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Bill Dixon

Bill Dixon has been a driving force in the advancement of contemporary American Black Music for more than 45 years. His pioneering work as a musician and organizer in the early 1960’s helped lay the foundation for today’s creative improvised music scene in New York and beyond. In 1964, he founded the all-star artists collective, the Jazz Composers’ Guild, and produced and organized The October Revolution in Jazz, an unprecedented New York festival that helped put the so-called “new thing” on the cultural map.

A mentor to countless musicians, through both his teaching and his role as a producer for Savoy Records, Dixon turned his focus to education in the late 1960’s, serving for nearly 30 years on the faculty at the prestigious Bennington College, where he founded the historic Black Music Division in 1973.

With the notable exception of Cecil Taylor’s Conquistador (Blue Note), Dixon has recorded almost exclusively as a leader since 1962, most frequently for the Soul Note label in the 1980’s and 90’s. Still a prolific composer at age 82, his work as a composer and improvisor can also be heard on the critically acclaimed February 2008 CD, Bill Dixon with the Exploding Star Orchestra (Thrill Jockey), and in July 2008 he recorded a new collection of original music with an all-star nonet for the Firehouse 12 label.

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10
Album Review

Bill Dixon: With Archie Shepp, 7-Tette & Orchestra Revisited

Read "With Archie Shepp, 7-Tette & Orchestra Revisited" reviewed by Chris May


If Bill Dixon is today, in 2023, less widely remembered than other New Thing warriors such as Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor and Albert Ayler, it is partly because he had little desire for celebrity, devoting much of his energy to organizing on behalf of his fellow musicians and composers, and teaching. In 1964, midway through making the 1962-1967 recordings collected on this album, Dixon organized the historic October Revolution in Jazz at the Cellar Café in Manhattan, which ...

9
Album Review

Cecil Taylor: With (Exit) To Student Studies Revisited

Read "With (Exit) To Student Studies Revisited" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Documenting the evolution of Cecil Taylor is an undertaking that is way beyond the pay grade of most listeners. Just as in the study of homo sapiens (yes, us) where there is no critical moment (the missing link) that we can definitely pinpoint where our ancestors established language, art and importantly, abstract thought, Taylor's music can be thought of in similar terms. Obviously his approach didn't emerge fully formed. Or did it? No, that is an irrational thought, but a ...

1
Lyrics

Bill Dixon e Cecil Taylor: iniziò a Verona

Read "Bill Dixon e Cecil Taylor: iniziò a Verona" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


La pubblicazione di quest'inedita incisione in studio documenta un momento storico: il magistrale e fugace confronto artistico tra Bill Dixon e Cecil Taylor dell'estate 1992. I due protagonisti del free dettero il 25 giugno di quell'anno un concerto a Verona Jazz, nei giorni seguenti s'esibirono a Vienne (Francia) e subito dopo entrarono in studio a Villeurbanne per documentare i brani ora pubblicati. L'allora direttore di “Musica Jazz," Pino Candini, definì il concerto veronese “un incontro avvenuto sotto il ...

15
Interview

Bill Dixon: An In-depth Look into the Accomplishments, Philosophies, and Convictions of the Man

Read "Bill Dixon: An In-depth Look into the  Accomplishments, Philosophies, and  Convictions of the Man" reviewed by Frank Rubolino


This interview was originally published at One Final Note in October 2002. When one reflects on the innovators who were fundamental in propelling the second wave of the new music movement in the 1960s, Bill Dixon's name always appears near the top of the list. His accomplishments as a musician and educator are vast, a small sampling of which includes his work as architect of the Jazz Composers' Guild in 1964; the formation of the Black Music Division ...

914
In the Artist's Own Words

Bill Dixon: Excerpts from Vade Mecum

Read "Bill Dixon: Excerpts from Vade Mecum" reviewed by AAJ Staff


Introduction by AAJ Contributor Clifford Allen.

It is rare in the climate of this music to be presented with a view of an artist that is truly multifaceted, even though the collected works of most artists operate at a number of levels and, on occasion, in a number of media. Bill Dixon is probably best known as a trumpeter and composer; he is also a visual artist, professor (Bennington College, 1968-1996), and has created an expansive body of written material, ...

