Album Review

Rob Susman: Top Secret Lab

Read "Top Secret Lab" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Trombonist Rob Susman, who is inclined to dwell on the cutting edge of contemporary jazz, remains “out there" for the most part on Top Secret Lab, an album wherein his splendid nonet is challenged by half a dozen of Susman's intricate compositions (and two others) and aces every test without any detectable missteps or errant notes. The question is whether Susman's blend of old-school funk with more modern design might whet a listener's appetite. And the answer ...

37
Album Review

Kent Engelhardt & Stephen Enos: Madd For Tadd

Read "Madd For Tadd" reviewed by Jack Bowers


The masterworks on this second edition of Madd for Tadd are presented on two discs, one of which bears the name of one of composer/pianist Tadd Dameron's classic themes, “Our Delight." Oddly, the other is named for the only non-Dameronian item on the menu, “Central Avenue Swing," written by saxophonist and Dameron chronicler Kent Engelhardt who adapted the composer's tasteful charts for a big band and co-leads the ensemble with trumpeter Steve Enos. Although he is most ...

3
Album Review

Collage Project: Off Brand

Read "Off Brand" reviewed by Troy Dostert


Listeners who crave a bit of classical rigor with their jazz--or, conversely, those who enjoy improvisational freedom within a classical chamber setting--should investigate the work of the Collage Project. Built around the trio of guitarists Dan Bruce and Daniel Lippel and bassist Aidan Plank, and complemented by drummer Nathan Douds, saxophonist Noa Even and trombonist Chris Anderson, the group thrives in the space between formalism and freedom, and with whip-smart compositions perfect for harnessing their respective talents, Off Brand is ...

5
Album Review

Funk Shui NYC: Shark NATO on a Plane

Read "Shark NATO on a Plane" reviewed by Jack Bowers


While some older listeners (and younger ones as well) may be thrown slightly off-kilter and find it hard to apprehend exactly what Funk Shui NYC is about, it must be conceded that the New York-based ensemble in all likelihood represents the future of big-band jazz, or at least a sizeable and assertive chunk of it. The name itself offers an explicit clue, as Funk Shui is indeed heavy on the funk (rather less on the shui, whatever that is), as ...

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76

Technology

Hey Chris Anderson, the Web Isn't Dead

Hey Chris Anderson, the Web Isn't Dead

Source: HypeBot

Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson made the claim last week that the web is dead. Since then, a number of leading experts have weighed in against his thesis and had some rather damning things to say. Most notably, Rob Beschizza at Boing Boing immediately found the graph that ran with the story to be suspect, because it didn't take into account the increase in web traffic over the 10 years in question. Once Beschizza recasted the data to reflect actual traffic ...

85

Technology

Chris Anderson: "The Web is Dead."

Chris Anderson: "The Web is Dead."

Source: HypeBot

Ever one to envelope web memes, Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson is at it again. This time around though, he's not writing about The Long Tail, Free, or saying that “Atoms Are The New Bits." Rather, he's declaring that the web is dead. Basically, Anderson makes the argument that mobile device revolution has caused many people to move from the computer screen and the browser to accessing things powered by the internet, but not actually visiting the web itself. “The Internet is the real ...

114

TV / Film

Chris Anderson Defends "Free" on Colbert Report

Chris Anderson Defends "Free" on Colbert Report

Source: HypeBot


111

Music Industry

Chris Anderson: "Labels the Least Important Part"

Chris Anderson: "Labels the Least Important Part"

Source: HypeBot

“We wrongly correlated, or equated, the music industry with the record labels. It now turns out in fact that the labels are now the least important part. If you look at the rest of the industry now, from the bands to the fans from Apple to tour promoters, everyone's doing OK, except for the labels. So there's really nothing wrong with the music industry; we're just redefining what it is.“

- “Free" author Chris ...

194

Book / Magazine

Read Chris Anderson's New Book "Free" for Free

Read Chris Anderson's New Book "Free" for Free

Source: HypeBot

Wired Editor Chris Anderson's new book “Free: The Future of a Radical Price" is already creating controversy and discussion across the net. “Free" has particular significance to artists and labels who use free songs to attract new fans, as well as, their entire industry which has been turned upside down by free access to music via file-sharing networks. The book explores the Free model from all angles ,both current and historic, and reading an advance copy inspired me to think ...

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Top Secret Lab

Self Produced
2024

buy

Stories, dreams,...

Hidden Cinema Records
2024

buy

Madd For Tadd

Self Produced
2023

buy

Off Brand

New Focus Recordings
2020

buy

Blue

From: Stories, dreams, inspirations:...
By Chris Anderson

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