Don Byron
(born November 8 1958) is an American composer and multi-intrumentalist. He primarily plays clarinet, but also used bass clarinet and saxophones.
Though rooted in jazz, Byron's music is stylistically eclectic. He's worked in many different musical genres, ranging from klezmer music and German lieder, to Raymond Scott's "cartoon-jazz," hard rock/metal, and rap. Most of Byron's albums have
been conceptual, devoted to works of a particular musician and/or style of music.
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DON BYRON TICKETS
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Early life
Byron was born in the
Bronx, in
New York City. The child of musician parents (his mother was a pianist and his father a bass player for calypso bands), he was exposed to a variety of musical styles through trips to the ballet and the symphony, and by listening to jazz recordings by
Dizzy Gillespie,
Miles Davis and others.
Byron studied music at the
New England Conservatory in
Boston. He studied clarinet with Joe Allard and George Russell. While in Boston, Byron performed and recorded with the
Klezmer Conservatory Band, founded by NEC faculty member Hankus Netsky. He is a gifted performer on clarinet, bass clarinet and (occasionally)
saxophone, but on many of his
albums he subordinates his own playing to the exploration of a particular style. Byron is representative of a new generation of conservatory-trained jazz musicians who explore and record in a rich array of styles; his first album,
Tuskegee Experiments
, is a stew of classical avant garde and atonal jazz improvisation, while albums such as
Bug Music
represent a straight-ahead exploration of the traditional jazz 'tune'. Byron is a jazz practicing historian, and some of his albums (such as
Plays the Music of Mickey Katz
,
Bug Music
, and
Ivey-Divey
) have been recreations (in spirit) of forgotten moments in the history of popular music. Byron has been nominated for a
Grammy award for his bass clarinet solo on "I Want to Be Happy" from
Ivey-Divey
.
Byron is a member of the
Black Rock Coalition. He has recorded with
Uri Caine,
Dean Bowman,
Vernon Reid,
Bill Frisell,
Joe Henry, and others.
Byron was also a judge for the 2nd annual
Independent Music Awards to support independent artists' careers.
[1]
Byron was named a 2007 USA Gund Foundation Fellow and awarded a US$50,000 grant by
United States Artists, a public charity that supports and promotes the work of American artists.
Discography
- Tuskegee Experiments
(1992)
- Plays the Music of Mickey Katz
(1993)
- Music for Six Musicians
(1995)
- No-Vibe Zone: Live at the Knitting Factory
(1996)
- Bug Music
(1996)
- "Puzzle" (1997)
- Nu Blaxploitation
(1998)
- Romance with the Unseen
(1999)
- A Fine Line: Arias and Lieder
(2000)
- You Are #6: More Music for Six Musicians
(2001)
- Ivey-Divey
(2004)
- A Ballad for Many
(2006)
- Light
, "Four Thoughts on Marvin Gaye, Thought #3", ETHEL, 2006
- ''Do The Boomerang - The Music of Junior Walker" (2006)
References
- Independent Music Awards - Past Judges