Jazz Arts Group

By Emilykuret

  • Latin Jazz Starts to Influence American Jazz

    An important stream of jazz activity during the 1960s flowed from Brazil. The popularity of Brazilian samba and bossa nova first reached American jazz musicians through recordings by Antônio Carlos Jobim, João Gilberto and Laurindo Almeida. In the early 1960s guitarist Charlie Byrd introduced Stan Getz to bossa nova this way and both went on to perform pieces from this repertory together and with Brazilian musicians, as on the albums Jazz Samba (Verve, 1962) and Getz/Gilberto (Verve, 1963).

  • Japan Enters the World Jazz Scene

    Japan was another country that began to figure more prominently on the world jazz scene in the 1960s and 70s. Beyond developing a significant base of jazz fans that would draw American musicians to cities like Tokyo and Osaka, Japan produced musicians who launched successful international careers as performers and recording artists, among them the pianist and bandleader Toshiko Akiyoshi, the saxophonist and flute player Sadao Watanabe, the trumpeter Terumasa Hino and the pianist Yosuke Yamashita
  • Period: to

    Free Jazz and Jazz Fusion Movements

  • Cannonball Adderly Achieves Commercial Success

    Cannonball Adderley also achieved commercial success with his relaxed and soulful rendition of Joe Zawinul's Mercy, Mercy, Mercy (1966, Cap.).

  • Horace Silver Begins to Mix Jazz and Rock

    Horace Silver incorporated rock and ‘boogaloo’ beats in The Jody Grind (1966, BN)

  • Duke Ellington Records The Far East Suite

  • Black Artists Group (BAG) Formed

    the Black Artists Group (BAG), took shape in St Louis (1968), serving as a meeting-ground for Julius Hemphill, Hamiet Bluiett and Oliver Lake, who later joined with David Murray to form the World Saxophone Quartet (1976). Other important musical organizations supporting experimental jazz improvisation and composition included New York's Jazz Composers Guild and Jazz Composers' Orchestra Association, Detroit's Creative Arts Collective (CAC), and in Europe, Amsterdam's Instant Composers Pool (ICP)

  • The Miles Davis Quintet Breaks Up

  • Orchestras mix swing with funky rhythem to attract younger audiences, ones-Lewis orchestra releases a version of Central Park North

    Joining these veterans on the scene were newly formed ensembles, including the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band in Germany, the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis orchestra in New York and the Don Ellis Orchestra in Los Angeles. These groups attested to the continued appeal of the big-band sound while seeking to attract younger listeners by incorporating features drawn from other idioms, as in the funky rhythm and blues groove in the Jones-Lewis orchestra's version of Central Park North (SolS, 1969).

  • keyboard player Joe Zawinul co-founds Weather Report

    A number of young musicians who played with Davis in the late 1960s followed their leader's example in playing loudly amplified music that fused together elements of jazz, rock, funk and soul, as well as non-western musical traits. Shorter and the keyboard player Joe Zawinul co-founded Weather Report in 1970, a group that combined the improvisatory freedom of jazz with a rhythmic vocabulary derived from rock, Latin American and Afro-Caribbean traditions.

  • Miles Davis Releases Bitches Brew

    This jazz-rock admixture came to be called fusion by the critics, some of whom considered the music no longer part of the jazz tradition. Davis was undeterred, later writing of this time: ‘I wanted to change course, had to change course for me to continue to believe in and love what I was playing’ (Davis and Troupe, F1989, p.298). He also observed that fewer black musicians were playing jazz in the 1960s because it was ‘becoming the music of the museum’.

  • Keith Jarrett rejects electrified rock, becomes solo pianist

    Virtually alone among these gifted Davis alumni in the 1970s, Keith Jarrett rejected the electrified rock, funk and fusion options, preferring instead to appear before the public as solo acoustic pianist, spinning out lengthy, discursive improvisations that at times took on the aura of religious ritual.
  • Period: to

    New York's "Loft Jazz" Movement

  • Period: to

    Jazz Arts Group

  • Duke Ellington Dies

  • Nixon resigns from Presidency

  • Microsoft Founded by Bill Gates

  • John McLaughlin starts a world fusion trio called Shakti

    Shakti was a group which played a novel acoustic fusion music which combined Indian music with elements of jazz; it was perhaps the earliest practitioner of the musical genre world fusion.

