"Bill Dixon (October 5, 1925 Ð June 16, 2010) was an American musician, composer, visual artist, and educator. Dixon was one of the seminal figures in the free jazz movement. He played the trumpet, flugelhorn, and piano, often using electronic delay and reverberation.

Dixon hailed from Nantucket, Massachusetts. His family later moved to Harlem, New York City when he was about 7. His studies in music came relatively late in life, at the Hartnette Conservatory of Music (1946Ð1951). He studied painting at Boston University and the WPA Arts School and the Art Students League. During the early 1950s he had a job at the United Nations, and founded the UN Jazz Society.

In the 1960s Dixon established himself as a major force in the jazz avant-garde movement. In 1964, Dixon organized and produced the 'October Revolution in Jazz', four days of music and discussions at the Cellar CafŽ in Manhattan. The participants included notable musicians Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra among others. It was the first free-jazz festival of its kind. Dixon later founded the Jazz Composers Guild, a cooperative organization that sought to create bargaining power with club owners and effect greater media visibility. He was relatively little recorded during this period, though he co-led some releases with Archie Shepp and appeared on Cecil Taylor's Blue Note record Conquistador! in 1966. In 1967, he composed and conducted a score for the United States Information Agency film The Wealth of a Nation, produced and directed by William Greaves.

He was Professor of Music at Bennington College, Vermont, from 1968 to 1995, where he founded the college's Black Music Division. From 1970 to 1976 he played "in total isolation from the market places of this music", as he puts it. Solo trumpet recordings from this period were later released by Cadence Jazz Records, and later collected on the self-released multi-CD set Odyssey along with other material.

He was one of four featured musicians in the Canadian documentary Imagine the Sound (along with Cecil Taylor, Archie Shepp, and Paul Bley), 1981.

In recent years he recorded with Cecil Taylor, Tony Oxley, William Parker, Rob Mazurek, and many others.

Dixon's playing was noted for his extensive use of the pedal register, playing below the trumpet's commonly ascribed range, and well into the trombone and tuba registers. He made extensive use of half-valve techniques and the use of breath with or without engaging the traditional trumpet embouchure. He largely eschewed the use of mutes, the exception being his use of the harmon mute, with or without stem.

On June 16, 2010, Bill Dixon died in his sleep at his home after suffering from an undisclosed illness."

Stephen Haynes-trumpet: "I am an improvising composer, teaching artist, arts organizer and advocate; a product of the historic and fertile Black Music Division at Bennington College, directed by Bill Dixon. My early foundational studies were with the wonderful Frank Baird, who chaired the brass department at the University of Colorado's Boulder campus during the sixties and seventies. I currently lead several ensembles: Parrhesia (a trio w/Joe Morris and Warren Smith) and Pomegranate (a quintet with Ben Stapp, William Parker, Joe Morris and Warren Smith. My debut recording as a leader, Parrhesia, is on the Engine Studios label. With Joe Morris, I curate the long-running music series, Improvisations, at Real Art Ways. I am very concerned with the plight of the local artist in his/her hometown and region, and with the importance of well-developed support for those of us who enjoy working close to home and being treated properly. Over the years I have worked with a range of musicians, with a primary interest in large ensembles and composition: Bill Dixon, George Russell, LaMonte Young, Butch Morris, Rhys Chatham, Adam Rudolph, Leroy Jenkins, JD Parran, Gunter Hampel, Cecil Taylor and the Dells."

"Taylor Ho Bynum (b. 1975) has spent his career navigating the intersections between structure and improvisation - through musical composition, performance and interdisciplinary collaboration, and through production, organizing, teaching, writing and advocacy. As heard on over twenty recordings as a bandleader, Bynum's expressionistic playing on cornet and his expansive vision as composer have garnered him critical attention as one of the singular musical voices of his generation. He currently leads his Sextet and 7-tette, and works with many collective ensembles including a duo with drummer Tomas Fujiwara, the improv trio Book of Three, the UK/US collaborative Convergence Quartet, the dance/music interdisciplinary ensemble Masters of Ceremony, and the trans-idiomatic little big band Positive Catastrophe.

