ISIM Associates
Festival/Conference History and Purpose
Karlton Hester
Karlton Hester, Ph.D. (composer/flutist/saxophist), began his career as a composer and recording artist in Los Angeles where he worked as a studio musician and music educator. He received his Ph.D. in composition from the City University of New York Graduate Center and is currently Director of “Jazz” studies at the University of California in Santa Cruz. Hester specializes in premeditated, spontaneous and electro-acoustic composition. His compositions span a wide range; from numerous solo cycles for various woodwinds to chamber configurations, music videos and elctro-acoustic symphonic works written in an eclectic array of styles.
Karlton Hester is Johnny "Guitar" Carson's Musical Mentor, and as the drector of Jazz studies for the University of California Santa Cruz continues to give direction to 1000s of students of Jazz and Arts with his creative ideas and influence.For more information ; http://karlton.aainnovators.com
Freddie Redd
Born in New York City, May 29, 1928, Freddie Redd has seen and made a lot of music. Although his recordings are sparse, his talent is immense, both as a composer and performer. While he was exposed to music early it wasn't until he was in the military, in 1946, that it was clear what he was going to do with his life. In his own words:“...it just blew my mind! it was Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie playing SHAW' NUFF. Now I'd learned a little boogie woogie to fool around with “ but when I heard that I thought 'This is something that I got to do.'” From that point on Freddie didn't waste anytime. After the military he went to New York City and got a firsthand account of the new jazz scene.
But a more significant outcome from New York, was the opportunity to record 3 albums on the Blue Note label, Music from The Connection, Shades of Redd, and a long unreleased third session. In addition it was during this time that Freddie played with many of the finest artists of the day including Art Blakey, Coleman Hawkins, Tina Brooks, Sonny Rollins, Charles Mingus, Lou Donaldson, and many others. It was Mingus who brought him to the west coast, which is where he wrote the San Francisco Suite recorded on Riverside.
His most recent work is Freddie Redd and his International Jazz Connection featuring original music composed by the pianist and featured in the world's first Jazz Video Album in his own words. Released in 1998 the album is dedicated to Representative John Conyers, the democrat from Michigan who authored House Resolution 57 designating jazz as America's national treasure.
While there are not many recordings of Freddie Redd and he may be hard to catch up with, he keeps busy performing and composing. And thanks to a Mosaic release of all the Blue Note recordings in 1989, a resurgence of interest in his work has occurred. Of course if you ask Freddie, he'll tell you he's been here, making music, all the time.
::Listen to Discography:: Thespian , Swift , Melanie , BluesBluesBlues
Nelson Harrison
Ph. D. in clinical psychology, educator, composer, archivist, lyricist, arranger, ASCAP, playwright, speaker, photographer; veteran trombonist of the Count Basie Orchestra featuring Joe Williams, Sarah Vaughan, Helen Humes, Joe Turner, Eddie Vinson, Dennis Rowland (‘78-80 incl. Japan tour); played with Dionne Warwicke, The Supremes and The Temptations (’64), Joe Westray (1962 – 72); Sonny and the Premiers (1963 – 67); Walt Harper (1967-70); James Brown (’67-68); Nathan Davis (1970-75); Lena Horne and Tony Bennett (‘74), Billy Eckstine and Earl "Fatha" Hines (1975), Kenny Clarke (‘79), Liberace (’77), Nancy Wilson and Melba Moore (’78), Sammy Davis, Jr. and Aretha Franklin (’79), Perry Como and Johnny Mathis (‘80), Bobby Vinton (’81), Ginger Rogers and Glenn Campbell (’82), Jay McShann (‘87), Slide Hampton (‘86), Nelson Riddle (’84) Marvin Hamlisch (’97) and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in New Orleans (’98) to name only a few; inventor of the "Trombetto," a compact brass instrument with four valves that plays a chromatic range of six octaves with a trombone mouthpiece; played at festivals in New Orleans, London, Edinburg, Sacramento, New York City, Seattle; clinics and lectures in Santa Cruz and San Jose, CA, Quebec City and Montreal, Canada, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland, New York and Toronto; scores written to movies by Georg Sanford Brown and John Russo and plays by Richard Wright, August Wilson and Rob Penny; lyricist of 125 bop standards; featured horn soloist avec vocalese with the Pittsburgh Connection Big Band at the 2007 IAJE Convention in NYC; nationally recognized expert on Pittsburgh jazz history.Nelson Harrison is currently active in Pittsburgh with Gary Racan and the Studio-E Band, The Blues Orphans, Roger Humphries Big Band, Bill Dell and Wee Jams, and my own jazz bands The World According to Bop, Jazz ‘N Jive, Dr. Jazz and the Salty Dawgs, Blue to the Bone, and Nelson Harrison and Associates.
Interview with Dr. Nelson Harrison
For further information, go to www.fyicomminc.com/cuejazz/harrison.htm.
