“Jazz does not belong to one race or culture, but is a gift that America has given the world." —Alaadeen
July 24, 1934—August 15, 2010
KANSAS CITY, Missouri—August 16, 2010—Ahmad Alaadeen, whose virtuosity crossed more than six decades of the jazz music genre, died peacefully at his home in Kansas on Sunday, August 15 at the age of 76. Cause of death was bladder cancer.
A native of Kansas City primarily known by his surname, Alaadeen is renowned as a jazz giant in his home city. For 60+ years he made swing his own thing and had a futuristic perspective on the music. Earlier this year, Alaadeen was awarded the American Jazz Museum's Lifetime Achievement Award. He is recognized as a master jazz artist who performed on the highest level and a significant jazz educator for 35 years.
In 2009 he authored “The Rest of the Story: Jazz Improvization and History"—a user-friendly manual designed to give a foundation to the art of improvisation for students and their educators. In an interview with JAM Magazine in 2006 the icon said he “learned by contributing, and eventually began to play from within himself." His first brush with jazz came at the age of five when he heard Charlie “Bird" Parker practicing at Jay McShann's home.
The second generation jazz master honed his craft alongside the jazz icons—vis-a-vis sweat equity—long before there were collegiate jazz studies programs. Alaadeen continued the tradition by nurturing Harold O'Neal and Logan Richardson. A link to the aural tradition of his music genre, Alaadeen will be remembered as a musician who perpetuated the way jazz was originally learned and taught by the genre's elder statesmen.
According to Chair of the UMKC Jazz Studies Department Bobby Watson, Alaadeen “had a way of opening the harmony with his own personal style. He had such a depth in his playing that only comes from living. He was not only an influence on saxophone players, but all jazz musicians as well." Alaadeen taught Watson's improvisational class at UMKC. “I wanted the students to get the aural foundation taught from his book, which was like his own, personal notebook," said Bobby. Not only does Ahmad Alaadeen emulate Kansas City jazz, he personifies it.
Complete on >> http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=63140
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