Department of Music Lecture: Steve Swell, composer, improviser, trombonist
Talk by award-winning improvisor, composer, and trombonist Steve Swell.
Steve Swell, born in Newark, New Jersey, has been living, working and performing in New York City his entire adult life. In the mid-seventies he studied with Roswell Rudd, Grachan Moncur III and Jimmy Knepper after attending Jersey City State Teacher’s College. He's toured and recorded with such diverse jazz personalities as mainstreamers Lionel Hampton and Buddy Rich, to so-called outsiders like Anthony Braxton and Jemeel Moondoc. Swell has 40 recordings as a leader or co-leader and is a featured artist on more than 100 other releases. His CD, "Suite For Players, Listeners and Other Dreamers", recorded on the CIMP label, was ranked number 2 in the 2004 Cadence Readers Poll. He received grants from US Artists International in 2006, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts, an MCAF award (LMCC) in 2008 & 2013 and was commissioned for the Interpretations Series at Merkin Hall in 2006 and again in 2012 at Roulette. Steve is well known for his many collaborations with Cecil Taylor, Bill Dixon, Alan Silva, William Parker, and his many projects including “Slammin’ The Infinite” with Sabir Mateen, The Ullmann/Swell 4tet featuring Barry Altschul, “Fire Into Music with Hamid Drake and his large ensemble, Nation Of We. He was the Jazz Journalist’s Association Trombonist of the Year nominee for 2008 & 2011, named Trombonist of the Year 2008, 2009, 2010 & 2012 by El Intruso, an Argintinean Jazz journal and selected for the 2010, 2011, 2012 & 2013 Downbeat Critics Poll in the Trombone category. Steve is a Teaching Artist in the NYC public school system working with special needs children and was awarded the 2008 Jubilation Foundation Fellowship Award of the Tides Foundation for recognition of that work.