Don Byron
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| Don Byron | |
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 Photo by Ed Newman
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Donald Byron |
| Born | November 8, 1958 |
| Origin | New York, New York, U.S. |
| Genre(s) | Avant-garde jazz Post bop M-Base Modern Creative Klezmer |
| Instrument(s) | Clarinet Bass Clarinet Saxophone |
| Years active | 1980s – present |
| Associated acts | Hankus Netsky M-Base Collective |
Don Byron (born November 8, 1958) is a composer, jazz clarinet, bass clarinet and saxophone player.
Though rooted in jazz, is stylistically very adventurous, having recorded klezmer music, German lieder, Raymond Scott's "cartoon-jazz," a Jimi Hendrix song, hard rock/metal, and a track with rapper Biz Markie.
[edit] 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 eagerly explore and record in a rich array of styles; his first album 'Tuskegee Experiments' is a rich 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 one of jazz's greatest practicing historians, and some of his most successful 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 named a 2007 USA Gund Foundation Fellow and awarded a $50,000 grant by United States Artists, a public charity that supports and promotes the work of American artists.
[edit] 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)
- 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)
