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Raphe Malik

Trumpeter Raphe Malik, a fixture in the bands of Cecil Taylor and Jimmy Lyons during the 1970s and 80s, has died of a prolonged illness. He had undergone a liver transplant a year ago but continued to suffer ill health up until his death on March 8, 2006. He was 57 years old.

Malik was born Laurence Mazel in Cambridge, Massachusetts on November 1, 1948. He was a regional tennis champion in high school but foresaw a career in music for himself. Mazel attended UMass-Amherst in the late 1960s, then spent some time checking out the free-jazz scene in Paris before going to Ohio's Antioch College. There his fate was sealed, as he studied under three men who would become longtime friends and associates: Cecil Taylor, Jimmy Lyons and Andrew Cyrille. After graduation he moved to New York, where he continued to work with his former professors at, among other things, a 1974 Carnegie Hall performance. It was then that he set Laurence Mazel aside and took on the stage name, Raphe Malik.

Malik's first appearance on a recording came in 1976, on Taylor's Dark Unto Themselves. Over the next several years Malik toured with Taylor and made three more albums with the pianist: Three Phasis, Cecil Taylor Unit, and One Too Many Salty Swift and Not Goodbye, all of which are considered high points of Taylors large catalog. Malik's bold yet melodic approach was an excellent complement to altoist Lyons and violinist Ramsey Ameen. The trumpeter also continued to work with Lyons outside the Taylor unit (Wee Sneezawee, 1983), as well as pianist Joel Futterman (Berlin Images, To the Edge) and saxophonist Glenn Spearman (Free Worlds). He soon became one of the premier trumpeters in American free jazz.

Besides his formidable trumpet talents, Malik was also a respectable composer and producer. However, the 1980s brought a denouement in his career. He found regular work as a tilesetter while leading his own quintet in the Boston area. In 1992 his fortunes improved, beginning with his marriage to Marguerite Serkin. The couple moved to Vermont, where Malik built the family home and began teaching at Bennington College.

In 1994 Malik recorded Sirens Sweet and Slow for the small Outsounds label, reestablishing his reputation in the free-jazz community. He worked occasionally with Dennis Warrens Full Metal Revolutionary Jazz Ensemble (Very Live; Watch Out!). William Parker, Alan Silva, Sabir Mateen, and avant-garde singer Syd Straw also employed the trumpeter at times.

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191
Multiple Reviews

Raphe Malik: Last Set & Sympathy

Read "Raphe Malik: Last Set & Sympathy" reviewed by Clifford Allen


What is sometimes sorely missed among the current crop of players in the jazz “tradition" (and by “tradition" I mean both straight-ahead and free music) is a sense of weight. This weight, or gravity, is both sonic and metaphysical and improvised music is at a loss without it. While he was a regular member of the ensembles of Cecil Taylor and altoist Jimmy Lyons in the '70s, it is somewhat rare to hear Malik leading his own ensembles and stepping ...

243
Album Review

Raphe Malik Quartet: Last Set: Live at the 1369 Jazz Club

Read "Last Set: Live at the 1369 Jazz Club" reviewed by Trevor MacLaren


After leaving the Cecil Taylor Unit in 1979, Raphe Malik seemed to have disappeared until his first record as a leader appeared in 1989 ( 21st Century Texts ). Last Set proves that Malik was not only playing, but he was cutting some incredible chops.

Taken from the last set of a two-night engagement at Boston's 1369 Club in 1984, Last Set is an amazing exercise in live free improvisation. It features the late free jazz icon Reverend ...

120
Album Review

Malik, McPhee, Robinson: Sympathy

Read "Sympathy" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Trumpeter Raphe Malik, who spent much of the '70s and '80s playing with free pianist Cecil Taylor's band, has been described as “an exuberant and rough-hewn player"; and the Taylor lineage would suggest a propensity toward the free-flying approach. But on Sympathy the sound can best be described as introspective or searching, and even—to these ears, which have delved deeply into free jazz—melodic and accessible.The set is a trio effort, with Donald Robinson on the drums and the ...

