Reggie Workman
Encyclopedia
Reginald "Reggie" Workman (born June 26, 1937 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
) is an American
avant-garde jazz
and hard bop
double bass
ist, recognized for his work with both John Coltrane
and Art Blakey
.
He was a member of jazz groups led by Gigi Gryce
, Roy Haynes
, Wayne Shorter
and Red Garland
. In 1961, Workman joined the John Coltrane
Quartet, replacing Steve Davis
. He was present for the saxophonist's legendary Live at the Village Vanguard sessions, and also recorded with a second bassist (Art Davis
) on the 1961 album, Olé Coltrane
. After a European tour, Workman left Coltrane's group at the end of the year. Workman also played with James Moody
, Art Blakey
's Jazz Messengers, Yusef Lateef
, Pharoah Sanders
, Herbie Mann
and Thelonious Monk
. He has recorded with Archie Shepp
, Lee Morgan
and David Murray
.
He is currently a professor at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music
in New York City
.
With Earl Coleman
With John Coltrane
With Stanley Cowell
, Billy Harper
, Billy Hart
With Booker Ervin
With Grant Green
With Andrew Hill
With Takehiro Honda
With Bobby Hutcherson
With Elvin Jones
With Duke Jordan
With Oliver Lake
With Yusef Lateef
With Booker Little
With New York Art Quartet
With Pharoah Sanders
With Wayne Shorter
With Sonny Simmons
With Archie Shepp
With Mal Waldron
With Tyrone Washington
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
) is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
avant-garde jazz
Avant-garde jazz
Avant-garde jazz is a style of music and improvisation that combines avant-garde art music and composition with jazz. Avant-jazz often sounds very similar to free jazz, but differs in that, despite its distinct departure from traditional harmony, it has a predetermined structure over which ...
and hard bop
Hard bop
Hard bop is a style of jazz that is an extension of bebop music. Journalists and record companies began using the term in the mid-1950s to describe a new current within jazz which incorporated influences from rhythm and blues, gospel music, and blues, especially in the saxophone and piano...
double bass
Double bass
The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
ist, recognized for his work with both John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
and Art Blakey
Art Blakey
Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....
.
He was a member of jazz groups led by Gigi Gryce
Gigi Gryce
Gigi Gryce was an American saxophonist, flautist, clarinetist, composer, arranger, educator, and big band bandleader.His performing career was relatively short and, in comparison to other musicians of his...
, Roy Haynes
Roy Haynes
Roy Owen Haynes is an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Haynes is among the most recorded drummers in jazz, and in a career lasting more than 60 years has played in a wide range of styles ranging from swing and bebop to jazz fusion and avant-garde jazz...
, Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards...
and Red Garland
Red Garland
William "Red" Garland was an American hard bop jazz pianist whose block chord style, in part originated by Milt Buckner, influenced many forthcoming pianists in the jazz idiom.-Beginnings:...
. In 1961, Workman joined the John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
Quartet, replacing Steve Davis
Steve Davis (bassist)
Steve Davis was a jazz bassist, very active in the sixties.In 1960, he was briefly part of the renown John Coltrane quartet, before being replaced by Reggie Workman....
. He was present for the saxophonist's legendary Live at the Village Vanguard sessions, and also recorded with a second bassist (Art Davis
Art Davis
Art Davis was a double-bassist, known for his work with various seminal jazz musicians including Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, and Max Roach.-Biography:...
) on the 1961 album, Olé Coltrane
Olé Coltrane
Olé Coltrane is the ninth album by jazz musician John Coltrane, released in 1962 on Atlantic Records, catalogue SD 1373. His last album for Atlantic made under his supervision, unlike Coltrane's previous sessions done at their own studio, this was recorded at A&R Studios in New York.-Background:Two...
. After a European tour, Workman left Coltrane's group at the end of the year. Workman also played with James Moody
James Moody (saxophonist)
James Moody was an American jazz saxophone and flute player. He was best known for his hit "Moody's Mood for Love," an improvisation based on "I'm in the Mood for Love"; in performance, he often improvised vocals for the tune.-Biography:James Moody was born in Savannah, Georgia...
, Art Blakey
Art Blakey
Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....
's Jazz Messengers, Yusef Lateef
Yusef Lateef
Dr. Yusef Lateef is an American Grammy Award-winning jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, educator and a spokesman for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community after his conversion to the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam in 1950.Although Lateef's main instruments are the tenor saxophone and flute, he is known for...