  • Keith Jarrett's Köln concert

    Dropped by his label, Columbia, the 29-year-old Keith Jarrett decided to play a series of totally improvised, solo piano concerts. A young German promoter set him up at the 1,400-seater Cologne Opera House for what was to be the venue's first ever jazz gig, but Jarrett was shunted into a late-night slot and given a small, out of tune baby grand piano with faulty pedals.

  • Avant-garde Jazz is Supported in Chicago and New York, Wildflowers is Released

    At Sam Rivers's Studio Rivbea in New York's SoHo, a series of recordings was made in 1976; released under the title Wildflowers, they featured such musicians as the saxophonists Kalaparusha (Maurice McIntyre), Byard Lancaster, Marion Brown, Anthony Braxton and David Murray, the drummers Sunny Murray and Andrew Cyrille and the trumpeters Olu Dara and Leo Smith.

  • Elvis Dies

  • Star Wars is Released

  • Period: to

    CJO Located at Battelle Hall

    The ensemble met with early success, and in 1978 began a long run at Battelle Hall as their artistic home. Over the next eighteen years at that venue, JAG created a huge following, presenting the finest jazz artists in the world. During this period, JAG also established a practice of providing jazz education to local schools in a small ensemble setting.

  • Charles Mingus Dies

  • The first Walkman portable cassette player is introduced by Sony

  • Wynton Marsalis Joins Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers.

    One figure that played a crucial role in popularizing and promoting jazz during this period was Wynton Marsalis, a trumpeter, composer, bandleader and educator from New Orleans. After emerging in the 1980s as a talented soloist with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, then with his own groups featuring his brother Branford, Marsalis began exploring past eras in jazz while refining his own musical language both as player and composer.
  • Period: to

    Acid Jazz Movement

    As many of the first acid jazz groups took their inspiration from funk and jazz artists of 20 years previously, they tended to eschew the modern techniques of sequencing and sampling in order to replicate the sound of their predecessors as faithfully as possible. This ‘retro’ approach can be heard in recordings such as Dad Man Cat by Corduroy and Mission Impossible by the James Taylor Quartet, both on the Acid Jazz label.

  • MTV is Created

  • CDs are Introduced

  • Sony introduces the first portable compact disc player

  • Rebirth of the Big Band

    Whether inspired by Duke Ellington, Gil Evans, Charles Mingus or Carla Bley, most big-band jazz still sounded American by the 1980s. But in 1984 came London's Loose Tubes, a workshop band that became an eclectic 21-piece orchestra, including quirky saxophonist Iain Ballamy and even quirkier pianist Django Bates.

  • Michael Jackson releases song "Thriller"

  • Count Basie Dies

  • Challenger space shuttle explodes

  • The Knitting Factory Opens

    The center of Free Jazz activity in New York.

  • Los Angeles band, Royal Crown Revue, marks the beginning of the neo-swing movement

  • Berlin Wall Falls

  • Hubble Telescope launched into Space

  • Drummer Art Blakey Dies

  • Miles Davis Dies

  • Sun Ra Dies

    Sun Ra was a prolific jazz composer, bandleader, piano and synthesizer player, poet and philosopher known for his "cosmic philosophy," musical compositions and performances.

  • The Impulse Record Label is Revived

  • Jazz at Lincoln Center officially joins Lincoln Center, New York City.

  • Name is changed to CJO

    In 1996, after two European tours funded by the Greater Columbus Arts Council (GCAC), the ensemble’s name was changed to the Columbus Jazz Orchestra (CJO), to better differentiate the identity of the ensemble and that of Jazz Arts Group as the “umbrella” organization.

  • CJO Begins Playing at the Southern

    At that time, it was also announced that the CJO would become the major performing ensemble at the restored Southern Theatre, to be reopened in 1998.

  • Dr. Billy Taylor Founds the Women in Jazz Festival

  • Byron Stripling Joins the CJO

  • The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History announces Jazz Appreciation Month (JAM)

  • The Grand Opening of the Frederick P. Rose Hall

    The first facility built solely for the performance of jazz.

  • JAI is Founded

    Launched in 2009, JAG was the lead organization for the Jazz Audiences Initiative, a groundbreaking study of jazz audiences, funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation (DDCF).

  • JAG opens the Jazz Academy

  • Michael Jackson Dies

  • JAG wins CFA Award

    JAG was also honored with the 2011 Columbus Foundation Award, as the central Ohio non-profit organization of the year.

  • Johnny Otis Dies

  • Etta James Dies

  • UNESCO Designates April 30th as International Jazz Day