Ambrose Akinmusire

Ambrose Akinmusire talks about range in Trumpet Masterclass! Learn more: https://t.co/pAHnlDdwWQ #stanfordjazz #jazz pic.twitter.com/CFhqsxhpno

— Stanford Jazz (@stanfordjazz) July 26, 2016

Award-winning jazz trumpeter Akinmusire plays two shows at The Clarice

Photo from The Clarice

Thursday, October 02, 2014
Good jazz music will pique your curiosity and grab you attention, sometimes without you even knowing it. Although there are many different styles, jazz continues to evolve over time into something even bigger.

Ambrose Akinmusire might just be on the forefront of the future of jazz music. The Blue Note recording artist will be performing two shows at the Kogod Cabaret at The Clarice — 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. on Thursday — in College Park.


The popular trumpeter won the Thelonius Monk Competition in 2007 and was named Downbeat Magazine’s trumpet player of the year in 2012.
read more: http://www.gazette.net/article/20141002/ENTERTAINMENT/141009770/1032/award-winning-jazz-trumpeter-akinmusire-plays-two-shows-at-the-clarice&template=gazette
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUE9a5xtUek

Ambrose Akinmusire: 'Music Can Tell You What It Wants To Be'

by NPR STAFF
March 16, 2014 6:40 PM
Photo: Autumn DeWilde/Courtesy of the artist
For a jazz trumpet player, you couldn't be more on top of the world than Ambrose Akinmusire. The 32-year-old is looking good on the cover of this month's DownBeat, and he's managed to please the jazz critics and connect with audiences. It goes without saying that Akinmusire can tear it up on the trumpet — but on his new album the imagined savior is far easier to paint, he often cedes the spotlight to other players, in particular the eclectic selection of guest singers he invited to join his own quintet in the studio.

Akinmusire spoke with NPR's Arun Rath about the unlikely influences — string quartets, documentary films, Joni Mitchell — that have molded him into one of the most talked-about names in contemporary jazz. Hear the radio version at the audio link, and read more of their conversation below.

This album has a very different feeling from your last — not only different instrumentation, but there are styles that get kind of far away from jazz. Did you set out to do something totally different, or did it just come out this way?

It just came out this way. I didn't set out to do anything different. I don't really approach my craft and my music like that. I would hope that it would be different, because that other album was recorded four years ago, and I definitely have changed a lot in those four years.

There's a broad palette of sounds, though, that you're using, like adding a string quartet and a guitarist. What is it about a string quartet that you like? Who are your favorite composers when it comes to string quartets?

Oh man. I really love Ravel; there's not so many string quartets that he wrote, but I love his sense of melodic development, and I love his orchestration. But the thing that attracts me to the string quartet is the ability to sustain a note. It sounds really simple, but in a jazz quintet — you know, with trumpets, saxophone, bass, piano and drums — you can't really sustain a note for longer than maybe 30, 45 seconds. But with strings, you can have one note into infinity. You can kind of get this hovering bubble thing that you can't get in a jazz quintet.
Read more: http://www.npr.org/2014/03/16/289609091/ambrose-akinmusire-music-can-tell-you-what-it-wants-to-be?ft=1&f=1039

At the Jazz Standard - Ambrose Akinmusire

Ambrose Akinmusire, Walter Smith III, Fabian Almazan, Harish Ragavan, Justin Brown.

Ambrose’s conceptual extension into a new musical language....

Ambrose’s conceptual extension into a new musical language is never to the exclusion of beauty. As one who listens intently, he values the fertility of a pause, of communication, of tension. Ambrose began conceptualizing early as a musician, theorizing and experimenting as a catalyst for development. He seeks other genres of music to analyze and expose, drawing inspiration from such musicians as Bjork and Chopin.

mbrose’s music restructures accepted notions of jazz in a way that reflects his ability to recognize nuances, multiplicities, and patterns. First playing piano at the age of three, his familiarity with music began long before putting his mouth to a trumpet. He is relentlessly opposed to stagnation, seeking movement in both his music and his life.

Before he was eighteen, Ambrose had already performed with such famed musicians as Joe Henderson, Joshua Redman, Steve Coleman, and Billy Higgins. After graduating Berkeley High School, he moved to New York to begin a scholarship at the Manhattan School of Music, studying with Vincent Pinzerella from the New York Philharmonic, Dick Oatts, Lew Soloff, and Laurie Frink.

Throughout his studies, Ambrose continued to tether audiences to his concepts and his sound, performing publicly with Lonnie Plaxico, Stefon Harris, Josh Roseman, Vijay Iyer, Charlie Persip, the Mingus Big Band, and the San Francisco Jazz Collective, to name only a few. His exposure to dynamic modes of playing and to musicians with accumulated experiences only promoted the development of his own distinct musical style.

Ambrose is a recent graduate of the Masters program at USC, and also the Monk Institute, Ambrosee’s instructors include Terence Blanchard, Billy Childs and Gary Grant. In the past year, he has worked with such artists as Jimmy Heath, Jason Moran, Hal Crook, Bob Hurst, Terri Lynne Carrington, Ron Carter, and Wallace Roney, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter. Most recently Ambrose is the winner of both the 2007 Carmine Caruso International Jazz Trumpet Solo Competition and 2007 Thelonious Monk International Jazz Competition.

As for a conclusion, there is none. Ambrosee’s musical trajectory continues to grow in more than one direction, drawing from the most unconventional sources, unraveling the most comfortable conceptions of limitation. His persistent reevaluations and his aspirations to evolution and beauty carry it to an entirely new space within itself.

Discography
Leader
Ambrose Akinmusire, Prelude to Cora (2008)/Fresh Sounds

Sideman
Esperanza Spaulding, Esperanza (2008)/Heads Up
Alan Pasqua, The Anti-Social Club (2008)/Cryptogramophone
Sara Gazarek, Return to You (2006)/Native Language
Walter Smith, Casually Introducing Walter Smith III (2005)/Fresh Sounds
Josh Roseman, Constellations Live: in Vienna (2005)/Accurate Records
Vijay Iyer, In What Language (2001), Pi Recordings
Aaron Parks, Shadows (2001)
Steve Coleman, Resistance is Futile (2001)/Label Blue Records

Tour
Ambrose Akinmusire - Monterey Jazz Next Generation Festival, Monterey, CA > April 9-10, 2010

Ambrose Akinmusire & Yaron Herman String Project Harish Raghavan, bass Marcus Gilmore, drums - Rubin Museum, New York, NY > April 19, 2010

Mark Turner Quintet & Marcus Gilmore, drums Smalls - New York, NY > June 16-17, 2010


Ambrose Akinmusire Group & Mark Turner- tenor sax, Jason Moran-piano, Harish Raghavan, bass, Justin Brown-drums - The Jazz Standard, New York, NY > June 25, 2010
http://www.mariahwilkins.com/akinmusire/