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Famoudou Don Moye

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Famoudou Don Moye, born Donald Moye Jr. in 1946 in Rochester, New York, is an American jazz drummer and percussionist. As a boy he played in drum and bugle corps and in a church choir, and was given violin lessons. He came into contact with jazz young: his mother worked for a social club with a jazz club next door, where Kenny Burrell and Jimmy McGriff, among others, performed. His father played drums. Moye studied percussion at Wayne State University in Detroit, where the trumpeter Charles Moore became his mentor. He played in the African Cultural Ensemble and in Moore's band Detroit Free Jazz. In 1968 he went to Europe with that band and stayed there for a few years, travelling through Europe and North Africa.

Music and breakthrough

In Paris he practised at the American Center for Students and Artists. There Roscoe Mitchell asked him to join the Art Ensemble of Chicago, which consisted of Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, Lester Bowie and Malachi Favors Maghostut and had as yet no regular drummer. Moye became a core member. He is best known for his mastery of African and Caribbean percussion instruments and rhythmic techniques. Under his own name he released, among others, Sun Percussion, Volume One in 1975, Black Paladins in 1980, Afrikan Song in 1996 and Ancestral Memories: From Afrika to Chicago in 1998.

Influence

With the Art Ensemble, Moye brought a broad palette of percussion sounds into avant-garde jazz. Instead of a fixed beat he added colours, rhythms from Africa and the Caribbean and a large arsenal of small instruments. In this way he belongs to the AACM tradition that reconnected jazz with its African roots.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to a recording of the Art Ensemble of Chicago with Moye and notice the many different percussion and sound instruments, such as drums, bells and small percussion, which together create an atmosphere of their own.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Categories: Artists