415
Album Review

Bill Dixon: Tapestries for Small Orchestra

Read "Tapestries for Small Orchestra" reviewed by John Sharpe


Back in 2007 Firehouse 12 Records announced itself in an audacious declaration of intent with release of Anthony Braxton's 9 CD+DVD box set Nine Compositions 2006. Now in a move of similar ambition the label has gone someway to redressing the imbalance in composer/trumpeter Bill Dixon's recorded output, with this handsome two CD + DVD set which is undoubtedly one of the events of the year. It follows hot on the heels of two other important orchestral works in a ...

324
Extended Analysis

Bill Dixon: Tapestries for Small Orchestra

Read "Bill Dixon: Tapestries for Small Orchestra" reviewed by Nic Jones


Bill Dixon Tapestries For Small Orchestra Firehouse 12 2007

When this double-CD/single-DVD set hits the market in November 2009, trumpeter Bill Dixon will be 84 years old. In an ideal world--and on the basis of this release that's the world Dixon inhabits--age wouldn't be an issue. His work is that of a questing spirit not in thrall to the ageing process. Dixon's life and music were celebrated at the Vision Festival in 2007, but ...

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65

Recording

Bill Dixon - Bill Dixon with the Exploding Star Orchestra (2008)

Bill Dixon - Bill Dixon with the Exploding Star Orchestra (2008)

Source: Something Else!

had this discussion about jazz with a friend of mine once. He really couldn't deal the sound of a full-bore, large-scale ensemble (he doesn't like any jazz, honestly, but that's sort of irrelevant here). I can't remember exactly what CD was playing in my car, but it seemed to make him nervous. “How can you stand this?!," he said. It seemed like the wrong question to me. In my synesthetic kind of way, the sounds of music seem to emanate ...

89

Recording

Farewell Bill Dixon...Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra, 2008

Farewell Bill Dixon...Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra, 2008

Source: Gapplegate Music Review by Grego Edwards

The great Bill Dixon is gone. I am late at putting my hand at a fitting memorial line or two. This is all I think I need to say: Bill Dixon never sounded like anybody else on trumpet and he never wrote a line that didn't have his indelible stylistic footprint squarely emblazoned upon it. So we turn to one of his last recordings, Bill Dixon with Exploding Star Orchestra (Thrill Jockey 192). As I nabbed this as a download ...

212

Recording

Bill Dixon - Intents and Purposes (RCA 1969, International Phonographic, 2011)

Bill Dixon - Intents and Purposes (RCA 1969, International Phonographic, 2011)

Source: Music and More by Tim Niland

Trumpeter, composer and educator Bill Dixon's music has always been something of an enigma to me, but seeing how revered he was by his fellow musicians I tried my best to enjoy it. This album, amazingly released originally by a major label and out of print for many years has been given a beautiful re-issue and re-mastering, which brings the album considered to be Dixon's masterpiece to life. I found this music surprisingly accessible, but no less original in its ...

88

Recording

Recent Listening: A Bill Dixon Rarity

Recent Listening: A Bill Dixon Rarity

Source: Rifftides by Doug Ramsey

Bill Dixon, Intents and Purposes (International Phonograph). Dixon, who died last year at 84, is typically described as a force in the free jazz that emerged in the1960s. He was that, but Intents and Purposes defied labeling when Dixon recorded it more than four decades ago. This long overdue reissue confirms that the album withstands categorization. Its daring and forthright iconoclasm has substance that outlives much music that was conceived in protest or defiance in the roiling atmosphere of that ...

64

Interview

Local Space and a Firm Cloud: Bill Dixon, Oct. 5, 2010

Local Space and a Firm Cloud: Bill Dixon, Oct. 5, 2010

Source: Ni Kantu by Clifford Allen

Right now I'm listening to Berlin Abbozzi, a disc recorded in 1999 for FMP by Bill Dixon, who would have turned 85 today (or yesterday, depending on what time zone you're in). Here he plays trumpet and flugelhorn along with utilizing electronic delay, and he's joined by then-regular collaborator, English percussionist Tony Oxley, and the German bassists Klaus Koch and Matthias Bauer. In the pantheon of Dixon recordings, it's not one I listen to often, and I'm not exactly sure ...

