Jazz

• Mark Levine
  
• pianis
• educator
• author

Mark began playing jazz as a teenager in Daytona Beach, Florida. Continuing his education in Boston and New York, Mark studied with Hall Overton, Herb Pomeroy and Jaki Byard, before moving to California in 1966.

A key phase in Mark's education was a year spent in Woody Shaw's quartet. "Every night was serious school," says Mark.

Mark spent significant time working with Joe Henderson, Blue Mitchell, David Liebman and Harold Land, composing all the while. Joe recorded two of Mark's tunes on "Canyon Lady," the late tenor giant's only Latin jazz album. Mark returned the favor by playing two of Joe's classic compositions, "Inner Urge," and "A Shade Of Jade," on his 2000 release, "Serengeti."

His interest in Latin jazz led to work with Mongo Santamaria, Willie Bobo, Moacir Santos, Francisco Aguabella, Pete Escovedo, and Cal Tjader (including Cal's Grammy-winning Concord Jazz recording "La Onda Va Bien").

Mark has continued to pursue the Latin side of his craft, attending Centro Nacional de Escuela de Arte in Havana, Cuba in 1997.

Twice, Mark has been the recipient of a National Endowment For The Arts Grants (1975 and 1977) and was awarded a "Jammie" as Best Bay Area Jazz trombonist, 1983-1984 (no, he no longer plays trombone, but he has taken up the gimbri, a Moroccan 3-stringed lute).

Mark Levine has played/recorded with:

Woody Shaw, Mongo Santamaria, Joe Henderson, Willie Bobo, Bobby Hutcherson, Moacir Santos, Freddie Hubbard, Cal Tjader, Wallace Roney, Tito Puente, Milt Jackson, Francisco Aguabella, Harold Land, David Liebman, Blue Mitchell, Pete Escovedo, James Moody, Art Farmer, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Fortune, Eddie Harris, Stefon Harris, Eddie Henderson, Conrad Herwig, Clark Terry, Ingrid Jensen, Charlie Rouse, Bobby Watson, Chet Baker, Philip Harper, Mark Murphy, Art Pepper, Julian Priester, Bobby Shew, Steve Turre, Madeline Eastman, and Poncho Sanchez

Mark's compositions have been recorded by:

Joe Henderson, Blue Mitchell, Cal Tjader, Tito Puente, Pete Escovedo, Mongo Santamaria, Nuyorican Soul, Joanne Brackeen, Moacir Santos, Tom Lellis, and Poncho Sanchez.

As an educator, Mark authored "The Jazz Piano Book," which has become the bible for jazz pianists all over the world. Available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese and Korean. In 1996, he completed "The Jazz Theory Book," with similar success.

Jazz Times named "The Jazz Theory Book" as the #1 choice in its "recommended basic jazz library."

Mark's faculty affiliations include:

* The Jazzschool Institute, Berkeley CA, beginning Fall 2009
* San Francisco Conservatory of Music, 1992-present
* Monterey Jazz Festival Foundation Traveling Clinicians, Monterey, CA 2002-2007
* University of California at Berkeley, 2000-present
* Jamey Aebersold Jazz Camps, 1977-2002
* Stanford Jazz Workshop, Stanford, CA, 1982-2003
* Jazz Camp West, La Honda, CA, 1982-2002
* Jazz Studio Summer Camp, Dworp, Belgium, 1993-2004
* The Jazzschool, Berkeley, CA, 1997-present
* Jazz Flute Camp, Carmel Valley, CA, 2003-present
* Mills College, Oakland, CA, 1986-present

Guest Clinician and residencies at schools in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, China, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Iceland, Mexico, Sweden, New Zealand, Switzerland, and Wales.

In the early '90s, Mark produced The Jazz Masters Clinic Series, a combination workshop and master class taught by touring artists passing through the Bay Area. Featured artists included Cedar Walton, Mulgrew Miller, Kenny Barron, Elvin Jones, Eddie Palmieri, and Tommy Flanagan.

Piano jazz from Grammy-nominated Mark Levine. Mark began playing jazz as a teenager in Daytona Beach, Florida. Continuing his education in Boston and New York, Mark studied with Hall Overton, Herb Pomeroy and Jaki Byard, before moving to California in 1966.

A key phase in Mark's education was a year spent in Woody Shaw's quartet. "Every night was serious school," says Mark.

Mark spent significant time working with Joe Henderson, Blue Mitchell, David Liebman and Harold Land, composing all the while. Joe recorded two of Mark's tunes on "Canyon Lady," the late tenor giant's only Latin jazz album. Mark returned the favor by playing two of Joe's classic compositions, "Inner Urge," and "A Shade Of Jade," on his 2000 release, "Serengeti."

His interest in Latin jazz led to work with Mongo Santamaria, Willie Bobo, Moacir Santos, Francisco Aguabella, Pete Escovedo, and Cal Tjader (including Cal's Grammy-winning Concord Jazz recording "La Onda Va Bien").

Mark has continued to pursue the Latin side of his craft, attending Centro Nacional de Escuela de Arte in Havana, Cuba in 1997.

Twice, Mark has been the recipient of a National Endowment For The Arts Grants (1975 and 1977) and was awarded a "Jammie" as Best Bay Area Jazz trombonist, 1983-1984 (no, he no longer plays trombone).