, Pharoah Sanders
Pharoah Sanders
Pharoah Sanders is a Grammy Award–winning American jazz saxophonist.Saxophonist Ornette Coleman once described him as "probably the best tenor player in the world." Emerging from John Coltrane's groups of the mid-60s Sanders is known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on...
, Herbie Mann
Herbie Mann
Herbert Jay Solomon , better known as Herbie Mann, was a Jewish American jazz flutist and important early practitioner of world music...
and Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Monk
Thelonious Sphere Monk was an American jazz pianist and composer considered "one of the giants of American music". Monk had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the standard jazz repertoire, including "Epistrophy", "'Round Midnight", "Blue Monk", "Straight, No Chaser"...
. He has recorded with Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp is a prominent African-American jazz saxophonist. Shepp is best known for his passionately Afrocentric music of the late 1960s, which focused on highlighting the injustices faced by the African-Americans, as well as for his work with the New York Contemporary Five, Horace Parlan, and...
, Lee Morgan
Lee Morgan
Edward Lee Morgan was an American hard bop trumpeter.-Biography:...
and David Murray
David Murray (jazz musician)
David Murray is an American jazz musician. Murray plays mainly tenor saxophone and sometimes bass clarinet. He has recorded prolifically for many record labels since the mid-1970s.-Biography:...
.
He is currently a professor at The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music
The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music
The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music is the second conservatory of The New School university. It is located on 13th Street in New York City's Greenwich Village neighborhood.-History:...
in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
As leader
- 1977: Conversation (with Cecil BridgewaterCecil Bridgewater-Biography:Bridgewater was born in Urbana, Illinois and studied at the University of Illinois. He and brother Ron formed the Bridgewater Brothers Band in 1969, and in the 1970s he was married to Dee Dee Bridgewater. In 1970 he played with Horace Silver, and following this with Thad Jones and Mel...
, Slide HamptonSlide HamptonLocksley Wellington "Slide" Hampton is an American jazz trombonist, composer and arranger.He was a 1998 Grammy Award winner for "Best Jazz Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist", as arranger for "Cotton Tail" performed by Dee Dee Bridgewater...
, George AdamsGeorge Adams (musician)George Rufus Adams was an American jazz musician who played tenor saxophone, flute and bass clarinet. He is best known for his work with Charles Mingus, Gil Evans, Roy Haynes and in the quartet he co-led with pianist Don Pullen, featuring bassist Cameron Brown and drummer Dannie Richmond...
, Albert DaileyAlbert DaileyAlbert Dailey was an American jazz pianist.Dailey's first professional appearances were with the house band of the Baltimore Royal Theater in the early 1950s. Later in the decade he studied at Morgan State University and the Peabody Conservatory...
, Michael CarvinMichael CarvinMichael W. Carvin is an American jazz drummer. He has performed with Mickey Bass, Charles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, B. B. King, Jackie McLean, Pharoah Sanders, Lonnie Liston Smith, and Clive Stevens.- Notes :...
, Lawrence Killian) - 1986: Synthesis (Leo RecordsLeo RecordsLeo Records is an English jazz record label, which releases Russian jazz in addition to material from American and British musicians.Leo Records was founded in 1979 by Leo Feigin , a Russian immigrant to Britain...
) - 1987: Gaia (Leo)
- 1989: Images (Music & ArtsMusic & ArtsMusic & Arts is an American record label based in Kensington, California.Music & Arts is owned and operated by Music and Arts Programs of America, Inc., a non-profit organization dedicated to informal education in the arts, established in California in 1984...
) - 1993; Summit Conference (Postcards RecordsPostcards RecordsPostcards Records was an American jazz record label active during the 1990s, an imprint of Arkadia Jazz.-Discography:...
) - 1995: Cerebral Caverns (Postcards)
- 2000: Altered Spaces (Leo)
As sideman
With Art BlakeyArt Blakey
Arthur "Art" Blakey , known later as Abdullah Ibn Buhaina, was an American Grammy Award-winning jazz drummer and bandleader. He was a member of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community....
- Free for AllFree For All (album)Free For All is a 1964 jazz album released by Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers for Blue Note records.The Allmusic review by Al Campbell awards the album 4 stars and states " This edition of the Jazz Messengers had been together since 1961 with a lineup that would be hard to beat: Freddie Hubbard on...
