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Marching On

Ray Anderson

Marching On

Price: € 14.95
Format: CD
Label: Double Moon Records
UPC: 0608917141627
Catnr: DMCHR 71416
Release date: 23 September 2022
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Label
Double Moon Records
UPC
0608917141627
Catalogue number
DMCHR 71416
Release date
23 September 2022

"... This album is quintessential Anderson, from the funky, goofy intelligence of "Just Squeeze Me" to the theremin-like expressiveness of his playing on the ballad "Moon River" to the formal complexities of Coltrane's "Equinox."..."

Concerto Austria, 01-12-2022
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Artist(s)
Composer(s)
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About the album

A trombone solo album is not exactly an everyday commodity, because the instrument is considered somewhat bulky, unwieldy and grumpy. In the hand of a master like Ray Anderson, however, one wonders how these prejudices could have come about, because he simply makes music with the trombone.

"I've had this idea in my head since I started playing solo concerts in 1982," Ray Anderson recalled. "Anthony Braxton recorded the solo record ‘For Alto’ in 1969, where the challenge of playing an instrument alone without accompaniment is particularly interesting. So why not on the trombone too? Albert Mangelsdorff has recorded beautiful solo albums, and that by George Lewis is also very inspiring.”

Ray Anderson was born in Chicago in 1952 – he turns seventy years old in October – and first became known in the band of Anthony Braxton. After that he played in a trio with Barry Altschul and founded the funk band Slickaphonics, with which he recorded several albums. He has also recorded records under his own name since the 1980s, often alongside European avant-garde artists such as Christy Doran, and he seems to have mastered all styles on his instrument. Nevertheless, he is always recognizable by his vital and powerful style.
"Marching On" begins with "Keep Your Heart Right" by his co-musician Roswell Rudd. “Roswell was a huge inspiration for everyone and, of course, especially for me,” Anderson said. "And I love this melody. I first heard Roswell in 1966 on the Archie Shepp record ‘Live in Francisco’, and they even played this song there for a short time. Since Roswell died a few years ago, I thought it would be a nice idea to start the album with this song – which by the way also has very nice lyrics.”
Anderson dedicated the title song of the album to politician and activist John Lewis. “John Lewis was a great, inspiring figure in the civil rights movement and a close confidant of Martin Luther King,” the trombonist recounted. "I met him once and was even able to play something for him; which is how this composition came about. I learned from him how to be human. He served in Congress for forty years and always stood up for equality and justice.”
A rarely played song by Duke Ellington is "Just Squeeze Me". "I learned the song from Art Baron, who played with Duke Ellington himself, but also for people like Stevie Wonder and Bruce Springsteen. He is a great trombonist with whom I have often played in a duo. ‘Just Squeeze Me’ is a conversation between two people, and I wanted to make that clear in my version."
In addition to other originals and selected cover songs, the album ends with Henry Mancini's "Moon River". "The song is my wife's favorite one," Anderson stated succinctly, "and that's why it's dedicated to her and is a love song in this case."
“Marching On” is a journey of sound that leaves the listener astonished, because Ray Anderson manages to give space to many different moods with his instrument and trickle music into the listener's ear, in which one often forgets that you are “only” listening to one trombone – the album seems like the sum of a turbulent career.
“The challenge is: How do I make sure that not every song sounds the same?" Ray Anderson asked himself. "I only have one instrument available. So I wanted to make sure that the album is full of contrasts. I wondered how many ways I could play the trombone and how many different moods I could create. It was supposed to be a fascinating experience for the listener. If you really love a song, such as ‘Equinox’ by John Coltrane, I want to make the harmony of this song clear without having any harmonies at my disposal. That's why I improvise on the harmonies and hope that you can hear them."

Ein Posaunen-Solo-Album ist nicht gerade alltägliche Ware, denn das Instrument gilt als etwas sperrig, unhandlich und grummelig. In der Hand eines Meisters wie Ray Anderson fragt man sich allerdings, wie es zu diesen Vorurteilen kommen konnte, denn er macht mit der Posaune einfach Musik.

