Bill Dixon
| Bill Dixon | |
|---|---|
| Born | October 5, 1925 |
| Origin | Nantucket, Massachusetts, United States |
| Died | June 16, 2010 (aged 84) |
| Genres | Jazz |
| Occupation(s) | Composer, visual artist, educator, musician |
| Years active | 1960–2010 |
| Associated acts | Archie Shepp, Cecil Taylor |
Bill Dixon (October 5, 1925 – June 16, 2010) was an American musician, composer, visual artist, and educator. Dixon was one of the seminal figures in the free jazz movement. He played the trumpet, flugelhorn, and piano, often using electronic delay and reverberation as part of his trumpet playing.
Dixon hailed from Nantucket, Massachusetts. His family later moved to Harlem, New York City when he was about 7. His studies in music came relatively late in life, at the Hartnette Conservatory of Music (1946–1951). He studied painting at Boston University and the WPA Arts School and the Art Students League. During the early 1950s he had a job at the United Nations, and founded the UN Jazz Society.
In the 1960s Dixon established himself as a major force in the jazz avant-garde movement. In 1964, Dixon organized and produced the 'October Revolution in Jazz', four days of music and discussions at the Cellar Café in Manhattan. The participants included notable musicians Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra among others. It was the first free-jazz festival of its kind. Dixon later founded the Jazz Composers Guild, a cooperative organization that sought to create bargaining power with club owners and effect greater media visibility. He was relatively little recorded during this period, though he co-led some releases with Archie Shepp 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, produced and directed by William Greaves.
He was Professor of Music at Bennington College, Vermont, from 1968 to 1995, where he founded the college's Black Music Division. From 1970 to 1976 he played "in total isolation from the market places of this music", as he puts it. Solo trumpet recordings from this period were later released by Cadence Jazz Records, and later collected on the self-released multi-CD set Odyssey along with other material.
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