Leroy Jenkins RIP

[alocispepraluger102]

wnur this morning played a rather long phone interview with jenkins promoting a hothouse concert, when the melford, jarman, jenkins project was still in planning. the interviewer didnt know much about his music, i learned a great deal about jenkins life and his way of thinking and surviving and got a feel for the way his music was the way it was.

if anyone would like to hear the interview, send a note and i'll put it in a little mp3 file.

[orchiddoctor]

A truly great loss. A virtuoso who took the violin to another level--or three. I, too, remember Leroy from the seventies with Jerome Cooper and Sirone--those amazing early discs. I heard him many times during the peak of the "avante guarde"years of 1975--1978 in New York playing in clubs, lofts--anywhere and everywhere, always with something to say.

He should also be remembered as the man who convinced Joseph Jarman to come out of "retirement." Without Leroy, so much would never have been. A great void--not likely to be filled.

[Lazaro Vega]

Written by George Lewis and

Carlota Schoolman.

LEROY JENKINS

March 11, 1932 - February 24, 2007

Narrative biography, February 26, 2007

Leroy Jenkins is renowned as a virtuoso violinist and for his compositions

and operas which are an extraordinary bonding of a variety of sounds

associated with the African American music tradition and European styles.

Throughout his long career, Jenkins never stopped experimenting. At

Harvestworks Digital Art Center where he was Artist in Residence in 2005, he

and Mary Griffin developed an interactive music/video instrument which

allows Jenkins, "Blue" Gene Tyranny, and the other musicians in Coincidents

to manipulate multiple video tapes with their acoustic instruments and

voices. Most recently, he assembled a world music improvisatory group - Jin

Hi Kim (Komungo) Korea, Rmesh Misra (Sarangi) India, Yacorba Sissoko (Kora)

Africa, Leroy Jenkins (Violin) USA. A recording of the group, made at an

AACM concert will be released shortly.

In the last fifteen years, Jenkins has turned his attention to music/theater

pieces: Fresh Faust, a rap opera was presented in workshop at the Institute

of Creative Arts in Boston. The Negro Burial Ground, a cantata, was

presented in workshop at the Kitchen Center in New York. A later work, The

Three Willies, an operatic collaboration with Homer Jackson was presented at

The Painted Bride in Philadelphia (1996), and at the Kitchen, NYC (2001).

Coincidents an opera, with librettist Mary Griffin will receive its premiere

in June at Roulette. Jenkins is developing two new operas: Bronzeville, a

history of South Side Chicago in the 20s through 50s with Mary Griffin, and

Minor Triad, a musical drama with composer/librettist, Carmen Moore.

Leroy Jenkins was born on March 11, 1932 and began his violin training as a

child, studying with Professor O. W. Frederick at the Ebenezer Baptist

Church in Chicago. He studied clarinet, saxophone and bassoon under the

direction of legendary Captain Walter Dyett at Du Sable High School in

Chicago, and received a music scholarship to study classical violin with

Bruce Hayden at Florida A&M University. He received a B.S. in Music

Education in 1961. Immediately following graduation, he taught music in

Alabama schools, and then in Chicago.

Classically trained, Jenkins was also influenced by the great jazz masters,

and played saxophone and clarinet in a number of jazz ensembles, but his

passion, from the age of eight, was the violin, and he found a way to meld

his classical technique and his love of jazz when he joined the Association

for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a pivotal Chicago organization

which originated a vibrant new form of creative improvised music. Moving to

Paris in 1969, Jenkins toured Europe with his first group: The Creative

Construction Company of Chicago, with Anthony Braxton and Leo Smith. In

1970, he came to New York and formed another cooperative, The Revolutionary

Ensemble, a trio of bass, (Sirone) violin, and drums (Jerome Cooper), which

toured internationally to critical acclaim, and went on to record five

albums. He also developed his solo compositions and premiered his first

works in this format at a concert at the Washington Square Peace Church in

Greenwich Village.

In the '70s and '80s Jenkins received major support for music composition

with many grants and commissions for chamber ensemble, orchestra, dance, and

theater. During this period, in addition to touring as a soloist and with

various instrumental groups under his leadership, his music was performed by

the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Albany Symphony, the Cleveland Chamber

Symphony, the Kronos Quartet, the Dessoff Choirs, the Pittsburgh New Music

Ensemble, and the New Music Consort, among others.

