Musicians - Steve Reid

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	Musicians - Steve Reid

Steve Reid is an American jazz drummer who has played with a wide range of notable artists including Miles Davis, Ornette Coleman, James Brown, Fela Kuti and Sun Ra, and as a session drummer for Motown. He was named Jazziz’s "Percussionist of the Year" in 1993 and 1995.

Biographical

He picked up drumming at age 16 and in the same period his family moved to Queens, NYC, three blocks away from John Coltrane. This was the early sixties which was a peak for Coltrane but also for the jazz scene in NYC. Before going to college, he worked at the Apollo Theatre, as a musician obviously, under the direction of Quincy Jones. He then graduated at Adelphi University in Garden City, NY, and the made a three year trip to Africa, opening up his influences even more. He affirms Africa is the heart of drumming.

After this trip Reid started playing with some of the big names of Jazz and black music, including James Brown, Sun Ra, Ornette, Miles (on the album Tutu). In 1969 Reid was arrested as conscientious objector. In an interview he affirms he didn't want to have anything to do with the war in Vietnam.

Nessa, Tribe, ESP, Strata-East were some indie labels that shared the same radicalism as Reid, regarding matters such as the importance of pure music, the affirmation of black society, etc. At the same time new kinds of music groups, who worked out more as communes, were starting to form, such as Sun Ra's Arkestra, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Black Artist's Group, Tribe. In the early seventies Reid started his own label, Mustevic Sound Inc., obviously self-produced and distributed.

Music

Steve Reid never stops showing his open-mindedness and experimentalism.

Recordings:

His ensemble's latest album Spirit Walk (Soul Jazz, 2005) features dj Keiran Hebden aka Four Tet on electonics with which he is also releasing two albums in 2006 on Domino records. He is now living in Europe for several years (Lugano, Switzerland) and did some recordings for the Souljazz-Records-label in London, UK, with his groups around Chuck Henderson (sopran sax, after Lena Bloch, tenor sax, left to the UMass), Boris Netsvetaev (piano, living in Hamburg, Germany) and Chris Lachotta (double-bass, living in Munich, Germany) like „Waves“, „Invitations“ and ”Spirits Walk" (2005); "Live In Europe" (2002, with Lena Bloch) and "A Drum Story" (2003).

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