Bill Dixon

Bill Dixon
Background information
Birth name	William Robert Dixon
Born	(1925-10-05)October 5, 1925 Nantucket, Massachusetts, U.S.
Died	June 16, 2010(2010-06-16) (aged 84) North Bennington, Vermont, U.S.
Genres	Free jazz
Occupation(s)	Composer, visual artist, educator, musician
Instrument(s)	Trumpet, flugelhorn, piano
Years active	1960–2010

William Robert Dixon (October 5, 1925^[1] – June 16, 2010)^[2] was an American composer and educator. Dixon was one of the seminal figures in free jazz and late twentieth-century contemporary music. His was also a prominent activist for artist's rights and African American music tradition.^[3] He played the trumpet, flugelhorn, and piano, often using electronic delay and reverb.^[4]

Biography[edit]

Dixon hailed from Nantucket, Massachusetts, United States.^[1] His family moved to Harlem, in New York City, in 1934.^[2] He enlisted in the Army in 1944; his unit served in Germany before he was discharged in 1946. His studies in music came relatively late in life, at the Hartnette Conservatory of Music (1946–1951), which he attended on the GI Bill.^[5] He studied painting at Boston University and the WPA Arts School and the Art Students League. From 1956 to 1962, he worked at the United Nations, where he founded the UN Jazz Society.^[6][7]

In the 1960s Dixon established himself as a major force in the jazz avant-garde.^[2] In 1964, Dixon organized and produced the October Revolution in Jazz, four days of music and discussions at the Cellar Café in Manhattan.^[8] The participants included pianist Cecil Taylor and bandleader Sun Ra. It was the first free-jazz festival of its kind. Dixon later co-founded the Jazz Composers Guild,^[6] a cooperative organization that sought to create bargaining power with club owners and effect greater media visibility. A key participant in the seminal Judson Dance Theater at Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, New York City, Dixon was one of the first artists to produce concerts mixing free jazz and improvisational dance, spending several years in a close collaboration with dancer Judith Dunn, with whom he formed the Judith Dunn/Bill Dixon Company.^[9] He recorded relatively little during this period, though he co-led some releases with Archie Shepp^[4] 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,^[10] produced and directed by William Greaves.^[11]

Dixon was Professor of Music at Bennington College, Vermont, from 1968 to 1995, where he founded and chaired the college's Black Music Division.^[12] From 1970 to 1976, he played "in total isolation from the market places of this music," as he puts it.^[13] Solo trumpet recordings from this period were later released by Cadence Jazz Records and were collected on his self-released multi-CD set Odyssey, along with reproductions of his visual artwork and 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 the later years of his life, he recorded with Cecil Taylor, Tony Oxley,^[6] William Parker, and Rob Mazurek.

Dixon 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 also made extensive use of half-valve techniques and used breath with or without engaging the traditional trumpet embouchure. He largely eschewed mutes, the exception being the Harmon mute, with or without stem.

On June 16, 2010, Bill Dixon died in his sleep at his home in North Bennington, Vermont after suffering from an undisclosed illness.^[2][14]

Discography[edit]

As leader[edit]

As sideman or co-leader[edit]

• Cecil Taylor, Conquistador! (Blue Note, 1968) – recorded in 1966
• Franz Koglmann, Opium for Franz (Pipe, 1977) – recorded in 1976; three tracks were reissued on the compilation Opium (Between the Lines, 2001)
• The Tony Oxley Celebration Orchestra, The Enchanted Messenger: Live from Berlin Jazz Festival (Soul Note, 1995) – live recorded in 1994
• Cecil Taylor and Tony Oxley, Taylor/Dixon/Oxley (Victo, 2002) – live
• Bill Dixon/Aaron Siegel/Ben Hall, Weight/Counterweight (Brokenresearch, 2009)[2LP]
• Cecil Taylor, Duets 1992 (Triple Point, 2019) – recorded in 1992

As producer or composer[edit]

• Robert F. Pozar Ensemble, Good Golly Miss Nancy (Savoy, 1967) – producer
• Ed Curran Quartet, Elysa (Savoy 1968) – recorded in 1967. producer.
• The Marzette Watts Ensemble, The Marzette Watts Ensemble (Savoy, 1969) – recorded in 1968. producer and composer.
• Marc Levin and his Free Unit, The Dragon Suite (BYG Actuel, 1969) – producer
• Jacques Coursil Unit, Way Ahead (BYG, 1969) – composer

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Piekut, Benjamin (2001). Experimentalism Otherwise: The New York Avant-Garde and Its Limits. University of California Press. ISBN 9780520948426.
• Young, Ben (1998). Dixonia: A Bio-Discography of Bill Dixon. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0313302758.

External links[edit]

• Audio Recordings of WCUW Jazz Festivals – Jazz History Database
• "Beyond Abstraction: Bill Dixon on Music and Art: Interviewed by Graham Lock." (July 2010)
• "Bill Dixon: In Medias Res" (feature article/interview by Clifford Allen)
• Guardian obituary
• New York Times obituary
• Bill Dixon Papers, Fales Library and Special Collections at New York University Special Collections