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Michael Moore

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

Michael Moore was born in 1954 in Eureka, California, and is an American jazz saxophonist and clarinettist who has lived in the Netherlands since 1982. His father was a semi-professional musician. Moore studied at Humboldt State and graduated in 1977 from the New England Conservatory, where he was taught by Jaki Byard and Gunther Schuller and was a classmate of Marty Ehrlich. He played in all kinds of settings, mainly for theatre and dance.

Music and breakthrough

In the Netherlands he became a fixture on the jazz circuit. He plays in the Clusone Trio, together with the cellist Ernst Reijseger and the drummer Han Bennink. That trio was intended for a single performance at a festival in Clusone in Italy, but went on to tour for years and recorded six albums, including one of freely played compositions by Irving Berlin. His first record as a leader came out in 1992, and with Chicoutimi in 1994 his reputation as a composer grew. That album featured a trio without drums with Fred Hersch and Mark Helias and recalls the trios of Jimmy Giuffre. In 1986 he won the VPRO/Boy Edgar Prize, the most important jazz prize in the Netherlands, and in 1991 he founded the label Ramboy Records.

Influence

Moore also plays in Jewels and Binoculars, a trio that arranges songs by Bob Dylan, and since 2005 has led a quintet with Eric Vloeimans, Marc van Roon, Paul Berner and Owen Hart Jr. In 2013 he performed with InstanPool, a group that makes improvised music with electronics. In this way he showed how an American jazz musician could feel at home in the Dutch circuit.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to a track by the Clusone Trio and notice how saxophone or clarinet, cello and drums play off one another: who is accompanying whom, and where do you hear humour?

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

The chapters, maps and magazine stories of School of Rock are currently available in Dutch only.

Categories: Artists