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David Amram

A pioneer player of jazz French horn, David Amram is also a virtuoso on piano, numerous flutes and whistles, percussion, and dozens of folkloric instruments from 25 countries, as well as an inventive, funny improvisational lyricist. He has collaborated with Leonard Bernstein, who chose him as The New York Philharmonic's first composer-in-residence in 1966, Langston Hughes, Dizzy Gillespie, Dustin Hoffman, Willie Nelson, Thelonious Monk, Odetta, Elia Kazan, Arthur Miller, Charles Mingus, Lionel Hampton, E. G. Marshall, and Tito Puente. Amram's most recent work "Giants of the Night" is a flute concerto dedicated to the memory Charlie Parker, Jack Kerouac and Dizzy Gillespie, three American artists Amram knew and worked with. It was commissioned and premiered by Sir James Galway.

David Amram has composed more than 100 orchestral and chamber music works, written many scores for Broadway theater and film, including the classic scores for the films "Splendor in The Grass" and "The Manchurian Candidate;" two operas, including the ground-breaking Holocaust opera "The Final Ingredient;" and the score for the landmark 1959 documentary "Pull My Daisy," narrated by novelist Jack Kerouac. He is also the author of three books, "Vibrations," an autobiography, "Offbeat: Collaborating With Kerouac," a memoir, and "Upbeat: Nine Lives of a Musical Cat" published last year by Paradigm Publishers. Today, as he has for over fifty years, Amram continues to compose music while traveling the world as a conductor, soloist, bandleader, visiting scholar, and narrator in five languages. He is also currently working with author Frank McCourt on a new setting of the Mass, "Missa Manhattan," as well as a new orchestral work commissioned by the Guthrie Foundation, "Symphonic Variations on a Song by Woody Guthrie." premiered Sept. 29 2007 in San Jose California by the Symphony Silicon Valley, who have also comissioned him to compose a new piano concerto.

On September 14, 2002, David Amram's new flute concerto "Giants of the Night" was premiered by James Galway, to critical acclaim.

Other recent commissions include A Little Rebellion: Thomas Jefferson premiered at the Kennedy Center with E.G. Marshall narrating and Amram conducting members of the National Symphony Orchestra.

Kokopelli: A Symphony on Three Movements, received its world premiere with Amram conducting the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and has been recorded.

Amram and author Frank McCourt are currently collaborating on a new work, Missa Manhattan, for narrator, chorus and orchestra, celebrating the rich tapestry of cultures that have immigrated to New York City over the past three hundred years, including the Native Americans who were there to greet them.


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Live Review

David Amram 87th Birthday Celebration at the Falcon

Read "David Amram 87th Birthday Celebration at the Falcon" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


David Amram Quartet The Falcon87th Birthday Celebration Marlboro, NY December 3, 2017 Ever a celebration of our true angel hearts and creative selves, David Amram's irrepressible spirit (he did turn 87 on November 17th) and margin-mashing musical journey (Phil Och's “When I'm Gone" as a sweet jazz standard anyone?) made this, as it does and all his concert appearances, a glowing testimonial not only to his colorful and tireless history, but to our ...

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Album Review

David Amram: Classic American Film Scores 1956-2016

Read "Classic American Film Scores 1956-2016" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro


Nato a Filadelfia nel 1930, David Amram è una figura tutto sommato non particolarmente nota nel vasto panorama del jazz legato al lavoro negli studios cinematografici, per cui assolutamente benemerito arriva questo box, da lui fortemente voluto, che ne riunisce organicamente le colonne sonore (non tutte, ma una significativa selezione) per cinema e -più episodicamente -teatro. Cornista in primo luogo, ma polistrumentista a tutti gli effetti (oltre che ovviamente compositore, fra l'altro di solidi studi classici), Amram ...

Live Review

David Amram Quintet al Teatro Manzoni di Milano

Read "David Amram Quintet al Teatro Manzoni di Milano" reviewed by Claudio Bonomi


Aperitivo in Concerto, Teatro Manzoni -Milano 28.02.2016 86 anni e non sentirli. È David Amram, leggenda vivente della musica americana contemporanea, che con il suo quintetto ha intrattenuto e deliziato per circa due ore un Teatro Manzoni stracolmo di appassionati che non volevano perdersi la prima e unica data italiana di questo compositore e performer geniale. Amram si è presentato in grande forma accompagnato per l'occasione da Jerry ...

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Megaphone

David Amram: Poetry and All That Jazz

Read "David Amram: Poetry and All That Jazz" reviewed by David Amram


I rarely play clubs anymore, but was recently invited by four different people, including Levi Asher, founder of LitKicks, to perform at four different events at the Bowery Poetry Club during a six week period. All four poets who contacted me, while different from one another, have a common connection to the tradition that Jack Kerouac and I, along with poets Howard Hart and Philip Lamantia pioneered at the first-ever jazz poetry reading given in NYC, in October of 1957 ...

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Education

New England Conservatory Announces 2022 Speaker And Honorary Degree Recipients For Its 151st Commencement Ceremony

New England Conservatory Announces 2022 Speaker And Honorary Degree Recipients For Its 151st Commencement Ceremony

Source: Braithwaite & Katz Communications

Honorary Degree Recipient and Commencement Speaker: James Taylor, singer-songwriter Honorary Degree Recipient: David Amram, conductor and composer; Ella Jenkins, the “First Lady of Children’s Music” Special Guests: Emanuel Ax, pianist, Honorary Doctorate 2021; Denys Karachevtsev, Ukrainian cellist and music teacher New England Conservatory President Andrea Kalyn and the Board of Trustees announce multiple Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter James Taylor as the commencement speaker and honorary degree recipient at the Conservatory’s 151st annual commencement exercises, which will be held in-person on Sunday, ...