In 1989 Jenkins was commissioned by Hans Werner Henze for the Munich Bienale

New Music Theater Festival to write the opera/ballet, Mother Of Three Sons,

choreographed and directed by Bill T. Jones. It premiered in Munich and was

later staged by the New York City Opera, the Houston Opera, and was

broadcast on German television. He received a Bessie (New York Dance and

Performance Award) "for the lyrical, intricately constructed river of jazz

and opera".

In 1998, the Cleveland Chamber Symphony performed and recorded Wonderlust, a

work for chamber orchestra and two soloists and in the last six years

Jenkins has performed at numerous festivals and venues here and in Europe

including the Other Minds Festival in San Francisco, California Institute

for the Arts, the Contemporary Museum in New Orleans, the Chicago Jazz

Festival, as well as international jazz festivals in Portugal, Sardinia, and

Canada. Other recent projects have been a commissioned piece for tenor,

baritone, and brass quartet which was performed at Merlin Hall as part of

the World Music series in New York, in San Francisco and at North Florida

State University.

His most recent touring group - Equal Interest, a trio with violin,

(Jenkins), piano, (Myra Melford), and woodwinds (Joseph Jarman) - was formed

in 1999. The British Arts Council commissioned its members to write pieces

for a group of nine British musicians, and Equal Interest performed with

these musicians on a ten-city tour of England.

Jenkins held residencies and guest professorships at many American

universities including Oberlin, Bennington, Harvard, Brown, University of

Michigan, Williams, California Institute of the Arts, Bard College, and

Duke. He was guest composer/ master teacher/performer at the Della Rosa of

Portland, Tom Buckner's Interpretations series in New York, the American

Composers series at the Kennedy Center, the Atlantic Center for the Arts,

the Atlanta Virtuoso, and the First American Violin Congress at the

invitation of Sir Yehudi Menuhin.

He received numerous commissions and awards - from the National Endowment

for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, the New York State Council

for the Arts, The Rockefeller Foundation's Multi Arts Production Fund among

others, and was awarded a 2003 composition grant from the Fromm Foundation

for Coincidents. In 2004 he received a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Jenkins also collaborated with dancer Felicia Norton and was commissioned by

Lincoln Center's Out of Doors Series for collaborations with choreographers

Molissa Fenley and Mark Dendy.

Jenkins served on the Board of Directors of Meet the Composer in New York

and the Atlantic Center for the Arts, and as Artistic Director and Board

Member of Composers' Forum. He has sat on many panels for music including

the National Endowment, the Herb Alpert Foundation, The Bush Foundation, The

Pew Charitable Trusts, and New York Foundation for the Arts, and the New

York State Council for the Arts. He placed numerous times in critics' and

readers' polls in Downbeat and Jazz Magazine.

In groupings from solo to chamber orchestras, Jenkins has recorded 25

albums/ CD's, nine of which have been reissued. Recent recordings include:

Solo, a suite for solo violin and viola, Lovely Music (1999), Equal

Interest, Omnitone (2000), The Revolutionary Ensemble, Mutable Music (2004),

And Now, The Revolutionary Ensemble, Pi Recordings (2004), and The Art of

Improvisation, Mutable Music (2006).

Edited February 27, 2007 by Lazaro Vega

[Lazaro Vega]

http://destination-out.com/?p=77

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/26/arts/mus...amp;oref=slogin

Edited February 27, 2007 by Lazaro Vega

[king ubu]

sad news

[Lazaro Vega]

The WNUR interview is very insightful. Played alto in college, Florida A and M, to help pay bills. At junk joints in a style informed by Charlie Parker.

"I never knew...."

[alocispepraluger102]

The WNUR interview is very insightful. Played alto in college, Florida A and M, to help pay bills. At junk joints in a style informed by Charlie Parker.

"I never knew...."

he didnt like his music called free(unstructured).

he discussed his intuitive playing with aacm members, and how he had to basically draw pictures while playing with classical players.