Past Awardees
1999 Living Legacy Award Recipient
Reggie Workman
Bassist, composer, arranger, recording
artist and educator Reggie Workman's playing styles
include Bop, Post-Bop, free jazz, experimental jazz,
and funk as well as a contemporary approach to jazz
improvisation and composition. Mr. Workman has played
and recorded nationally and internationally with such
jazz greats as John Coltrane, Art Blakey, Thelonious
Monk, Elvin Jones, Freddie Hubbard, Wayne Shorter and
many others.
Although some of his best known recordings
include those done in collaboration with Coltrane,
Blakey and
Lee Morgan, by the early 1970's Mr. Workman had become
a well established figure in the jazz community, inventing
his own language of sound and expression as a performer
and composer.
In 1982, Mr. Workman formed The Reggie
Workman Ensemble. This new direction provided
him with the opportunity
to perform, produce and compose his own brand of avant-experimental
jazz. Throughout the 1980's and '90's Workman has continuously
recorded new musical ideas. His close association with
John Coltrane led to the organization of The Coltrane
Legacy at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in 1987.
In 1990 he co-produced and performed another moving
tribute to John Coltrane at the Brooklyn Academy of
Music. In 1998 he established the Legacy Project, influenced
by John Coltrane's Africa Brass, which was performed
across the mid-Atlantic region.
As an educator, Mr.
Workman's credits are as impressive as his playing
and composing credits. In 1974, he received
a fellowship from the Creative Artists Personal Services
Foundation and sat on the fellowship selection panel
the following year. He organized and directed the music
curriculum at the New Muse Community Museum. Since
1989, Mr. Workman has been a full-time professor and
curriculum coordinator at the New School for Social
Research, Jazz Department in New York City where he
implemented programs such as the Bass Ensemble Workshops,
the Futuristic Music Ensemble, the Coltrane Ensemble,
and the Jazz Master Class Series.
Mr. Workman has received
many awards for a life's work in jazz and jazz education
including the Eubie Blake
Award in 1978, the Life Achievement Award by the Jazz
Foundation of America in 1997, and the citation of
excellence from the International Association of Jazz
Educators in 1997.
www.reggieworkman.com
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