Billy Childs | |
---|---|
Background information | |
Birth name | William Edward Childs |
Born | Los Angeles, California, U.S. | March 8, 1957
Genres | Jazz |
Occupation(s) | Musician |
Instrument(s) | Piano |
Years active | 1977–present |
Labels | Stretch Records |
William Edward Childs (born March 8, 1957) is an American composer, jazz pianist, arranger and conductor from Los Angeles, California, United States. [1] [2]
When he was 16, Childs attended the Community School of the Performing Arts sponsored by the University of Southern California. He studied music theory with Marienne Uszler and piano with John Weisenfluh. From 1975 to 1979, Childs attended the University of Southern California and received a degree in composition under the tutelage of Robert Linn. [3]
While still a teen, Childs was playing professionally and he made his recording debut in 1977 with the J. J. Johnson Quintet during a tour of Japan, documented as "the Yokohama Concert". Childs gained significant attention during the six years (1978–84) he spent in trumpeter Freddie Hubbard's group. His early influences as a pianist included Herbie Hancock, Keith Emerson, and Chick Corea, and as a composer, Paul Hindemith, Maurice Ravel, and Igor Stravinsky.
His sister is the playwright Kirsten Childs. [4] [5]
Childs's solo jazz recording career began in 1988, when he released Take for Example, This..., the first of four critically acclaimed albums on Windham Hill Jazz. He followed that album with Twilight Is Upon Us (1989), His April Touch (1992), and Portrait of a Player (1993). Chick Corea asked Childs to join his label, Stretch Records. Childs's next album, I've Known Rivers, appeared on Stretch/GRP (now Stretch/Concord) in 1995. This was followed by The Child Within on Shanachie Records in 1996.
In 2000, Childs arranged, orchestrated and conducted Dianne Reeves's project The Calling: Celebrating Sarah Vaughan , [1] which won the Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Album. Other artists and producers for whom Childs has arranged include Sting, Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Botti, Gladys Knight, Michael Bublé, David Foster, Phil Ramone, and Claudia Acuña.
In 2001, Childs formed a chamber jazz group consisting of piano, bass, drums, acoustic guitar, harp, and woodwinds. Sometimes the core group is augmented by string quartet, woodwind quintet, or both. Childs was influenced by Laura Nyro's collaborations with Alice Coltrane (on Christmas and the Beads of Sweat ) and by a desire to merge classical and jazz music. [6] In 2005, the ensemble released its first album, Lyric, Jazz-Chamber Music, Vol. 1, which was nominated for three 2006 Grammy awards: Best Jazz Instrumental Album, Best Instrumental Composition, and Best Arrangement, winning for best instrumental composition, "Into the Light".
Title | Label | Year released | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
Midland | Lunacy Records | 1985 | |
Take for Example This... | Windham Hill | 1988 | |
Twilight Is Upon Us | Windham Hill | 1989 | Top Jazz Albums 11 [7] |
His April Touch | Windham Hill | 1991 | |
Portrait of a Player | Windham Hill | 1993 | Top Jazz Albums 12 [7] |
I've Known Rivers | Stretch | 1995 | |
The Child Within | Shanachie | 1996 | |
Skim Coat | Metropolitan | 1999 | |
Bedtime Stories | 32 Jazz | 2000 | |
Lyric: Jazz Chamber Music Vol. 1 | Lunacy Music | 2005 | Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition (Into the Light) |
Autumn: In Moving Pictures (Jazz Chamber Music Vol. 2) | Lunacy Music | 2009 | Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Composition (The Path Among the Trees) |
Map to the Treasure: Reimagining Laura Nyro | Sony Masterworks | 2014 | Top Jazz Albums 1, The Billboard 200 104 [7] |
Rebirth | Mack Avenue | 2017 | Grammy Award for Best Jazz Instrumental Album |
Acceptance | Mack Avenue | 2020 | |
The Winds of Change | Mack Avenue | 2023 | Quartet, with Ambrose Akinmusire (trumpet), Scott Colley (bass), Brian Blade (drums) |
Main source: [10]
With Lou Rawls
With Chris Botti
With Bunky Green
With J. J. Johnson and Nat Adderley
Itzhak Perlman is an Israeli-American violinist. He has performed worldwide and throughout the United States, in venues that have included a state dinner for Elizabeth II at the White House in 2007, and at the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama. He has conducted the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Westchester Philharmonic. In 2015, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Perlman has won 16 Grammy Awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and four Emmy Awards.
The 18th Annual Grammy Awards were held February 28, 1976, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1975.
