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Michael Gibbs

Mike Gibbs - composer, arranger and trombonist has worked with many music luminaries, including Pat Metheny, John McLaughlin, John Scofield, Narada Michael Walden, Michael Mantler, Gary Burton, Whitney Houston, Peter Gabriel, Bill Frisell. Born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia (now Harare, Zimbabwe), he grew up playing trombone and piano and was awarded scholarships to attend Lenox School of Jazz and Tanglewood Summer School, where he studied with Gunther Schuller, George Russell, J.J.Johnson, Lukas Foss, and Iannis Xenakis. Having graduated from Berklee College of Music with diploma in Arranging and Composition in 1962, he moved to the U.K. played trombone for Tubby Hayes, Graham Collier, John Dankworth and Cleo Laine, and by the 1970's was generally recognised as one of the leading young composer-arrangers in jazz. His albums, including Michael Gibbs and In The Public Interest, won him numerous awards and after nine years as composer-in-residence at Berklee, during which time he orchestrated Joni Mitchell's Don Juan's Reckless Daughter album among many others. He returned to the U.K. in 1985. He has since written extensively for films and television and worked with the NDR, WDR and HR bands in Germany. In 2004 he received an Honorary Fellowship from Birmingham Conservatoire.

Awards

Honorary Fellowship Birmingham Conservatoire


Tags

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Interview

Michael Gibbs: Still Pushing The Envelope

Read "Michael Gibbs: Still Pushing The Envelope" reviewed by Ian Patterson


In a career spanning well over fifty years, veteran composer/arranger Michael Gibbs has chalked up a truly impressive range of credits, from Mahavishnu Orchestra to Jaco Pastorius, from Gary Burton to John Scofield and from Kenny Wheeler to Norma Winstone. The Zimbabwe-born maestro has worked with the very best jazz musicians on both sides of the Atlantic, but his expertise is by no means restricted to that field. In an extremely diverse career Gibbs has also collaborated with the likes ...

7
Multiple Reviews

Michael Gibbs & The NDR Big Band: Play a Bill Frisell Set List / In My View

Read "Michael Gibbs & The NDR Big Band: Play a Bill Frisell Set List / In My View" reviewed by Ian Patterson


Though his recording career dates back to the early 1960s, Zimbabwe-born arranger, composer and musician Michael Gibbs hasn't always been as prolific as a leader as he might have been. Five albums in the first half the 1970 represented his most industrious period of creativity, as teaching, television and film work and arranging for a surprisingly wide range of artists--from Marianne Faithful to Joni Mitchell and from Mahavishnu Orchestra to Pat Metheny--absorbed much of his time over the next three ...

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Extended Analysis

Eberhard Weber: Hommage à Eberhard Weber

Read "Eberhard Weber: Hommage à Eberhard Weber" reviewed by John Kelman


Despite being waylaid from playing the instrument that defined his approach to both performance and composition by a severe 2007 stroke, Eberhard Weber has managed to accomplish the seemingly impossible feat of continuing to make recordings that revolve around his instantly recognizable, custom-made electro-acoustic instrument: 2013's Resumé and 2015's appropriately titled Encore, both on ECM Records, the label that's been home to the bassist, composer and occasional bandleader since Colours of Chloë (1974), his award-winning leader debut. Now, it's true ...

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Album Review

Michael Gibbs & The NDR Bigband: Play A Bill Frisell Set List

Read "Play A Bill Frisell Set List" reviewed by Glenn Astarita


Guitarist Bill Frisell probably never had a preconceived notion that he'd one day record with famed British arranger, conductor and composer, Michael Gibbs after taking several of his classes as a student at Berklee College of Music back in 1975. Thus, Gibbs and the legendary NDR Bigband instill a symbiotic musical relationship throughout this cunningly envisioned game-plan, where Gibbs' arrangements encapsulate and boost a Frisell set list by conveying a bilateral succession of prismatic tonal contrasts. Moreover, in- demand American ...

1
Multiple Reviews

Michael Gibbs and the NDR Big Band: Play a Bill Frisell Set List / In My View

Read "Michael Gibbs and the NDR Big Band: Play a Bill Frisell Set List / In My View" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Michael Gibbs è stato un protagonista del jazz britannico di fine anni sessanta/inizio settanta, ma il suo brillante esordio come orchestratore non ha avuto i riconoscimenti che meritava. Il suo primo disco Michael Gibbs e il successivo Tanglewood 63 sono opere ricche d'immaginazione, che seguono di poco le sperimentazioni elettriche di Don Ellis e anticipano di qualche anno Svengali e There Comes a Time di Gil Evans. Nelle sue orchestre di allora (veri organici di sogno, comprendenti Kenny ...

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Extended Analysis

Michael Gibbs and the NDR Bigband: Back in the Days

Read "Michael Gibbs and the NDR Bigband: Back in the Days" reviewed by John Kelman


Michael Gibbs and the NDR BigbandBack in the DaysCuneiform Records2012Jazz may be filled with reharmonizations, reinventions and reimaginings of songs from across its entire history; few artists have, however, made their names solely as composers and arrangers. Relative youngsters like Maria Schneider, Vince Mendoza and Darcy James Argue have successfully shaped careers focused exclusively on the other side of the performance table, but when it comes to legacy artists, the name Gil ...

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Mike Gibbs' 70th Birthday Concert * * * * CBSO Centre review by Peter Bacon There comes a tipping point in any memorable concert - it's that point when the pixie dust showers down from the magic wand. Immediately, what might have been perfectly acceptable and satisfying before becomes over-shadowed by a new brilliance, a new energy, and the performance attains, in computer-game speak, the next level. It happened on Saturday evening, just after the interval, and there are no surprises who lifted the game. The talk in the bar had been "isn't it great, but it would be nice to hear a bit more of Frisell"

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Primary Instrument

Trombone

Willing to teach

Advanced only

Credentials/Background

nine years composer-in-residence Berklee Collage Music 1973, 1982 one year composer-in-residence Luzern Hochscule Musik , 2007-8

Lars Beijbom
band / ensemble / orchestra
Ed Puddick
arranger

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Play A Bill Frisell...

Cuneiform Records
2015

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Eberhard Weber:...

ECM Records
2015

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Back In The Days

Creative Sources
2012

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Michael Gibbs and the...

Cuneiform Records
2012

buy

Here's A Song For You

Creative Sources
2011

buy

Europeana

Creative Sources
2006

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Videos

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