(1964) - IndestructibleIndestructible (art blakey album)Indestructible is a jazz album by Art Blakey and The Jazz Messengers, recorded in 1964.-Track listing:#"The Egyptian" – 10:25#"Sortie" – 8:13#"Calling Miss Khadija" – 7:21...
(1965)
With Earl Coleman
Earl Coleman (singer)
Earl Coleman was a jazz singer.Moving to Indianapolis in 1939, he started singing with Ernie Fields and Bardu Ali...
- Manhattan Serenade (1968)
With John Coltrane
John Coltrane
John William Coltrane was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. Working in the bebop and hard bop idioms early in his career, Coltrane helped pioneer the use of modes in jazz and later was at the forefront of free jazz...
- Africa/BrassAfrica/Brass-Personnel:* John Coltrane — soprano and tenor saxophone* Booker Little — trumpet* Freddie Hubbard — trumpet on May 23 session only* Britt Woodman — trombone on June 4 session only* Charles Greenlee — euphonium on May 23 session only...
(1961) - Ole ColtraneOlé ColtraneOlé Coltrane is the ninth album by jazz musician John Coltrane, released in 1962 on Atlantic Records, catalogue SD 1373. His last album for Atlantic made under his supervision, unlike Coltrane's previous sessions done at their own studio, this was recorded at A&R Studios in New York.-Background:Two...
(1961) - Impressions (1963)
With Stanley Cowell
Stanley Cowell
Stanley Cowell is an American jazz pianist and founder of the Strata-East Records label. He played with Roland Kirk while studying at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and later with Marion Brown, Max Roach, Bobby Hutcherson, Clifford Jordan, Harold Land, Sonny Rollins and Stan Getz...
, Billy Harper
Billy Harper
Billy Harper is a Jazz saxophonist, "one of a generation of Coltrane-influenced tenor saxophonists" with a distinctively stern, hard-as-nails sound on his instrument.-Biography:...
, Billy Hart
Billy Hart
William "Billy" Hart is a jazz drummer and educator who has performed with some of the most important jazz musicians in history.-Biography:Early on Hart performed in Washington, D.C...
- Such Great Friends (1983)
With Booker Ervin
Booker Ervin
Booker Telleferro Ervin II was an American tenor saxophone player. He was perhaps best known for his association with bassist Charles Mingus....
- The Space BookThe Space BookThe Space Book is an album by American jazz saxophonist Booker Ervin featuring performances recorded in 1964 for the Prestige label.-Reception:...
(Prestige, 1964) - The TranceThe TranceThe Trance is an album by American jazz saxophonist Booker Ervin featuring performances recorded in 1965 for the Prestige label.-Reception:...
(Prestige, 1965)
With Grant Green
Grant Green
Grant Green was a jazz guitarist and composer....
- Goin' WestGoin' WestGoin' West is an album by American jazz guitarist Grant Green featuring performances recorded in 1962 but not released on the Blue Note label until 1969...
(1962)
With Andrew Hill
Andrew Hill
Andrew Hill was an American jazz pianist and composer.Hill is recognized as one of the most important innovators of jazz piano in the 1960s...
- Grass Roots (1968 [2000])
With Takehiro Honda
- Jodo (Trio, 1972)
With Bobby Hutcherson
Bobby Hutcherson
Bobby Hutcherson is a jazz vibraphone and marimba player. His vibraphone playing is suggestive of the style of Milt Jackson in its free-flowing melodicism, but his sense of harmony and group interaction is thoroughly modern...
- MedinaMedina (album)Medina in its currently issued form is a disc by jazz vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson. It is composed of two sessions recorded for the Blue Note label...
(1968) - PatternsPatterns (album)Patterns is an album by jazz vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, released on the Blue Note label. Although recorded in 1968, the album was not released until 1980...
(1968)
With Elvin Jones
Elvin Jones
Elvin Ray Jones was a jazz drummer of the post-bop era. He showed interest in drums at a young age, watching the circus bands march by his family's home in Pontiac, Michigan....
- Brother JohnBrother John (Elvin Jones album)Brother John is an album from jazz drummer Elvin Jones, recorded in October 1982 and released on Palo Alto Records in 1984.- Tracklisting :All songs written by Pat LaBarbera, except where notedSide one# "Necessary Evil" – 4:08...
(1982)
With Duke Jordan
Duke Jordan
Irving Sidney "Duke" Jordan was an American jazz pianist.-Biography:An imaginative and gifted pianist, Jordan was a regular member of Charlie Parker's so-called "classic quintet" , featuring Miles Davis...
