Sabir Mateen
Encyclopedia
Avant-garde jazz
Avant-garde jazz is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. Avant-jazz often sounds very similar to free jazz, but differs in that, despite its distinct departure from traditional harmony, it has a predetermined structure over which ...
idiom. He plays tenor
Tenor saxophone
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...
and alto saxophone
Alto saxophone
The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in 1841. It is smaller than the tenor but larger than the soprano, and is the type most used in classical compositions...
, B♭
Soprano clarinet
The soprano clarinets are a sub-family of the clarinet family.The B clarinet is by far the most common type of soprano clarinet - the unmodified word "clarinet" usually refers to this instrument...
and alto clarinet
Alto clarinet
The alto clarinet is a wind instrument of the clarinet family. It is a transposing instrument pitched in the key of E, though instruments in F have been made. It is sometimes known as a tenor clarinet; this name especially is applied to the instrument in F...
, and flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
.
As a young man, Mateen was originally a percussionist, and he started playing flute as a teenager. From there he moved to alto and then tenor saxophone. He started out playing rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
in the early 1970s which led him to the tenor saxophone chair of the Horace Tapscott
Horace Tapscott
Horace Tapscott was an American jazz pianist and composer. He formed the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in 1961 and led the ensemble through the 1990s...
Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra. He has performed or recorded with Cecil Taylor
Cecil Taylor
Cecil Percival Taylor is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and...
, Sunny Murray
Sunny Murray
James Marcellus Arthur "Sunny" Murray is one of the pioneers of the free jazz style of drumming.-Biography:...
, William Parker
William Parker (musician)
William Parker is an American free jazz double bassist, poet and composer.-Biography:Parker was not formally trained as a classical player, though he did study with Jimmy Garrison, Richard Davis, and Wilbur Ware and learned the tradition. Parker is one of few jazz bassists who regularly plays arco...
, Alan Silva
Alan Silva
Alan Silva is an American free jazz double bassist and keyboard player.-Biography:...
, Butch
Butch Morris
Lawrence D. "Butch" Morris is an American jazz cornetist, composer and conductor.-Biography:Before his musical career, Morris served in Vietnam during the Vietnam War....
and Wilber Morris
Wilber Morris
Wilber Morris was an American jazz double bass player and bandleader. He was the brother of the cornetist, composer, and conductor Butch Morris....
, Raphe Malik
Raphe Malik
Raphe Malik, born Laurence Mazel was an American jazz trumpeter....
, Steve Swell
Steve Swell
Steve Swell is an American free jazz trombonist and composer.Swell studied at Jersey City State College before moving to New York City in 1975 where he began his musical life, playing in top 40 bands, salsa bands, big bands and performed on Broadway in Bob Fosse's "Dancin""...
, Roy Campbell, Jr.
Roy Campbell, Jr.
Roy Campbell, Jr. is versatile trumpeter frequently linked to free jazz, though he has also performed rhythm and blues, bebop and funk at times during his career. Born in Los Angeles, California in 1952, Campbell was raised in New York. At age fifteen Campbell began learning to play trumpet and...
, Matthew Shipp
Matthew Shipp
Matthew Shipp is an American pianist, composer and bandleader.Shipp was raised in Wilmington, Delaware, and began playing piano at six years old. His mother was a friend of trumpeter Clifford Brown....
, Marc Edwards
Marc Edwards (drummer)
Marc Edwards is a free jazz drummer who has played and recorded with artists such as Cecil Taylor, Charles Gayle, and David S. Ware. His influences include Charlie Parker and Buddy Rich. He is currently playing with a project with Weasel Walter...
, Jemeel Moondoc
Jemeel Moondoc
Jemeel Moondoc is a jazz saxophonist who plays alto saxophone. He is a proponent of a highly improvisational style....
, William Hooker, Henry Grimes
Henry Grimes
Henry Grimes is a jazz double bassist, violinist, and poet.After more than a decade of activity and performance, notably as a leading bassist in free jazz, Grimes completely disappeared from the music scene by 1970...
, Rashid Bakr
Rashid Bakr (musician)
Rashid Bakr is an American free jazz drummer.During the 1970s he was active in the New York Loft Jazz scene, performing at venues such as Rashied Ali's "Ali's Alley" and Sam Rivers' "Studio Rivbea" as a member of Ensemble Muntu along with Jemeel Moondoc among others...
, Hamid Drake
Hamid Drake
Hamid Drake is an American jazz drummer and percussionist. He lives in Chicago, IL but spends much of his time traveling around the world for concerts and studio dates....
among others. He also is a member of the band TEST
Test (group)
Test is a free jazz cooperative.-Members:*Tom Bruno: *Daniel Carter: *Matt Heyner: *Sabir Mateen:...
, with Daniel Carter
Daniel Carter (musician)
Daniel Carter is an American free jazz saxophone, flute, clarinet, and trumpet player active mainly in New York City since the early 1970s...
.