| Don Byron |
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Don Byron (born November 8 1958 ) is a composer, Jazz Clarinet , Bass Clarinet and Saxophone player. While he is considered a jazz musician, he is stylistically very adventurous, having recorded Klezmer music, German Lieder , Raymond Scott 's "cartoon-jazz," a Jimi Hendrix song, and a track with rapper Biz Markie . EARLY LIFE Byron was born in the Bronx , in New York City . The child of musician parents (his mother was a pianist and his father a bass player for calypso bands), he was exposed to a variety of musical styles through trips to the ballet and the symphony, and by listening to jazz recordings by Dizzy Gillespie , Miles Davis and others. Byron studied music at the New England Conservatory in Boston . He studied clarinet with Joe Allard and George Russell. While in Boston, Byron performed and recorded with the Klezmer Conservatory Band, founded by NEC faculty member Hankus Netsky. He is a gifted performer on clarinet, bass clarinet and (occasionally) Saxophone , but on many of his Album s he subordinates his own playing to the exploration of a particular style. Byron is representative of a new generation of conservatory-trained jazz musicians who eagerly explore and record in a rich array of styles; his first album 'Tuskegee Experiments' is a rich stew of classical avant garde and atonal jazz improvisation, while albums such as 'Bug Music' represent a straight-ahead exploration of the traditional jazz 'tune.' Byron is one of jazz's greatest practicing historians, and some of his most successful albums (such as ''Plays the Music of Mickey Katz'', ''Bug Music'', and ''Ivey-Divey'') have been recreations (in spirit) of forgotten moments in the history of popular music. Byron has been nominated for a Grammy Award for his bass clarinet solo on "I Want to Be Happy" from ''Ivey-Divey''. Byron is a member of The Black Rock Coalition . He has recorded with Uri Caine , Dean Bowman , Vernon Reid , Bill Frisell , Joe Henry , and others. DISCOGRAPHY
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