„Die Idee habe ich schon in meinem Kopf, seit ich 1982 begonnen habe, Solo-Konzerte zu spielen“, erinnert sich Ray Anderson. „Anthony Braxton hat 1969 diese Solo-Platte ‚For Alto‘ aufgenommen, wo die Herausforderung, ein Instrument allein ohne Begleitung zu spielen, besonders interessant ist. Also warum nicht auch auf der Posaune? Albert Mangelsdorff hat schöne Solo-Platten aufgenommen, die von George Lewis ist auch sehr inspirierend.“

Ray Anderson wurde 1952 in Chicago geboren - im Oktober wird er siebzig Jahre alt - und wurde zunächst in der Band von Anthony Braxton bekannt. Danach spielte er im Trio mit Barry Altschul und gründete die Funk-Band Slickaphonics, mit der er mehrere Alben einspielte. Seit den achtziger Jahren nahm er auch Platten unter eigenem Namen auf, oft auch an der Seite europäischer Avantgardisten wie Christy Doran, und er scheint auf seinem Instrument jegliche Stile zu beherrschen. Zu erkennen ist er trotzdem immer an seinem vitalen und kraftstrotzenden Stil.

„Marching On“ beginnt mit „Keep Your Heart Right“ seines Kollegen Roswell Rudd. „Roswell war für jeden eine riesige Inspiration und natürlich besonders für mich“, sagt Anderson. „Und ich liebe diese Melodie. Ich habe Roswell zuerst 1966 auf der Archie-Shepp-Platte ‚Live in Francisco‘ gehört und sie spielen dort sogar ganz kurz diesen Song an. Da Roswell vor ein paar Jahren gestorben ist, hielt ich es für eine schöne Idee, das Album mit diesem Song zu beginnen - der übrigens auch einen sehr schönen Text hat.“

Den Titelsong des Albums hat Anderson dem Politiker und Aktivisten John Lewis gewidmet. „John Lewis war eine große, inspirierende Figur in der Bürgerrechtsbewegung und ein enger Vertrauter von Martin Luther King“, erzählt der Posaunist. „Ich habe ihn einmal getroffen und konnte ihm sogar etwas vorspielen - daraus ist diese Komposition entstanden. Von ihm habe ich gelernt, wie man als Mensch sein kann. Er hat vierzig Jahre lang im Kongress gesessen und sich immer für Gleichheit und Gerechtigkeit eingesetzt.“

Ein selten gespielter Song von Duke Ellington ist „Just Squeeze Me“. „Den Song habe ich von Art Baron gelernt, der selbst bei Duke Ellington gespielt hat, aber auch für Leute wie Stevie Wonder und Bruce Springsteen. Er ist ein großartiger Posaunist, mit dem ich oft im Duo gespielt habe. ‚Just Squeeze Me‘ ist eine Konversation zwischen zwei Personen und das will ich auch in meiner Version deutlich machen.“

Neben weiteren Originalen und ausgesuchten Cover-Songs endet das Album mit Henry Mancinis „Moon River“. „Der Song ist das Lieblingslied meiner Frau“, sagt Anderson knapp, „und deshalb ist es ihr gewidmet und in diesem Fall ein Liebeslied.“

„Marching On“ ist eine Klangreise, die den Hörer verblüfft zurück lässt, denn Ray Anderson gelingt es, mit seinem Instrument vielen verschiedenen Stimmungen Raum zu geben und dem Hörer Musik ins Ohr zu träufeln, bei der man oft vergisst, dass man „nur“ einer Posaune zuhört - das Album erscheint wie die Summe einer bewegten Karriere.

„Die Herausforderung ist: Wie mache ich es, dass sich nicht jeder Song gleich anhört?“, hat Ray Anderson sich gefragt. „Ich habe nur ein Instrument zur Verfügung. Ich habe also Wert darauf gelegt, dass das Album voller Kontraste ist. Dabei habe ich mich gefragt, auf wie viele Arten ich die Posaune spielen und wie viele verschiedene Stimmungen ich erzeugen kann. Es soll ja für den Hörer faszinierend sein, sich das anzuhören. Wenn man ein Stück wirklich liebt, wie ‚Equinox‘ von John Coltrane, möchte ich die Harmonie dieses Songs deutlich machen, ohne dass mir Harmonien zur Verfügung stehen. Deshalb improvisiere ich über die Harmonien und hoffe, dass man das hören kann.“

Artist(s)

Ray Anderson (trombone)