Dr. Larry Ridley
Indiana Jazz Legend- “Bassist Extraordinaire” Larry Ridley was born and reared in Indianapolis, IN. He began performing professionally while still in high school in the 1950s and has toured, recorded and performed internationally with many of the historical legends of Jazz. His credits are a virtual “Who’s Who in Jazz”, e.g., Wes Montgomery, Freddie Hubbard, Slide Hampton, Thelonious Monk, Horace Silver, Dizzy Gillespie, Benny Goodman, Dinah Washington, Coleman Hawkins, Duke Ellington, Sonny Rollins, Lee Morgan, Billy Taylor, Gerald Wilson, Clark Terry, Randy Weston, George Wein’s Newport Jazz Festival All-Stars and many other internationally known musicians. For further information, go to www.larryridley.com.
Larry began his undergraduate education on a scholarship at the Indiana University School of Music and later transferred to New York University where he completed his Bachelor of Science degree in music education. His Master of Arts degree in Cultural Policy was earned at Empire State College of the State University of New York (SUNY). He has a Doctor of Performing Arts degree from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and is a Professor of Music, Emeritus at Rutgers University. During his tenure at Rutgers, 1971-1999, Ridley was the lead architect in structuring the undergraduate and graduate degree programs in jazz performance. He continues to actively teach as Professor of Jazz Bass at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City.
Dr. Ridley served as chairman of the Jazz Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and was the organization's National Coordinator of the Jazz Artists in Schools Program for five years. His many honors include the MidAtlantic Arts Foundation’s “Living Legacy Jazz Award”, induction into the International Association for Jazz Education Hall of Fame (IAJE) and the Downbeat Magazine Jazz Education Hall of Fame, the Benny Golson Jazz Award from Howard University and a Juneteenth 2006 Proclamation Award from the New York City Council initiated by the Honorable Charles Barron, Council Member, 42nd District, Brooklyn, NY.
Dr. Ridley is currently serving his 16th plus year as Jazz Artist in Residence at the Harlem based New York Public Library/Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. He established an annual series there dedicated to presenting the compositions of jazz masters that are performed by Dr. Ridley and his Jazz Legacy Ensemble.
He and the late Anderson White founded the Black Jazz Music Caucus (BJMC) in 1977 as an autonomous affiliate working with the National Association of Jazz Educators. In the year 2000 he became the Executive Director of the renamed African American Jazz Caucus, Inc. (AAJC), a 501c3 not for profit, www.aajc.us.
Beginning in the year 2007, Dr. Ridley became the Co-Director of the NCCU/AAJC Jazz Research Institute (NAJRI) in Durham, NC, www.najri.org. This is the first at an HBCU. His mantra is “WORKING TOGETHER WORKS!”
Ghasem Batamuntu
Based out of Oakland, California, Ghasem Batamuntu is an experienced saxophonist, composer, arranger, percussionist, poet and music educator. He also makes instruments and is the band leader of the Nova Ghost Sect*Tet. For more information about Ghasem Batamuntu,website: batamuntu.com,
or visit his myspace at myspace.com/thenunovacompound
Jin Hi Kim
Kim interpreted the rings of Saturn's spinning moons for electric komungo. According to 15th century Korean court music treatises, Saturn corresponds the fundamental note of Korean pentatonic scale. In Kim’s performance, the fundamental note will be played as drone while the spinning motion is expressed with repetitive motives.
The world’s only electric komungo that Kim developed is a twentieth century extension of the original fourth century komungo. Kim has developed live interactive pieces for electric komungo processing acoustic sound through a personal computer program, electrified and altered sounds via MIDI foot pedal control of a custom MAX/MSP program. While staying true to the nature of the instrument, her electric komungo solo performances interweave from old timeless mind to space-age blips.
Jin Hi Kim is highly acclaimed as both an innovative komungo (Korean fourth century fretted board zither) virtuoso and for her cross-cultural compositions. Kim has introduced the Korean indigenous komungo for the first time into Western contemporary music scene through her wide array of compositions for chamber ensemble, orchestra, avant-garde, cross-cultural ensemble, multi-media, and avant-garde jazz improvisations. Kim is “Meet The Composer Music Alive” Composer-In-Residence with New Haven Symphony Orchestra for 2009-2011 seasons.
Kim has performed her own works at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Smithsonian Freer Gallery of Art, Asia Society, Royal Festival Hall (London), Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Expo Zaragoza (Spain), and many significant new music festivals around the world. Kim’s komungo solo works represent an evolution of the instrument into the twenty-first century. Her new komungo compositions are imbued with meditative and vivid energy that makes it mesmerizing. Kim has co-designed the world's only electric komungo and created live interactive pieces with a MIDI computer system. Using MAX/MSP, the komungo sound is processed through a personal computer program in live that is triggered by MIDI foot pedal. Staying true to the nature of the instrument, her solo interweaves from old timeless mind to space-age blips.