187
Album Review

Raphe Malik: Companions

Read "Companions" reviewed by Kurt Gottschalk


It's hard to imagine 45 years, hence that one of the things that was so controversial about Ornette Coleman's emergence was that he gave up on employing a pianist. The sax/trumpet/bass/drum quartet has become commonplace in the modern jazz world since that time (Other Dimensions in Music and Masada leap to mind as two of today's standard bearers), and the lineup freed of the tonal anchors of the piano has become central to the growth of the free improvisation language. ...

179
Album Review

Raphe Malik: Speak Easy

Read "Speak Easy" reviewed by AAJ Staff


Raphe Malik, a master trumpeter who has established his versatility in a variety of improv contexts, turns inward on his new solo record, Speak Easy. Solo trumpet records are a rarity in jazz, and a major challenge to the performer. Malik rises to the occasion and delivers 47 minutes of persuasive music.

The general impression here is a very strong sense of linearity. Malik's performances here are a bit difficult to resolve in terms of composition vs. improvisation, but that's ...

162
Album Review

Malik/ McBee/ Moffett: Storyline

Read "Storyline" reviewed by Derek Taylor


P>Raphé Malik’s discography as a leader is painfully small; especially considering the amount of time he’s spent as an active player on the jazz scene. An FMP date, a pair of Eremites, and a stray session for Mapleshade comprise his complete available output. But rather than being the outcome of any frailty on Malik’s part such a state of affairs is more the result of his uncompromising resolve when it comes to the integrity of his music. Players unwilling to ...

167
Album Review

Malik / McBee / Moffett: Storyline

Read "Storyline" reviewed by Robert Spencer


While the trumpet is often a lead instrument in jazz, trumpet trios like this one, and even trumpet quartets, are not that common. The trumpet is a demanding instrument. To play it within an ensemble places a large physical and musical burden on the trumpeter - so that only an unusually forceful musician like Raphe Malik can make a successful go of a trumpet trio. Storyline is one such success.

Malik is joined by two other masters: bassist Cecil McBee ...

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76

Video / DVD

Raphe Malik Quartet at the Willow-PT 2

Raphe Malik Quartet at the Willow-PT 2

Source: Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog


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Recording

Raphe Malik Quartet Live at the Willow-PT.1

Raphe Malik Quartet Live at the Willow-PT.1

Source: Brilliant Corners, a Boston Jazz Blog


304

Obituary

Raphe Malik: Free Jazz Trumpeter

Raphe Malik: Free Jazz Trumpeter

Source: All About Jazz

By Todd S. Jenkins

Born: November 1, 1948 in Cambridge, MA Died: March 8, 2006 in Guilford, VT

Trumpeter Raphe Malik, a fixture in the bands of Cecil Taylor and Jimmy Lyons during the 1970s and 80s, has died of a prolonged illness. He had undergone a liver transplant a year ago but continued to suffer ill health up until his death on March 8, 2006. He was 57 years old.

Malik was born Laurence Mazel in Cambridge, ...

99

Obituary

Raphe Malik Passes at 57

Raphe Malik Passes at 57

Source: All About Jazz

GUILFORD -- Laurence Mazel (Raphe Malik), 57, noted jazz musician, has died after a long illness. He was in born in Cambridge, Mass., on Nov. 1, 1948. He lived in Boston, Lawrence and Andover, Mass. During his high school years he was Northeast Regional tennis champion for New England, and studied Mandarin Chinese through a State Department intensive language course, pursuits which he maintained throughout his life. He attended University of Massachusetts at Amherst, then Antioch College in Yellow Springs, ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Sympathy

Boxholder Records
2004

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Last Set: Live at the...

Boxholder Records
2004

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Companions

Eremite Records
2003

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Sympathy

Le Systeme
2002

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Speak Easy

Le Systeme Records
2002

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Speak Easy

Le Systeme
2001

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Videos

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