Ray Anderson (born October 16, 1952) is a jazz trombonist. Trained by the Chicago Symphony trombonists, he is regarded as someone who pushes the limits of the instrument. He is a colleague of trombonist George Lewis. Anderson also plays sousaphone and sings. He was frequently chosen in DownBeat magazine's Critics Poll as best trombonist throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. After studying in California, he moved to New York in 1973 and freelanced. In 1977, he joined Anthony Braxton's Quartet (replacing George Lewis) and started working with Barry Altschul's group. In addition to leading his own groups since the late '70s (including the funk-oriented Slickaphonics), Anderson has worked with George Gruntz's Concert Jazz Band. In the '90s, he began taking an occasional...
more
Ray Anderson (born October 16, 1952) is a jazz trombonist. Trained by the Chicago Symphony trombonists, he is regarded as someone who pushes the limits of the instrument. He is a colleague of trombonist George Lewis. Anderson also plays sousaphone and sings. He was frequently chosen in DownBeat magazine's Critics Poll as best trombonist throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s.
After studying in California, he moved to New York in 1973 and freelanced. In 1977, he joined Anthony Braxton's Quartet (replacing George Lewis) and started working with Barry Altschul's group. In addition to leading his own groups since the late '70s (including the funk-oriented Slickaphonics), Anderson has worked with George Gruntz's Concert Jazz Band. In the '90s, he began taking an occasional good-humored vocal, during which he shows the ability to sing two notes at the same time (a minor third apart).
Anderson has worked with David Murray, Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, Dr. John, Luther Allison, Bennie Wallace, Gerry Hemingway, Henry Threadgill, John Scofield, Roscoe Mitchell, Randy Sandke's Inside Out Band, Sam Rivers' Rivbea Orchestra, Bobby Previte, George Russell and others. Anderson is a member of Jim Pugh's Super Trombone with Dave Bargeron and Dave Taylor. He received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for a series of solo trombone concerts.
Anderson has frequently returned to his early love of New Orleans music for inspiration. His Alligatory Band and Pocket Brass Band, featuring tuba player Bob Stewart or sousaphonist Matt Perrine and trumpeter Lew Soloff, are rooted in its tradition. Since 2003 he has taught and conducted at Stony Brook University.
Source: Wikipedia
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Composer(s)

Duke Ellington

Duke Ellington influenced millions of people both around the world and at home. He gave American music its own sound for the first time. In his fifty year career, he played over 20,000 performances in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East as well as Asia. Simply put, Ellington transcends boundaries and fills the world with a treasure trove of music that renews itself through every generation of fans and music-lovers. His legacy continues to live onand will endure for generations to come. Winton Marsalis said it best when he said 'His music sounds like America.' Because of the unmatched artistic heights to which he soared, no one deserved the phrase “beyond category” more than Ellington, for it aptly describes his life as well. He was...
more

Duke Ellington influenced millions of people both around the world and at home. He gave American music its own sound for the first time. In his fifty year career, he played over 20,000 performances in Europe, Latin America, the Middle East as well as Asia.

Simply put, Ellington transcends boundaries and fills the world with a treasure trove of music that renews itself through every generation of fans and music-lovers. His legacy continues to live onand will endure for generations to come. Winton Marsalis said it best when he said "His music sounds like America." Because of the unmatched artistic heights to which he soared, no one deserved the phrase “beyond category” more than Ellington, for it aptly describes his life as well. He was most certainly one of a kind that maintained a llifestyle with universal appeal which transcended countless boundaries.

Duke Ellington is best remembered for the over 3000 songs that he composed during his lifetime. His best known titles include; "It Don't Mean a Thing if It Ain't Got That Swing", "Sophisticated Lady", "Mood Indigo", “Solitude", "In a Mellotone",and "Satin Doll". The most amazing part about Ellington was the most creative while he was on the road. It was during this time when he wrote his most famous piece, "Mood Indigo"which brought him world wide fame.

When asked what inspired him to write, Ellington replied, "My men and my race are the inspiration of my work. I try to catch the character and mood and feeling of my people".

Duke Ellington's popular compositions set the bar for generations of brilliant jazz, pop, theatre and soundtrack composers to come. While these compositions guarantee his greatness, whatmakes Duke an iconoclastic genius, and an unparalleled visionary, what has granted him immortality are his extended suites. From 1943's Black, Brown and Beige to 1972's The Uwis Suite, Duke used the suite format to give his jazz songs a far more empowering meaning, resonance and purpose: to exalt, mythologize and re-contextualize the African-American experience on a grand scale.

Duke Ellington was partial to giving brief verbal accounts of the moods his songs captured. Reading those accounts is like looking deep into the background of an old photo of New York and noticing the lost and almost unaccountable details that gave the city its character during Ellington's heyday, which began in 1927 when his band made the Cotton Club its home.''The memory of things gone,'' Ellington once said, ''is important to a jazz musician,'' and the stories he sometimes told about his songs are the record of those things gone. But what is gone returns, its pulse kicking, when Ellington's music plays, and never mind what past it is, for the music itself still carries us forward today.

