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(b Kankakee, IL, March 22, 1942; d San Rafael, CA, Sept 25, 1996). American composer, trombonist, conductor, and double bassist. He attended the University of Illinois, where he studied trombone with Robert Gray and composition with Kenneth Gaburo, herbert Brün , and salvatore Martirano (BM in performance 1965). He studied jazz improvisation with lee Konitz and electronic music with richard b. Hervig at the University of Iowa (1970–71). He was a member of the Harry Partch Ensemble (1961–2) and the Illinois Contemporary Chamber Players (1963–6) and was an associate artist at the University of Iowa Center for New Music and New Performing Arts (1969–74). From 1974 to 1984 English lived in Europe, where he performed widely as a soloist and with jazz and new music ensembles, at festivals, and on radio. He collaborated with his wife Candace Natvig, a singer and violinist; in ...

[Jeremy Webster]

(b Heathfield, East Sussex, England, Feb 17, 1949). English guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, improviser, and composer. He taught himself piano, studied violin, and sang in the church choir while at school. After playing guitar and electric bass guitar in various rock bands he founded the rock and improvising group Henry Cow with the reed player Tim Hodgkinson (1968). When the group disbanded in 1978 Frith established the Art Bears, a trio with the drummer Chris Cutler and the singer Dagmar Krause, which was active until 1981. In 1979 he moved to New York, where he formed a power trio (electric guitar, electric bass guitar, and drums), Massacre, with Bill Laswell and Fred Maher (1980–82), Skeleton Crew with Tom Cora (1982–6), the sextet Keep the Dog (1989–92), and a guitar quartet (1992), with which, after having moved to Germany (1995...

(b New York, NY, Jan 29, 1939; d Tijuana, Mexico, Oct 25, 2000). American jazz singer, lyricist, composer–improviser, multidisciplinary artist, and educator. During her 40-year career she performed internationally and recorded more than 40 albums, working with such artists as Carla Bley, Anthony Braxton, Marion Brown, Enrico Rava, Andrew Cyrille, Roland Kirk, Jimmy Lyons, Archie Shepp, Sunny Murray, Cecil Taylor, and Reggie Workman. Her vocal style reflects the influence of early mainstream jazz vocalists, including Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington, and the intellectualism of postwar avant-garde jazz and experimental music. Starting in the 1960s Lee forged a new path in multidisciplinary performance that fused the aesthetics of modern dance, vocal improvisation and sound poetry (intonation, non-verbal utterances, and vocalizations), and visual arts (paintings, slide projections, and film). In the 1970s she established Earthforms Rituals, a nonprofit corporation that promoted concerts and educational programs. She also completed an MA in education at New York University in ...

(b Plovdiv, 19 Dec 1937). Bulgarian composer, pianist, conductor, arranger, and bandleader. He was internationally acknowledged for his innovative ideas, cross-cultural experiments, and contribution to the concept of fusion and free improvisation. Classically trained at the Bulgarian State Conservatory (1955–60) under Pancho Vladigerov (composition) and Andrey Stoyanov (piano), he is the author of numerous compositions in styles and genres including jazz, pop, symphony, chamber, film, and theatrical music. He conducted the Radio and Television Big Band in Sofia (1962–6) and led his own avant-garde quartet, Jazz Focus’65 (1965–8), which won the Critic’s Prize at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1967. In 1970 he left Bulgaria for political reasons and moved to the USA where he joined the Don Ellis Orchestra (1971–8), and later collaborated with the classical/jazz quartet Free Flight. He also played with outstanding jazz musicians including Art Pepper, Billy Cobham, and Dave Holland, among many others....

(Fr.: ‘unequal notes’)

A rhythmic convention according to which certain divisions of the beat move in alternately long and short values, even if they are written equal.

As it existed in France from the mid-16th century to the late 18th the convention of notes inégales was first of all a way of gracing or enlivening passage-work or diminutions in vocal or instrumental music. As styles changed and the figurations born of diminution entered the essential melodic vocabulary, inequality permeated the musical language. Its application was regulated by metre and note values; it always operated within the beat, never distorting the beat itself. (An anomalous instance of alteration of the beat appears in Gigault; see §2.) The degree of inequality (i.e. the ratio between the lengths of the long and short notes of each pair) could vary from the barely perceptible to the equivalent of double dotting, according to the character of the piece and the taste of the performer. Inequality was considered one of the chief resources of expression, and it varied according to expressive needs within the same piece or even within the same passage; where it was felt to be inappropriate it could be abandoned altogether unless explicitly demanded....

(b Sofia, Bulgaria, Sept 22, 1960). Bulgarian pianist and jazz improviser. He graduated in piano from the Lyubomir Pipkov High School of Music in Sofia under Milena Kurteva (1975–9), and the Pantcho Vladigerov National Academy of Music under Yulia and Konstantin Ganevi (1979–84). At the age of 15 he won top prizes at international competitions in the Czech Republic and Italy. As a student he won second prize at the International Senigallia Competition (1979); third in the XXXIII International Busoni Competition (1981); and third prize and silver medal at the Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels (1983). He won the first prize and grand prize in the Svetoslav Obretenov National Competition (1982). In 1986 and 1987 he received a Fulbright Grant to study with Leon Fleisher at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore.

From 1988 until 1991 he taught piano at the Pantcho Vladigerov National Academy of Music, Sofia, and, since ...