In 1986 Kim was first discovered by avant-garde guitarist Henry Kaiser and has plunged into improvisation scene. In a decade of creative activity, she has improvised with many prominent figures in new music and avant-garde jazz including Elliott Sharp, Henry Kaiser, Bill Frisell, Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Joelle Leandre James Newton, Eugene Chadbourne, Oliver Lake, William Parker, Hans Reichel, and Gerry Hemingway.Kim’s autobiography Komungo Tango, a 25 years journey of komungo collaborations with master musicians around the world, was published in S. Korea in 2007.Kim has developed a series of compositions, Living Tones --The timbral persona of each tone generated is treated with an abiding respect, as its philosophical mandate from Buddhism, a reverence for the ‘life’ of a tone, the color and nuance granted each articulation from Korean Shamanism. Kim’s Living Tones compositions including komungo were performed by Kronos Quartet, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Xenakis Ensemble (Holland), Kairos String Quartett (Berlin), American Composers Orchestra, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Stanford Symphony Orchestra, Key West Symphony, KBS Symphony (S. Korea) and many others.
In South Korea, Kim is highly respected for her role of cultural ambassador and her invention of the electric Komungo. In 2007 an interview about her electric komungo was broadcast on Arirang-TV and MBC-TV in conjunction with Korean Traditional Craft Exhibition at United Nation. In 2006 Kim’s electric komungo solo performance was broadcast by YTN National TV. In 2003 She was featured in the MBC-TV broadcast of the film 100 Years of Sanjo In 2001 National Broadcasting System (KBS-TV) produced an hour documentary film on Kim’s musical contribution.
For more information - www.jinhikim.com/recordings
Ashwin Batish
Composer, Performer, Teacher of Music, Recording Artist
Speciality: Sitar and Tabla
Education: Training in North Indian classical music from his father Pandit Shiv Dayal Batish
Teaching Recent Positions:
Master Instructor - Batish Institute of Music & Fine Arts, Santa Cruz, California.
Previous Positions:
Music Faculty San Jose State University - East/West Fusion.
Guest Lecturer - Mills College, Oakland, California.
University of California, Santa Cruz. Cabrillo College, California.
Ashwin Batish is an extraordinary sitarist and tabla player. He received training in the North Indian classical tradition from his father S.D. Batish and later created his own unique fusion of Indian classical sitar with pop, rock, jazz, calypso, funk... an example of a few hybrids he excells at. He is famous for such songs as the Bombay Boogie, Raga Rock, Raga Jazz, Casbah Shuffle and Sitar Mania.Ashwin is also very well known for being an educator. His series of instructional videos for the sitar, tabla, dilruba, dholak, vichitra veena, harmonium that he has produced with his father Pandit Shiv Dayal Batish have become a very sought after commodity by the Indian music student. Ashwin often gives private and group Indian music lessons at his Santa Cruz, California USA facility and is often called upon by various music festivals and universities to perform his sitar and be a guest lecturer for weekend workshops and seminars on Indian music and ethnopop, raga rock sitar fusion.Ashwin Batish's pioneering effort in worldbeat music called "Sitar Power" has earned him some critical reviews and great respect in the music community. The sitar is ageless in Ashwin's hands. It is souped up for amplification and effects! We hope you get to catch one of Ashwin's electric performances. His music is as dynamic as his stage presence. When called upon, Ashwin will assemble a seven piece band of handpicked musicians that compliment his every musical nuance.
Learn more at: http://batish.com/ashwin/
David Smith
Born in New York by an artist’s colony, David has pursued creativity through diverse means. He has traveled to Russia, India and Turkey developing beautiful and haunting experiences into musical recipes. Using an acoustic bass tuned in fifths, like a cello an octave down, he has been able to open the way for new discoveries in the bass range. Currently he is earning a master’s degree in bass performance.
Rob Dz
Freestyle 101 is a presentation that shows hip hop as a credible form of improvisational music. Veteran hip hop artist Rob Dz provides an in-depth analysis of being in the moment with one of the world's most influential music forms. Blending musical spontaneity with spoken word essence, Freestyle 101 allows the audience to get free....with style!
Rob Dz combines elements of jazz, R&B, funk and gopsel as a talented wordsmith to make a sound unlike any other in music. Dz has performed with NAS, COMMON, TALIB KWELI, BLACKALICIOUS, BLACK EYED PEAS, DAY 26, TWISTA, ZION I, ATMOSPHERE, NAUGHTY BY NATURE, BONE THUGS AND HARMONY, and others. He appeared on ESPN's 2006 MIDNIGHT MADNESS SPECIAL at George Mason University as well being selected as a national semi-finalist on MTV's ULTIMATE HIP HOP TALENT SEARCH. As winner of 2005 BEST HIP HOP ARTIST, PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD and 2006 BEST HIP HOP SONG and ALBUM by the MADISON AREA MUSIC AWARDS, Dz is quickly becoming a leader in the soulful midwest hip hop movement. With a goal of touching listeners without sacraficing integrity, Rob Dz is putting the soul back into soul music, and that itself, is quite an experience!
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