Paul Tingen, also known as Ramon Tingen or Ramon Paul Tingen, is a Dutch-born author, guitarist, music producer and music journalist, who works predominantly in the English language. Tingen is best known for his book about the electric music of Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

, Miles Beyond: The Electric Explorations of Miles Davis, 1967-1991, which was published by Watson-Guptill in 2001.

Tingen studied guitar and recording at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague and completed a music degree at Goldsmiths' College in London. He is a member of the Order of Interbeing

Order of Interbeing

The Order of Interbeing, or Tiếp Hiện in Vietnamese, was founded between 1964 and 1966 by Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh. Tiếp means "being in touch with" and "continuing." Hiện means "realizing" and "making it here and now." "Interbeing" is a word coined by Thich Nhat Hanh to represent...

, the core order of Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh, and has facilitated meditation classes in this tradition—in 1996 he founded the Heart of London sangha, which has become one of the UK's largest self-run meditation groups. After having lived in the UK and the US during 1986-2005, Tingen currently divides his time between the UK and the south-west of France, where he lives with his partner and their two children, and where he regularly performs.1)

Author career

Miles Beyond, The Electric Explorations of Miles Davis, 1967-1991, was the first book to extensively cover Miles Davis' electric period, covering 1967-1991. It includes testimonies of many famous musicians who worked with Davis, like Herbie Hancock

Herbie Hancock

Herbert Jeffrey "Herbie" Hancock is an American pianist, bandleader and composer. As part of Miles Davis's "second great quintet," Hancock helped to redefine the role of a jazz rhythm section and was one of the primary architects of the "post-bop" sound...

, Chick Corea

Chick Corea

Armando Anthony "Chick" Corea is an American jazz pianist, keyboardist, and composer.Many of his compositions are considered jazz standards. As a member of Miles Davis' band in the 1960s, he participated in the birth of the electric jazz fusion movement. In the 1970s he formed Return to Forever...

, Dave Holland

Dave Holland

Dave Holland is an English jazz double bassist, composer and bandleader who has been performing and recording for five decades. He has lived in the United States for 40 years....

, Jack DeJohnette

Jack DeJohnette

Jack DeJohnette is an American jazz drummer, pianist, and composer. He is one of the most influential jazz drummers of the 20th century, due to extensive work as leader and sideman for musicians like Miles Davis, Joe Henderson, Freddie Hubbard, Keith Jarrett and Sonny...

, Marcus Miller

Marcus Miller

Marcus Miller is an American jazz composer, producer, and multi-instrumentalist. Miller is best known as a bassist, working with trumpeter Miles Davis, singer Luther Vandross, and saxophonist David Sanborn, as well as maintaining a prolific solo career...

, and John Scofield

John Scofield

John Scofield , often referred to as "Sco," is an American jazz guitarist and composer, who has played and collaborated with Miles Davis, Dave Liebman, Joe Henderson, Charles Mingus, Joey Defrancesco, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Bill Frisell, Pat Martino, Mavis Staples, Phil Lesh, Billy Cobham,...

, as well as several first-ever interviews with members of Davis' now legendary 1973-75 band, including Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson

Michael Henderson is an American bass guitarist and vocalist best known for his bass playing with Miles Davis in the early 1970s, on early fusion albums such as A Tribute to Jack Johnson, Pangaea, and Live-Evil.- Biography :He was one of the first notable bass guitarists of the fusion era as well...

, Reggie Lucas

Reggie Lucas

Reginald "Reggie" Lucas is an American musician, songwriter and record producer. Lucas is most famous for his production work with percussionist Mtume and for producing the majority of Madonna's 1983 self-titled debut album.-Biography:...

, and Pete Cosey

Pete Cosey

Pete Cosey is an African-American guitarist most famous for playing with Miles Davis' band between 1973 and 1975. His fiercely flanged and distorted guitar bore comparisons to Jimi Hendrix...

. Miles Beyond has been called “the most important book on Miles Davis ever” 2), an “indispensible guide,”3) and is still is widely regarded as the definitive guide to Davis' electric music, particularly of the highly rated 1967-1975 period.4)

Music journalist career

Active as a freelance music journalist since 1986, Tingen has worked for a large number of UK, US and continental European publications, including Mojo

Mojo (magazine)

MOJO is a popular music magazine published initially by Emap, and since January 2008 by Bauer, monthly in the United Kingdom. Following the success of the magazine Q, publishers Emap were looking for a title which would cater for the burgeoning interest in classic rock music...

