Lonnie Plaxico
Encyclopedia
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
ist.
Plaxico was born in Chicago, Illinois into a musical family, and started playing the bass at the age of twelve, turning professional at fourteen (playing both double bass and bass guitar
Bass guitar
The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
). His first recording was with his family's band, and by the time he was twenty he had moved to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, where he had stints playing with Chet Baker
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker, Jr. was an American jazz trumpeter, flugelhornist and singer.Though his music earned him a large following , Baker's popularity was due in part to his "matinee idol-beauty" and "well-publicized drug habit."He died in 1988 in Amsterdam, the...
, Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon
Dexter Gordon was an American jazz tenor saxophonist and an Academy Award-nominated actor . He is regarded as one of the first and most important musicians to adapt the bebop musical language of people like Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Bud Powell to the tenor saxophone...
, Sonny Stitt
Sonny Stitt
Edward "Sonny" Stitt was an American jazz saxophonist of the bebop/hard bop idiom. He was also one of the best-documented saxophonists of his generation, recording over 100 albums in his lifetime...
, Junior Cook
Junior Cook
Herman "Junior" Cook was a hard bop tenor saxophone player.-Biography:Cook was born in Pensacola, Florida. After playing with Dizzy Gillespie in 1958, Cook gained some fame for his longtime membership in the Horace Silver Quintet ; when he and Blue Mitchell left that band, Cook played in...
, and Hank Jones
Hank Jones
Henry "Hank" Jones was an American jazz pianist, bandleader, arranger, and composer. Critics and musicians described Jones as eloquent, lyrical, and impeccable. In 1989, The National Endowment for the Arts honored him with the NEA Jazz Masters Award...
. He won the Louis Armstrong Jazz Award in 1978.
Plaxico first came to public attention through his work with the Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Marsalis
Wynton Learson Marsalis is a trumpeter, composer, bandleader, music educator, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center. Marsalis has promoted the appreciation of classical and jazz music often to young audiences...
group in 1982, though his first regular attachment was with Art Blakey
Art Blakey
Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....
's Jazz Messengers (1983–1986), with whom he recorded twelve album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
s. In 1986 Plaxico joined Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette
Jack DeJohnette is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer. He is one of the most influential jazz drummers of the 20th century, due to extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians like Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett and Sonny...
's Special Edition, and stayed with them until 1993. He is now the musical director and featured bassist for Cassandra Wilson
Cassandra Wilson
Cassandra Wilson is an American jazz musician, vocalist, songwriter, and producer from Jackson, Mississippi. Described by critic Gary Giddins as "a singer blessed with an unmistakable timbre and attack [who has] expanded the playing field" by incorporating country, blues and folk music into her...
, with whom he has been playing for fifteen years. He has performed and recorded with a wide range of artists, including David Murray
David Murray (jazz musician)
David Murray is an American jazz musician. Murray plays mainly tenor saxophone and sometimes bass clarinet. He has recorded prolifically for many record labels since the mid-1970s.-Biography:...
, Alice Coltrane
Alice Coltrane
Alice Coltrane, née McLeod was an American jazz pianist, organist, harpist, and composer.-Biography:...
, Stanley Turrentine
Stanley Turrentine
Stanley William Turrentine, also known as "Mr. T" or "The Sugar Man", was an American jazz tenor saxophonist.-Biography:Turrentine was born in Pittsburgh's Hill District into a musical family...
, Andrew Hill
Andrew Hill
Andrew Hill was an American jazz pianist and composer.Hill is recognized as one of the most important innovators of jazz piano in the 1960s...
, Joe Sample
Joe Sample
Joseph Leslie "Joe" Sample is an American pianist, keyboard player and composer.He is one of the founding members of the Jazz Crusaders, the band which became simply The Crusaders in 1971, and remained a part of the group until its final album in 1991 .- Biography :Sample began playing the piano...
, Abbey Lincoln
Abbey Lincoln
Anna Marie Wooldridge , better known by her stage name Abbey Lincoln, was a jazz vocalist, songwriter, and actress. Lincoln was unusual in that she wrote and performed her own compositions, expanding the expectations of jazz audiences.-Biography:Born in Chicago, Illinois, she was one of many...
, Dizzy Gillespie
Dizzy Gillespie
John Birks "Dizzy" Gillespie was an American jazz trumpet player, bandleader, singer, and composer dubbed "the sound of surprise".Together with Charlie Parker, he was a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz...
, Bill Cosby
Bill Cosby
William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr. is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer, educator, musician and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a starring role in the 1960s action show, I Spy. He later starred in his own series, the...
, Lonnie Liston Smith
Lonnie Liston Smith
Lonnie Liston Smith, Jr. is an American jazz, soul, and funk musician who played with important free jazz artists such as Pharoah Sanders and Miles Davis before forming Lonnie Liston Smith And The Cosmic Echoes, recording a number of albums widely regarded as classics in the fusion / Quiet Storm /...
, Ravi Coltrane
Ravi Coltrane
Ravi Coltrane is an American post-bop jazz saxophonist. Co-owner of the record label RKM Music, he has produced artists such as pianist Luis Perdomo , guitarist David Gilmore and trumpeter Ralph Alessi....
, Scott Tixier
Scott Tixier
Scott Tixier is an award-winning French jazz violinist and a recording artist.He was born in Montreuil and studied classical violin at the conservatory in Paris...
, Barbara Dennerlein
Barbara Dennerlein
Barbara Dennerlein , is a hard bop and post-bop Hammond B3 organist.-Early years:At age 11, Dennerlein began playing electronic organ. After starting organ lessons, she learned to play the two manual organ with a bass pedalboard. After one and a half years of lessons she continued to study without...
, Kenny Grohowski, Helen Sung
Helen Sung
- History :Sung is a native of Houston, Texas. Her musical life began with classical piano and violin. She attended Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, and went on to receive undergraduate and master's degrees in classical piano performance at the University of Texas at...
, Trebeka, Nina Vidal
Nina Vidal
Nina Simone Vidal, , is an American singer-songwriter and pianist known best by her stage name, Nina Vidal.In 2008, Nina released her self-titled debut album, which gained her immense success in Japan. Within six days of the release, Nina Vidal became the most downloaded album on iTunes...
Discography as leader
- 1989: Plaxico (Muse)
- 1990: Iridescence (Muse)
- 1992: Short Takes (Muse)
- 1993: With All Your Heart (Muse)
- 2000: Emergence (Savant)
- 2001: Mélange (Blue Note)
- 2002: Lonnie Plaxico Live at the 5:01 Jazz Bar (Orchard)
- 2003: Rhythm and Soul (Sirocco Jazz Limited)
- 2004: Live at Jazz Standard (441)
- 2006: So Alive (Eighty-Eight's)
- 2006: West Side Stories (forthcoming)
- 2007: "Live At The Zinc Bar NYC" (Plaxmusic)
- 2009: "Ancestral Devotion" (Plaxmusic)
Sources and external links
- Carr, Ian, Digby Fairweather, & Brian Priestley. Jazz: The Rough Guide. London: Rough Guides. ISBN 1-85828-528-3
- Plaxico's Web site
- [ Lonnie Plaxico] — entry from Allmusic
- Lonnie Plaxico — brief bio by Chris Parker for the Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club pages
- Interview with Plaxico for 441 Records