His varied endeavors include his Acoustic Bicycle Tours (where he travels to concerts solely by bike across thousands of miles) and his stewardship of Anthony Braxton's Tri-Centric Foundation (which he serves as executive director, producing most of Braxton's recent major projects). In addition to his own bands, his ongoing collaboration with Braxton, past work with other legendary figures such as Bill Dixon and Cecil Taylor, and current collective projects with forward thinking peers, Bynum increasingly travels the globe to conduct community-based large ensembles in explorations of new creative orchestra music. He is also a published author and contributor to The New Yorker's Culture Blog, has taught at universities, festivals, and workshops worldwide, and has served as a panelist and consultant for leading funders and organizations. His work has received support from Creative Capital, the Connecticut Office of the Arts, Chamber Music America, New Music USA, USArtists International, and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation."

"Born in Newark, NJ, Steve Swell has been an active member of the NYC music community since 1975. He has toured and recorded with many artists from mainstreamers such as Lionel Hampton and Buddy Rich to so called outsiders as Anthony Braxton, Bill Dixon, Cecil Taylor and William Parker. He has over 40 CDs as a leader or co-leader and is a featured artists on more than 100 other releases. He runs workshops around the world and is a teaching artist in the NYC public school system focusing on special needs children.

Swell has worked on music transcriptions of the Bosavi tribe of New Guinea for MacArthur fellow, Steve Feld in 2000. His CD, "Suite For Players, Listeners and Other Dreamers" (CIMP) ranked number 2 in the 2004 Cadence Readers Poll. He has also received grants from USArtists International in 2006, MCAF (LMCC) awards in 2008 and 2013 and has been commissioned twice on the Interpretations Series at Merkin Hall in 2006 and at Roulette in 2012.

Steve was nominated for Trombonist of the Year 2008 & 2011 by the Jazz Journalists Association, was selected Trombonist of the Year 2008-2010 , 2012 and 2014-2015 by the magazine El Intruso of Argentina and received the 2008 Jubilation Foundation Fellowship Award of the Tides Foundation. Steve has also been selected by the Downbeat Critics Poll in the Trombone category each year from 2010-2016.

Steve is presently a teaching artist through the American Composers Orchestra, Healing Arts Initiative , Mind-Builders Creative Arts Center (Bronx), the Jazz Foundation of America and Leman Manhattan Preparatory School.

Steve was also awarded the 2014 Creative Curricula grant (LMCC) for the project: "Metamorphoses: Modern Mythology in Sound and Words" which was taught in a month long residency at Baruch College Campus High School in Manhattan."

"Karen Borca (born September 5, 1948, Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States) is an American avant-garde jazz and free jazz bassoonist.

Borca studied music at the University of Wisconsin with John Barrows and Arthur Weisberg, graduating in 1971. While there she met Cecil Taylor, who taught there during the 1970/71 academic year; she studied with him and played in his big bands, ensembles and the Cecil Taylor Unit, and was his assistant at Antioch College, Ohio, in the Black Music Program. She was an assistant to saxophonist Jimmy Lyons in 1974 during his artist in residence at Bennington College, Vermont and married the longtime Taylor sideman; she played in Lyons's band for 12 years until he died in 1986. She performed with her own bands at the Newport Jazz Festival New York City Salute to Women in Jazz, '78 and '79, Soundscape, Vision Festival, Jazz Fest Berlin and other festivals, concerts, clubs and lofts.

She has performed with her own bands in New York City, the U.S. ,and Europe, with musicians such as Cecil Taylor, William Parker, Bill Dixon, Butch Morris, Marco Eneidi, Joel Futterman, Sonny Simmons, Alan Silva, and Jackson Krall."