Duke Ellington was awarded the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1966. He was later awarded several other prizes, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, and the Legion of Honor by France in 1973, the highest civilian honors in each country. He died of lung cancer and pneumonia on May 24, 1974, a month after his 75th birthday, and is buried in theBronx, in New York City. At his funeral attendedby over 12,000 people at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, Ella Fitzgerald summed up the occasion, "It's a very sad day...A genius has passed."


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Ray Anderson (trombone)

Ray Anderson (born October 16, 1952) is a jazz trombonist. Trained by the Chicago Symphony trombonists, he is regarded as someone who pushes the limits of the instrument. He is a colleague of trombonist George Lewis. Anderson also plays sousaphone and sings. He was frequently chosen in DownBeat magazine's Critics Poll as best trombonist throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. After studying in California, he moved to New York in 1973 and freelanced. In 1977, he joined Anthony Braxton's Quartet (replacing George Lewis) and started working with Barry Altschul's group. In addition to leading his own groups since the late '70s (including the funk-oriented Slickaphonics), Anderson has worked with George Gruntz's Concert Jazz Band. In the '90s, he began taking an occasional...
more
Ray Anderson (born October 16, 1952) is a jazz trombonist. Trained by the Chicago Symphony trombonists, he is regarded as someone who pushes the limits of the instrument. He is a colleague of trombonist George Lewis. Anderson also plays sousaphone and sings. He was frequently chosen in DownBeat magazine's Critics Poll as best trombonist throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s.
After studying in California, he moved to New York in 1973 and freelanced. In 1977, he joined Anthony Braxton's Quartet (replacing George Lewis) and started working with Barry Altschul's group. In addition to leading his own groups since the late '70s (including the funk-oriented Slickaphonics), Anderson has worked with George Gruntz's Concert Jazz Band. In the '90s, he began taking an occasional good-humored vocal, during which he shows the ability to sing two notes at the same time (a minor third apart).
Anderson has worked with David Murray, Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra, Dr. John, Luther Allison, Bennie Wallace, Gerry Hemingway, Henry Threadgill, John Scofield, Roscoe Mitchell, Randy Sandke's Inside Out Band, Sam Rivers' Rivbea Orchestra, Bobby Previte, George Russell and others. Anderson is a member of Jim Pugh's Super Trombone with Dave Bargeron and Dave Taylor. He received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for a series of solo trombone concerts.
Anderson has frequently returned to his early love of New Orleans music for inspiration. His Alligatory Band and Pocket Brass Band, featuring tuba player Bob Stewart or sousaphonist Matt Perrine and trumpeter Lew Soloff, are rooted in its tradition. Since 2003 he has taught and conducted at Stony Brook University.
Source: Wikipedia
less

Press

... This album is quintessential Anderson, from the funky, goofy intelligence of "Just Squeeze Me" to the theremin-like expressiveness of his playing on the ballad "Moon River" to the formal complexities of Coltrane's "Equinox."...
Concerto Austria, 01-12-2022

... The wait was more than worth it, because what Anderson delivers here is simply great ... a masterpiece.
Jazz'n More, 15-11-2022

,,, Great sound art in a small format.
Fono Forum, 10-11-2022

... Solo trombone, for the run of an entire CD; you have to dare to do that, because a trombone is a meager, sometimes stubborn thing....
Jazzthing, 25-10-2022

... Ray Anderson heats up, with humor, virtuosity and heart...
NDR , 17-10-2022

... And leads the instrument through its bubbling playfulness to an amazing variety of sound and expression...
Bayerischer Rundfunk Hören wir Gutes, 11-10-2022

... His inspired use of the instrument as an extension of the human voice – his own voice, as a matter of fact as he is also a fine vocalist in addition to being a great virtuoso trombonist. ...
JazzdaGama, 19-6-2023

... Anderson's music is bold, warm, energetic, melodic, not without intricacy, abstraction or virtuosity but not given to showboating either...
Downbeat, 31-12-2022

... Trombone solo. Even though he intones titles from the Art Ensemble to Coltrane to Mancini alongside his own ideas, absolutely no light fare.
NaDann, 14-10-2022

Attention: this is the master speaking! Ray Anderson has a downright amazing technique.  ...
jazzfun, 25-9-2022

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