- Flight to JordanFlight to JordanFlight to Jordan is an album by American pianist Duke Jordan recorded in 1960 and released on the Blue Note label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 5 stars and stated "the music has plenty of strong melodies and variety...
(1960)
With Oliver Lake
Oliver Lake
Oliver Lake is an American jazz saxophonist, flutist, composer and poet. He is known mainly on alto saxophone but also performs on soprano saxophone and flute....
- Edge-ingEdge-ingEdge-ing is an album by American jazz saxophonist Oliver Lake recorded in 1993 for the Italian Black Saint label.-Reception:The Allmusic review awarded the album 4 stars.-Track listing:# "Edge-ing" - 9:08# "Scene One" - 8:42# "Shiffs" - 11:18...
(Black Saint, 1993)
With Yusef Lateef
Yusef Lateef
Dr. Yusef Lateef is an American Grammy Award-winning jazz multi-instrumentalist, composer, educator and a spokesman for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community after his conversion to the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam in 1950.Although Lateef's main instruments are the tenor saxophone and flute, he is known for...
- A Flat, G Flat and CA Flat, G Flat and CA Flat, G Flat and C is an album by American jazz multi-instrumentalist Yusef Lateef, featuring performances recorded in 1966 for the Impulse! label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 4 stars stating -Track listing:...
(Impulse!, 1966)
With Booker Little
Booker Little
Booker Little, Jr was an American jazz trumpeter and composer.-Biography:Despite his premature death from kidney failure at the age of 23, Little made an important contribution to jazz. Stylistically, his sound is rooted in the playing of Clifford Brown, featuring crisp articulation, a burnished...
- Booker Little and FriendBooker Little and FriendBooker Little and Friend is the final album led by American jazz trumpeter Booker Little featuring performances recorded in 1961 for the Bethlehem label...
(Bethlehem, 1961)
With New York Art Quartet
New York Art Quartet
The New York Art Quartet was a free jazz ensemble made up of saxophonist John Tchicai, trombonist Roswell Rudd, drummer Milford Graves and bassists Lewis Worrell, Reggie Workman and Finn Von Eyben...
- Mohawk (1965)
With Pharoah Sanders
Pharoah Sanders
Pharoah Sanders is a Grammy Award–winning American jazz saxophonist.Saxophonist Ornette Coleman once described him as "probably the best tenor player in the world." Emerging from John Coltrane's groups of the mid-60s Sanders is known for his overblowing, harmonic, and multiphonic techniques on...
- KarmaKarma (Pharoah Sanders album)Karma is a 1969 jazz recording by the American tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders.-Background:The social and political upheavals of the 1960s have been cited as a major factor in the emergence of a new stylistic trend in jazz, with a very different emphasis to previous sub-genres such as swing,...
(1969)
With Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter
Wayne Shorter is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.He is generally acknowledged to be jazz's greatest living composer, and many of his compositions have become standards...
- Night DreamerNight DreamerNight Dreamer is an album by Wayne Shorter, recorded and released in 1964. It was Shorter's debut on Blue Note. With a quintet that includes trumpeter Lee Morgan, pianist McCoy Tyner, bassist Reggie Workman and drummer Elvin Jones, Shorter performed six of his originals on this April 29 session.In...
(1964) - JuJuJuJu (Wayne Shorter album)JuJu is an album by Wayne Shorter, recorded and released on Blue Note in 1964, issued as BLP 4182 and BST 84182.The album shows the strong influence of John Coltrane, with whom Shorter had studied as an undergraduate, and whose style is reflected here both in performance and composition...
(1964) - Adam's AppleAdam's Apple (album)-Track listing:# "Adam's Apple" – 6:52# "502 Blues " – 6:36# "El Gaucho" – 6:32# "Footprints" – 7:31# "Teru" – 6:15# "Chief Crazy Horse" – 7:39...
(1966)
With Sonny Simmons
Sonny Simmons
Huey "Sonny" Simmons is an American jazz musician.He grew up in Oakland, California, where he began playing the english horn. At age 16 he took up the alto saxophone, which became his primary instrument...
- American Jungle (1997)
With Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp
Archie Shepp is a prominent African-American jazz saxophonist. Shepp is best known for his passionately Afrocentric music of the late 1960s, which focused on highlighting the injustices faced by the African-Americans, as well as for his work with the New York Contemporary Five, Horace Parlan, and...