The 16th Annual Grammy Awards were held March 2, 1974, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognised accomplishments by musicians from the year 1973.
The 15th Annual Grammy Awards were held on March 3, 1973, at the Tennessee Theatre in Nashville, Tennessee. The event was the first Grammy ceremony not to be held in either New York City or Los Angeles. The 15th Grammys were also the first to be broadcast live on CBS, which has carried every Grammy telecast since.
The 14th Annual Grammy Awards were held March 14, 1972, and were broadcast live on television in the United States by ABC; the following year, they would move the telecasts to CBS, where they remain to this date. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1971.
Mark-Anthony Turnage is an English composer of contemporary classical music.
The 2nd Annual Grammy Awards were held on November 29, 1959, at Los Angeles and New York. They recognized musical accomplishments by performers for the year 1959. Hosted by Meredith Willson, this marked the first televised Grammy Award ceremony, and it was aired in episodes as special Sunday Showcase. It was held in the same year as the first Grammy Awards in 1959, and no award ceremony was held in 1960. These awards recognized musical accomplishments by performers for that particular year. Frank Sinatra and Duke Ellington each won three awards.
The 4th Annual Grammy Awards were held on May 29, 1962, at Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1961. Henry Mancini won 5 awards.
The 6th Annual Grammy Awards were held on May 12, 1964, at Chicago, Los Angeles and New York. They recognized accomplishments by musicians for the year 1963. Henry Mancini won 4 awards.
The 8th Annual Grammy Awards were held March 15, 1966, at Chicago, Los Angeles, Nashville and New York. They recognized accomplishments of musicians for the year 1965. Roger Miller topped off the Grammys by winning 5 awards, whereas Herb Alpert and Frank Sinatra each won 4 awards.
The 26th Annual Grammy Awards were held on February 28, 1984, at Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, and were broadcast live on American television. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the year 1983. Michael Jackson, who had been recovering from scalp burns sustained due to an accident that occurred during the filming of a Pepsi commercial, won a record eight awards during the show. It is notable for garnering the largest Grammy Award television audience ever with 51.67 million viewers.
Joseph Norman Alessi is an American classical trombonist with the New York Philharmonic.
Tania León is a Cuban-born American composer of both large scale and chamber works. She is also renowned as a conductor, educator, and advisor to arts organizations.
Kenneth Daniel Fuchs is a Grammy Award-winning American composer. He currently serves as Professor of Music Composition at the University of Connecticut in Storrs.
James Zuill Bailey, better known as Zuill Bailey is an American Grammy Award-winning cello soloist, chamber musician, and artistic director. A graduate of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and the Juilliard School, he has appeared in recital and with major orchestras internationally. He is a professor of cello and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Texas at El Paso. Bailey’s extensive recording catalogue are released on TELARC, Avie, Steinway and Sons, Octave, Delos, Albany, Sono Luminus, Naxos, Azica, Concord, EuroArts, ASV, Oxingale and Zenph Studios.
John McLaughlin Williams is a Grammy award-winning American orchestral conductor and violinist.
Carlos Alberto Franzetti is a composer and arranger from Buenos Aires, Argentina.
John Serry Jr. is an American jazz pianist and composer, as well as a composer of contemporary classical music works that feature percussion, on which he also doubles. He is a son of the accordionist and composer John Serry. His debut solo album was 'Exhibition', for which he received a Grammy Nomination for his composition, 'Sabotage'.
The 53rd Annual Grammy Awards were held on February 13, 2011, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. They were broadcast on CBS with a rating of 26.6 million viewers. Barbra Streisand was honored as the MusiCares Person of the Year two nights prior to the telecast on February 11. Nominations were announced on December 1, 2010 and a total of 109 awards were presented. Most of the awards were presented during the pre-telecast, which took place at the Los Angeles Convention Center next to the Staples Center, where the main telecast took place. The eligibility period was October 1, 2009 to September 30, 2010.
The 55th Annual Grammy Awards were held on February 10, 2013, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles honoring the best in music for the recording year beginning October 1, 2011 through September 30, 2012. The show was broadcast on CBS at 8 p.m. ET/PT and was hosted for the second time by LL Cool J. The "Pre-Telecast Ceremony" was streamed live from LA's Nokia Theater at the official Grammy website. Nominations were announced on December 5, 2012, on prime-time television as part of "The GRAMMY Nominations Concert Live! – Countdown to Music's Biggest Night", a one-hour special co-hosted by LL Cool J & Taylor Swift and broadcast live on CBS from the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee. Fun, Frank Ocean, Mumford & Sons, Jay-Z, Kanye West and Dan Auerbach received the most nominations with six each.