Miles Davis
Larry Redhouse grew up in a house with six siblings who were all, like their mother, very musical. The family formed a musical act, the Redhouse Band, in the late 60s. The band played a large repertoire of styles including funk and jazz fusion, and cites influences such as Santana, Malo, and Tower...
Mickey Raphael grew up with a passion for music and was recruited to play sousaphone and tuba in his high-school marching band. While this was his excuse to get out of gym class, Mickey realized his love for music and gravitated towards playing the harmonica. He was deep into the folk scene in...
Billy Hart was born in Washington DC, where he was exposed to the drums at a young age. He worked with several R&B groups before landing an important gig with the jazz singer Shirley Horn, who taught Billy the fundamentals of working with a soloist. In the mid 1960s Billy performed with Wes...
Cecil McBee studied clarinet in elementary school and was inspired by the encouragement of his band director. He knew from that young age that he wanted a career in music. When he was a teenager he switched to bass and began playing at local clubs and parties. His incredible career includes live...
Hubert Laws Jr. is an American flutist and saxophonist with a rich family history in the music industry. Specializing in jazz and classical, Hubert started playing the flute in high school and eventually attend the Juilliard School of Music on a scholarship in 1960. With credits like playing in the...
Wallace Roney attended the Anaheim NAMM Show in 2018, playing his Kanstul trumpet and taking time to sit down for an Oral History interview. He spoke of his love of the trumpet and some of the players he learned from over the years including Dizzy Gillespie and Miles Davis, who became a personal...
Chick Corea loved being a music maker! Nominated over 60 times for a Grammy, Chick was among the most high profile musicians we have been blessed to interview for the NAMM Oral History program, and yet he was also one of the most down to earth men we have ever met. Around the time of his two NAMM...
Rudy Van Gelder was the recording engineer for countless jazz records beginning in the 1940s. To say he was a pioneer seems like an understatement when you take into consideration not only the classic recordings he was involved with, but also the techniques and the studios he built that redefine...
Jason Miles is the musician and composer who took advantage of the developing synthesizer technology in the 1970s and 80s to create unique sounds for such artists as Chaka Khan, Michael Jackson and Aretha Franklin. In the 1980s, Jason played an important role within New York recording studios by...
Vince Wilburn, Jr., was born in Chicago and began playing the drums on pots and pans as early as five years old. His uncle, Miles Davis, encouraged young Vince to listen to the great drummers, many of whom played with Miles over the years. Vince recalls with a smile the day he sat in with Miles...