"Andrew Lafkas: bass. Berlin, Germany

Andrew Lafkas is a musician currently living in Berlin, Germany. His primary instrument is the contrabass. He is currently focused on developing pieces for largish ensembles that encourage group intuition; this interest is greatly inspired by and influenced by experiences working in groups led by Milo Fine and Bill Dixon. He is also active in the groups Oceans Roar 1000 Drums, with Todd Capp and Bryan Eubanks, and a trio with Marcia Bassett and Barry Weisblat. He has performed at venues and festivals including Walker Art Center, The Living Theatre, Experimental Intermedia, the Vision Festival, and the Seattle Improvised Music Festival."

"Jackson Krall ((born October 12, 1949) ) After studying jazz drumming with Alan Dawson in Boston and being strongly influenced by the teachings of Milford Graves at Bennington College in the early 1970's, Jackson Krall set up shop on Manhattan's Lower-East-Side, the emerging hub of New York's art scene. While making inroads in the downtown avant jazz scene and after making hand drums and some of the finest marraccas imaginable, he crafted his first line of agogo bells in 1978. He immediately started supplying many of New York's local musical instrument dealers such as "Music Inn", "Mannys", and "Drummers World" with his creations, and eventually expanded his marketing worldwide.

Since the mid 1970's Jackson has played drums with other high-profile musicians such as Cecil Taylor, Bill Dixon, Alan Silva, Karen Borca, William Parker, and Steve Swell, as well as choreographers Elaine Shipman and Kay Nishikawa and his own group "The Secret Music Society."

What most people are unaware of is that he is a master craftsman and artisan who has been hand making bells, drums, other percussion instruments and sound sculptures for over 35 years. Through the years Jackson's instruments have found their way into the hands of the world's greatest drummers and percussionists, and can be heard on recordings as well as in live performance by many bands, orchestras, and the most popular Broadway and Off-Broadway shows like "Lion King" and "Blue Man Group".

In the early 1980's, under the leadership of Toni and Celia Nogueira, Jackson was a founding member and helped write the bylaws of New York's first samba school, the now legendary Empire Loisaida Escola de Samba."

"Warren Smith (born May 14, 1934) is an American jazz drummer and percussionist, known as a contributor to Max Roach's M'boom ensemble and leader of the Composer's Workshop Ensemble (Strata-East).

Smith was born May 14, 1934 in Chicago, Illinois to a musical family. His father played saxophone and clarinet with Noble Sissle and Jimmie Noone, and his mother was a harpist and pianist. At the age of four he studied studied clarinet with his father. He graduated from the University of Illinois in 1957, then received a master's degree in percussion from the Manhattan School of Music in 1958.

One of his earliest major recording dates was with Miles Davis as a vibraphonist in 1957. He found work in Broadway pit bands in 1958, and also played with Gil Evans that year. In 1961 he co-founded the Composers Workshop Ensemble. In the 1960s Smith accompanied Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Lloyd Price, and Nat King Cole; he worked with Sam Rivers from 1964Ð76 and with Gil Evans again from 1968 to 1976. In 1969 he played with Janis Joplin and in 1971 with King Curtis and Tony Williams. He was also a founding member of Max Roach's percussion ensemble, M'Boom, in 1970.

In the 1970s and 1980s Smith had a loft called Studio Wis which acted as a performing and recording space for many young New York jazz musicians, such as Wadada Leo Smith and Oliver Lake. Through the 1970s Smith played with Andrew White, Julius Hemphill, Muhal Richard Abrams, Nancy Wilson, Quincy Jones, Count Basie, and Carmen McRae. Other credits include extensive work with rock and pop musicians and time spent with Anthony Braxton, Charles Mingus, Henry Threadgill, Van Morrison, and Joe Zawinul. He continued to work on Broadway into the 1990s, and has performed with a number of classical ensembles.

Smith taught in the New York City public school system from 1958 to 1968, at Third Street Settlement from 1960 to 1967, at Adelphi University in 1970Ð1, and at SUNY-Old Westbury from 1971."