, The Guardian

The Guardian

The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

, The BBC Music Magazine, The Guitar Magazine, Guitarist, JazzTimes, Jazzwise, Jazziz, Electronic Musician, Mix, Keyboards, Music Technology, Sound on Sound, Audio Media, Jazzthetik, Musica Jazz, Oor, and Het Algemeen Dagblad. He has interviewed hundreds of well-known rock artists and producers, among them Sting, Pete Townshend

Pete Townshend

Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshend is an English rock guitarist, vocalist, songwriter and author, known principally as the guitarist and songwriter for the rock group The Who, as well as for his own solo career...

, Mark Knopfler

Mark Knopfler

Mark Freuder Knopfler, OBE is a Scottish-born British guitarist, singer, songwriter, record producer and film score composer. He is best known as the lead guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter for the British rock band Dire Straits, which he co-founded in 1977...

, Gary Moore

Gary Moore

Robert William Gary Moore , better known simply as Gary Moore, was a Northern Irish musician from Belfast, best recognised as a blues rock guitarist and singer....

, Chet Atkins

Chet Atkins

Chester Burton Atkins , known as Chet Atkins, was an American guitarist and record producer who, along with Owen Bradley, created the smoother country music style known as the Nashville sound, which expanded country's appeal to adult pop music fans as well.Atkins's picking style, inspired by Merle...

, Ry Cooder

Ry Cooder

Ryland Peter "Ry" Cooder is an American guitarist, singer and composer. He is known for his slide guitar work, his interest in roots music from the United States, and, more recently, his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.His solo work has been eclectic, encompassing...

, Tori Amos

Tori Amos

Tori Amos is an American pianist, singer-songwriter and composer. She was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s and was noteworthy early in her career as one of the few alternative rock performers to use a piano as her primary instrument...

, Suzanne Vega

Suzanne Vega

Suzanne Nadine Vega is an American songwriter and singer known for her eclectic folk-inspired music.Two of Vega's songs reached the top 10 of various international chart listings: "Luka" and "Tom's Diner"...

, George Martin

George Martin

Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...

, Phil Ramone

Phil Ramone

Phil Ramone is a South-African violinist, composer, recording engineer, and record producer.-Biography:As a young child in South Africa, Ramone was a musical prodigy, beginning to play the violin at age three and performing for Queen Elizabeth II at age ten...

, and Daniel Lanois

Daniel Lanois

Daniel Lanois born September 19, 1951 in Hull, Quebec) is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter. He has released a number of albums of his own work and has produced albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie...

. Tingen currently writes mainly for Sound on Sound

Sound on Sound

Sound on Sound is an independently-owned monthly music technology magazine published by SOS Publications Group, based in Cambridge, UK. The magazine includes product tests of electronic musical performance and recording devices, and interviews with industry professionals...

 magazine and music technology magazines in Japan, Germany, Australia, Poland and The Netherlands.

Musical activities

Tingen recorded one solo CD, May The Road Rise To Meet You (1997), and has performed with the likes of Hector Zazou

Hector Zazou

Hector Zazou was a prolific French composer and record producer who worked with, produced, and collaborated with an international array of recording artists...

, Hossam Ramzy

Hossam Ramzy

Hossam Ramzy is an Egyptian percussionist and composer. He has worked with Western artists like Jimmy Page and Robert Plant as well as with Arabic music artists like Rachid Taha and Khaled.-Early life and career:...

 and Bosco d'Oliveira. He's developed a playing style on the acoustic solo guitar which has been described as unique and which has been praised by guitarists like John McLaughlin

John McLaughlin (musician)

John McLaughlin , also known as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin, is an English guitarist, bandleader and composer...

, Martin Taylor and Michael Brook.5) Tingen is currently preparing a second solo CD, called Metamorphosis, with help of arranger Paul Buckmaster

Paul Buckmaster

Paul John Buckmaster is a Grammy Award-winning English artist, arranger and composer.He began learning the cello at the age of 4 and graduated from the Royal College of Music at age 16....

, among others.6)

Tingen has had a long-standing association with American writer/composer Gary Goldschneider

Gary Goldschneider

Gary Goldschneider is an internationally known author, pianist and composer. He wrote the Secret Language trilogy - The Secret Language of Birthdays, The Secret Language of Relationships and The Secret Language of Destiny....

, for whom he organised a widely publicised Beethoven Marathon in Amsterdam, an amplified, 12-hour open-air piano performance which took place on August 19, 1984. He also acted as producer on two of Goldschneider's albums, Sinaia and Piano Pieces, both recorded in Bulgaria in 2002.7)

External links

www.tingen.org (official web site)