Interview

David Amram on Gregory Corso

David Amram on Gregory Corso

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

David Amram [pictured] is one of the last surviving members of the Beat Generation scene and a forefather of the countculture movement of the '60s. Not only was the French hornist and composer there in the '50s, he was part of the Beats' inner circle. Yesterday—March 26—Beat poet Gregory Corso would have been 83 (he died in 2001). Recently, David was asked by Greek journalist Michalis Limnios for his recollections of Corso, which David included in his upcoming book David ...

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Interview

Interview: David Amram at 80

Interview: David Amram at 80

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

David Amram turned 80 yesterday. If you know David, you know that hitting that age  is almost a ridiculous concept. The musician and composer has the metabolism and mind of a 25-year old, and he's constantly traveling the country like jazz's Johnny Appleseed, performing and motivating all who cross his path. One grows winded just listening to his schedule. [Photo of David Amram at the Five Spot in 1957 by Burt Glinn] In celebration of David's birthday, I was listening ...

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Interview

David Amram on Bobby Jaspar (2)

David Amram on Bobby Jaspar (2)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

What makes Bobby Jaspar so appealing to the ear is his ability to swing softly. Jaspar on sax or flute had a West Coast sound before the sound existed. In some respects, he was simply delivering a European interpretation of Lester Young's phrasing. Then again, this wasn't so far afield from what the European-trained West Coast musicians wound up doing in the early 1950s--combining formal training with Young's sound and swing. It's just that Jaspar may have arrived in that ...

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Interview

David Amram on Bobby Jaspar (1)

David Amram on Bobby Jaspar (1)

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Bobby Jaspar is all but forgotten today. Back in the late 1950s, the Belgian tenor saxophonist recorded with Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Eddie Costa, J.J. Johnson, Herbie Mann and many other notable New York jazz artists of the period. Married to singer Blossom Dearie, Jaspar's best-known recordings are probably Interplay for Two Trumpets and Two Tenors (1957), for which he was teamed with John Coltrane, and Chet Is Back (1962), recorded with Chet Baker after the trumpeter's release from an ...

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Interview

David Amram on Bobby Jaspar

David Amram on Bobby Jaspar

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

Bobby Jaspar is all but forgotten today. Back in the late 1950s, the Belgian tenor saxophonist recorded with Hank Jones, Tommy Flanagan, Eddie Costa, J.J. Johnson, Herbie Mann and many other notable New York jazz artists of the period. Married to singer Blossom Dearie, Jaspar's best-known recordings are probably Interplay for Two Trumpets and Two Tenors (1957), for which he was teamed with John Coltrane, and Chet Is Back (1962), recorded with Chet Baker after the trumpeter's release from an ...

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Music Industry

David Amram on Blossom Dearie

David Amram on Blossom Dearie

Source: JazzWax by Marc Myers

In 1955, jazz French hornist and composer David Amram was in Paris playing and recording with saxophonist Bobby Jaspar. Jaspar was married to singer Blossom Dearie at the time. When Dearie died in February, I e-mailed David for his recollections. But for some reason David's response never arrived.

While catching up with David the other day, I asked if he had ever received my note. He said he did and that he had replied immediately. Puzzled, David went into his ...

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Music Industry

Ask David Amram

Ask David Amram

Source: Night Lights Classic Jazz


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Event

World-Renowned Jazz Musician David Amram Joins Roots Reggae and Hip-Hop Band Shem's Disciples

World-Renowned Jazz Musician David Amram Joins Roots Reggae and Hip-Hop Band Shem's Disciples

Source: All About Jazz

Inaugural Concert Celebrating the Debut of Groundbreaking Music Therapy Program at White Plains' Schnurmacher Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing Jazz great David Amram joined Shem's Disciples, an eclectic group of cross cultural musicians, to mark Schnurmacher Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing's introduction of a renowned, cutting-edge music therapy program. Established by the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function (IMNF) and the first to offer neurologically-based music therapy treatments in Westchester County, this internationally acclaimed program provides a complete continuum of ...

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Performance / Tour

Morrison Motel (Tue) Songwriters in the Round (Wed) Gnu Vox (Thu) Nikolaj Hess QT (Fri) This Week at Cornelia Street Cafe

Morrison Motel (Tue) Songwriters in the Round (Wed) Gnu Vox (Thu) Nikolaj Hess QT (Fri) This Week at Cornelia Street Cafe

Source: Jim Eigo, Jazz Promo Services

CORNELIA STREET CAFE 29 Cornelia Street, NYC, New York 212-989-9319 between West 4th and Bleecker Sts, Greenwich Village 1 Subway to Sheridan Square; A, C, E, B, D, V, F to West 4th St. This Week At Cornelia Street Cafe Tue Jan 08, 8:30PM MORRISON MOTEL Todd Barry; Liam McEneaney; Maureen Langan; Thomas Middleditch; Douglas Ridloff Wed Jan 09, 8:30PM SONGWRITERS IN THE ROUND ...

Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Classic American Film...

Moochin' About
2016

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David Amram's...

Cristal Records
1983

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Havana/New York

Cristal Records
1978

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Summer Nights, Winter...

Cristal Records
1976

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No More Walls

Flying Fish Records
1971

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The Young Savages (An...

Cristal Records
1961

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