109

Interview

Happy Birthday Bill Dixon, Wherever You Are.

Happy Birthday Bill Dixon, Wherever You Are.

Source: Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog

Image courtesy of Stephen Haynes. “If you are you, 24 hours a day, then you do not have to remember who you are supposed to be in different situations—something that I imagine could be troublesome.“ —Bill Dixon. The Grand Old Man didn't make it to today and in the period that has followed his passing in June, there have been all manner of musical chairs shuffled in a back story spectacle of mixed appeal. On one hand I've seen a ...

123

Interview

A Tapestry for (from) Bill Dixon

A Tapestry for (from) Bill Dixon

Source: Ni Kantu by Clifford Allen

When I mentioned to friends that I would be attending the memorial service for Bill Dixon at St. Mark's Church in the Bowery the last weekend in July, as with any situation where one mentions “death" and “funerals," the response was unequivocally apologetic. Those same people were probably surprised when I said it was something I was looking forward to attending / experiencing and that, after all was said and done, how powerful and enjoyable it was. As speaker Ben ...

113

Interview

The Legacy of Bill Dixon (1925-2010) Part One

The Legacy of Bill Dixon (1925-2010) Part One

Source: Ni Kantu by Clifford Allen

"Bill Dixon left us a lot of homework, and the job now is to sit down and do the work--because if you don't, when you see him again, Bill will kick your ass."--Stephen HaynesIn the month since trumpeter and improvising composer Bill Dixon passed away, some things have become abundantly clear. I've often found that when I was listening to his music, I felt the presence of Bill in the room, car, or wherever I was at the ...

141

Event

Bill Dixon Memorial Event to be Held July 31st at New York's St. Mark's Church in the Bowery

Bill Dixon Memorial Event to be Held July 31st at New York's St. Mark's Church in the Bowery

Source: Improvised Communications

On Saturday, July 31st from 5:30-7:30 p.m., musician/composer/educator/artist Bill Dixon will be remembered with a memorial event at St. Mark's Church In The Bowery on Manhattan's Lower East Side. Dixon, an innovator in the world of creative improvised music and inspiration to subsequent generations of trumpet players, died on June 16th at his home in North Bennington, Vermont after a two-year illness. He was 84 years old.

The public event will include a performance of Dixon's last composition by his ...

202

Obituary

Bill Dixon, Leading Edge of Avant-Garde Jazz

Bill Dixon, Leading Edge of Avant-Garde Jazz

Source: Michael Ricci

Bill Dixon, the maverick trumpeter, composer, educator and major force in the jazz avant-garde movement of the 1960s, died on Wednesday at his home in North Bennington, Vt. He was 84.

In the early 1960s, when rock was swallowing popular culture and jazz clubs were taking few chances on the new thing as the developing avant-garde was then known Mr. Dixon, who was known for the deep and almost liquid texture of his sound, fought to raise the profile of ...

17 Musicians in Search of a Sound is pure Dixon, massive in scale and rigorous in execution...this is not a mere concert souvenir, but a significant statement. Dixon’s music is about the process of its becoming; while its expansions into dense, eventful fanfares and contractions into hushed, detailed dialogues may be scripted, the sound of the music is not...as group improvisations go, this one is remarkable for its poise and balance....it’s about great players subsuming their identities into an ensemble.
—Bill Meyer, DownBeat

...Dixon has fashioned a work around which new formal paradigms will need to be constructed. Dixon’s music explodes category: it is neither free nor through-composed, though elements of both approaches are often discernible. I hope this fine addition to his discography, coupled with a renewed interest in his work, will allow more of Dixon’s orchestral compositions to be performed by equally sympathetic interpreters.
—Marc Medwin, Signal to Noise

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Rob Mazurek
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Ziv Taubenfeld
clarinet, bass

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

With (Exit) To...

Ezz-thetics
2022

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Cecil Taylor e Bill...

Triple Point Records
2019

buy

Envoi

Birdology
2011

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Intents And Purposes

International Phonograph Inc.
2011

buy

The Complete...

Birdology
2010

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