- Archie Shepp – Bill Dixon QuartetArchie Shepp – Bill Dixon QuartetArchie Shepp – Bill Dixon Quartet is the debut album by saxophonist Archie Shepp and trumpeter Bill Dixon released on the Savoy label in 1962. The album features three performances by Shepp & Dixon with Don Moore and Paul Cohen and a version of Ornette Coleman's composition "Peace" with Reggie...
(1962) - The Magic of Ju-JuThe Magic of Ju-JuThe Magic of Ju-Ju is an album by Archie Shepp released on Impulse! Records in 1967. The album contains tracks recorded by Shepp, Martin Banks, Mike Zwerin, Reggie Workman, Norman Connors, Frank Charles, Dennis Charles, Ed Blackwell and Beaver Harris in April 1967...
(1967)
With Mal Waldron
Mal Waldron
Malcolm Earl Waldron was an American jazz and world music pianist and composer, born in New York City.Like his contemporaries, Waldron's roots lie chiefly in the hard bop and post-bop genres of the New York club scene of the 1950s; but with time, he gravitated more towards free jazz and composition...
- Up Popped the DevilUp Popped the DevilUp Popped the Devil is an album by American jazz pianist Mal Waldron recorded in 1973 and released by the Enja label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Bob Rusch awarded the album 4½ stars stating "Pianist Mal Waldron's music is characterized by a heavily-brooding rhythmic quality, with the left...
(Enja, 1973) - Breaking New GroundBreaking New GroundBreaking New Ground is an album by American jazz pianist Mal Waldron recorded in 1983 and released by the Japanese Baybridge label.-Reception:...
(Baybridge 1983) - Mal Waldron Plays Eric SatieMal Waldron Plays Eric SatieMal Waldron Plays Eric Satie is an album by American jazz pianist Mal Waldron playing compositions by Erik Satie recorded in 1983 and released by the Japanese Baybridge label.-Track listing:# "Désespoir Agréable"# "Hermonies"# "Essais"...
(Baybridge, 1983) - You and the Night and the Music (Paddle Wheel, 1983)
- The Git Go - Live at the Village VanguardThe Git Go - Live at the Village VanguardThe Git Go - Live at the Village Vanguard is a live album by jazz pianist Mal Waldron recorded at the Village Vanguard and released on the Italian Soul Note label in 1987.-Reception:...
(Soul Note, 1986) - The Seagulls of KristiansundThe Seagulls of KristiansundThe Seagulls of Kristiansund is a live album by jazz pianist Mal Waldron recorded at the Village Vanguard and released on the Italian Soul Note label in 1987.-Reception:The Allmusic review awarded the album 4½ stars....
(Soul Note, 1986) - The Super Quartet Live at Sweet BasilThe Super Quartet Live at Sweet BasilThe Super Quartet Live at Sweet Basil is a live album by jazz pianist Mal Waldron featuring soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy recorded at Sweet Basil in New York City in 1987 and released on the Japanese Paddle Wheel label.-Reception:...
(Paddle Wheel, 1987) - Crowd SceneCrowd SceneCrowd Scene is an album by jazz pianist Mal Waldron recorded in 1989 and released on the Italian Soul Note label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Scott Yanow awarded the album 4 stars stating "there are some rambling moments on these lengthy performances, both of which clock in at over 25 minutes...
(Soul Note, 1989) - Where Are You?Where Are You? (Mal Waldron album)Where Are You? is an album by jazz pianist Mal Waldron recorded in 1989 and released on the Italian Soul Note label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Ron Wynn awarded the album 3 stars stating "Mal Waldron's mellow and sentimental side is tapped on this session.....
(Soul Note, 1989) - My Dear FamilyMy Dear FamilyMy Dear Family is an album by jazz pianist Mal Waldron recorded in 1993 and released on the Evidence label.-Reception:The Allmusic review by Matt Collar states "this is a superbly performed album by stellar, world-class musicians and should please most hardcore jazz fans".-Track listing:#...
(Evidence, 1993)
With Tyrone Washington
Tyrone Washington (musician)
Tyrone Washington is an American jazz tenor saxophonist.He is known best for his 1967 debut album for Blue Note Records.-As Leader:*1967: Natural Essence...
- Natural EssenceNatural EssenceNatural Essence is the debut album by American saxophonist Tyrone Washington featuring performances recorded in 1967 and released on the Blue Note label.-Reception:...
(1967)