Mark Levine has played/recorded with:

Woody Shaw, Mongo Santamaria, Joe Henderson, Willie Bobo, Bobby Hutcherson, Moacir Santos, Freddie Hubbard, Cal Tjader, Wallace Roney, Tito Puente, Milt Jackson, Francisco Aguabella, Harold Land, David Liebman, Blue Mitchell, Pete Escovedo, James Moody, Art Farmer, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Fortune, Eddie Harris, Stefon Harris, Eddie Henderson, Conrad Herwig, Clark Terry, Ingrid Jensen, Charlie Rouse, Bobby Watson, Chet Baker, Philip Harper, Mark Murphy, Art Pepper, Julian Priester, Bobby Shew, Steve Turre, Madeline Eastman, and Poncho Sanchez

Mark's compositions have been recorded by:

Joe Henderson, Blue Mitchell, Cal Tjader, Tito Puente, Pete Escovedo, Mongo Santamaria, Nuyorican Soul, Joanne Brackeen, Moacir Santos, Tom Lellis, and Poncho Sanchez.

As an educator, Mark authored "The Jazz Piano Book," which has become the bible for jazz pianists all over the world. Translated into both French and German, it will be issued in Spanish in 2004,. In 1996, he completed "The Jazz Theory Book," with similar success.

• Leroy Ostransky
  
• Composer And Jazz Author

AP: Seattle Times Staff

TACOMA - Leroy Ostransky, a longtime composer, music educator and author of three books on jazz, died after a long illness. He was 75.
Mr. Ostransky, who died Monday, was a professor emeritus of music and composer-in-residence at the University of Puget Sound.
"He was a pioneer in the area of jazz education in higher education," said James Sorensen, dean of the School of Music at UPS. "Leroy was one of the very first to bring jazz into the academy."
Mr. Ostransky wrote his first symphony when he graduated with a doctoral degree from the University of Iowa. In all, he composed five symphonies. When his "Symphony No. 4: American" was debuted by the Seattle Symphony on Oct. 23, 1975, Gov. Dan Evans declared "Leroy Ostransky Day" in Washington.
Mr. Ostransky also wrote scores of instructional pieces for classrooms. His books on jazz were: "Understanding Jazz," "The Anatomy of Jazz" and "Jazz City."
In 1990, Mr. Ostransky published an autobiographical memoir, "Sharkey's Kid." The book documented the first 13 years of his life in New York. He wrote a comic opera called, "The Melting of Molly," said his daughter, Sonya Ostransky Wind. The opera was about a woman trying to lose weight. The prolific Mr. Ostransky wrote a Sunday column, "Notes and Comments," in The Morning News Tribune for 23 years. He had a radio show called "Oh, Oh Ostransky." His music reviews also appeared in The Seattle Times.
People magazine named Mr. Ostransky one of the 12 greatest teachers in America in 1975. The Tacoma Arts Commission honored Mr. Ostransky in September 1992 with an Excellence in the Arts Award.
In 1981 and 1983, family members said, Mr. Ostransky suffered debilitating strokes that forced his retirement from UPS.
Mr. Ostransky's survivors include his wife, Natalie; a daughter, Sonya; two sisters, Dorothy Herzog and Claire Verdi; a brother, Seymour Ostransky; and relatives in New York, Ohio and Florida.

Copyright (c) 1993 Seattle Times Company, All Rights Reserved.

• Ian Carr
• trumpet player and author

The British trumpet player and author Ian Carr died in London on Wednesday 25th February aged 75.

He began his musical career in Newcastle in a band led by his brother Mike. Among the younger musicians he played with were John McLaughlin, Eric Burdon and Alan Price.

When he moved to London he co-led a quintet with sax player Don Rendell. His LPs with Rendell and with Michael Garrick, The New Jazz Orchestra and Neil Ardley in the late 60s are amongst the finest ever produced in the UK and fetch huge sums on Ebay.

In the 70s he led the pioneering British Jazz Rock band “Nucleus", (one of the first fusion bands) which included John Marshall, Chris Spedding, Alan Holdsworth and Karl Jenkins among others. His Nucleus records are heavily sampled by the Bass'n'drum generation because of the superb bass lines he wrote.

After recovering from a serious cancer operation in the early 1980s, he worked extensively with Nucleus, the George Russell Orchestra, Michael Gibbs and the United Jazz Rock Ensemble, which included Charlie Mariano, Kenny Wheeler and Albert Mangelsdorff.

His later works included a suite for Nucleus members and a string orchestra and a duo recorded in Southwark Cathedral playing solo trumpet accompanied by John Taylor on the Cathedral organ.

An accomplished author, he wrote the recently re-published Music Outside a polemical study of British jazz in the early 1970s Later, he wrote the definitive musical biography of Miles Davis, widely regarded as among the finest jazz musical biographies. He followed with a biography of Keith Jarrett and co-wrote The Rough Guide to Jazz. Working with the film director Mike Dibb he made the TV films The Miles Davis Story (EMMY Award, released on Sony DVD) and Keith Jarrett: the Art of Improvisation.

He made numerous BBC Radio programmes as musician and critic.

As an influential and selfless educator he ran workshops for a musical charity which were hugely formative on a whole generation of British Jazz players such as Julian Joseph. Later, as a Professor at the Guildhall School of Music, he taught another generation of young players.

He received Lifetime Achievement Awards from Parliament and the BBC. His biography by Alyn Shipton Out of the Long Dark was published in 2006.

Carr had been suffering from a long illness, which left him unable to play or write. He died peacefully with his daughter Selina and his old friends, drummer John Marshall and wife Maxi, and trumpeter Kenny Wheeler by his bedside.