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John Bishop
“One can hear many influences in Bishop’s playing, including more than a touch of Elvin, but he is clearly an original voice…” - Percussive Notes As a drummer, educator, record label owner, graphic designer, publisher, and festival presenter, John Bishop has been one of the primary voices in Northwest Jazz for 40 years. He has performed in concerts and clubs with Lee Konitz, Slide Hampton, Benny Golson, George Cables, Bobby McFerrin, Jack Sheldon, Bobby Hutcherson, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Sonny Fortune, Herb Ellis, Buddy DeFranco, Jerry Bergonzi, Carla Bley, Ernestine Anderson, Larry Coryell, and countless others. He’s appeared on more than 100 albums, and was inducted into the Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame in 2008, and named a "Jazz Hero" by the Jazz Journalists Association in 2019. In 1997, Bishop started the jazz label Origin Records (named Jazzweek’s 2009 “Label Of The Year”) and OriginArts, a graphic design & CD production company, to help further the exposure of creative artists and their music. In partnership with his ex-drum student, Matt Jorgensen, they have released over 750 recordings by 370 artists from around the world. In 2002 they added another jazz label, OA2 Records, a classical imprint, Origin Classical in 2008, and in 2003 began Seattle’s annual 4-day Ballard Jazz Festival. Bishop has designed over 800 CD packages and multiple book covers, banners, posters, and other graphics for clients around the globe. He was on the PNW chapter Board of Governors of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, and annually takes part in multiple music conferences & events, including MIDEM (Cannes), the Grammys, JazzConnect (NYC), JazzWeek (San Jose), NAMM, PASIC, and JazzAhead (Bremen). Along with bassist Jeff Johnson, Bishop has been a member of New York pianist Hal Galper’s Trio for over a decade. In 2018, with the release of their 6th recording, “Cubist,” they’ve expanded to a quartet with the addition of master saxophonist Jerry Bergonzi. They also perform with Spanish pianist Chano Dominguez, and are members of the collective 15-year-old trio “Scenes” with guitarist John Stowell. Bishop has also been with the Chad McCullough / Bram Weijters Group, a Belgian/American project, since 2010. They've recorded 4 albums and tour Belgium annually. Born in Seattle and raised in Germany, Washington, DC, San Antonio and Eugene, Bishop started playing drums at 9 in Washington, DC with the Patriots drum corp. He played in multiple bands throughout jr. high, high school and college, attending the University of Oregon and North Texas State University.
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Jared Hall: Influences
by Paul Rauch
Jazz music has proliferated through generations traditionally by means of the oral tradition--meaning that knowledge is passed on by mentors, some by personal connection and others by more casual means. In modern times, this tradition lives alongside the jazz school phenomenon, where classrooms and studios incubate talent, while students inescapably still must pay their dues on the bandstand, playing with musicians that are more accomplished and more experienced. Trumpeter Jared Hall has for years straddled that fine line ...
Continue ReadingHadley Caliman / Pete Christlieb: Reunion
by Thomas Conrad
At the end of the first decade of the new millennium, one of the most gratifying developments in jazz is the late blossoming of Hadley Caliman. In 2008, at 76, he released Gratitude, his first recording as a leader in 31 years. It was followed in 2010 by Straight Ahead. They created a buzz on the jazz street. It is not just that he has lasted long enough to finally get the attention he deserves. Hadley Caliman is currently playing ...
Continue ReadingJohn Bishop / Bram Weijters / Piet Verbist: Antwerp
by Dan McClenaghan
Drummer John Bishop, the guy who runs Seattle's Origin Records, does not often put out records under his own name. There was Nothing If Not Something (Origin Records) in 2005, review here, and then nothing until the disc at hand, 2023's Antwerp. Not that Bishop has avoided the recording studio. He is, as a sideman, in fact quite prolific, sitting in on Hal Galper's string of rubato-style piano trio sets--one example: Trip the Light Fantastic (Origin Records, 2011), review here, ...
Continue ReadingBenjamin Boone: Caught in the Rhythm
by Paul Rauch
The connection between poetry and jazz music is a delicate one. It has been documented so infrequently, in performance and recordings, that one still conjures the flicker of an image of Jack Kerouac reading in some dark Greenwich Village cafe with Steve Allen or Zoot Sims, surrounded by beret-wearing, cappuccino-sipping beatniks. The work of Fresno-based saxophonist Benjamin Boone has assisted in widening that view through four albums recorded for the Origin Records label, including the fourth, Caught in the Rhythm ...
Continue ReadingHal Galper Trio: Trip the Light Fantastic
by Ken Dryden
This liner note assignment was very special to me, as it followed a phone interview that I did with Hal Galper that was a cover feature. Galper was ecstatic when it was published and called me one afternoon, exclaiming that the release date for his new CD was being moved up and he didn't have time to writer the liner notes, so he asked me if I was interested. With so much great material from the recent interview, all I ...
Continue ReadingScenes: Variable Clouds: Live at the Earshot Jazz Festival
by Paul Rauch
Scenes'' first album dates back to 2001, but the origins of the band dates back to the early 1990s, when saxophonist Rick Mandyck, bassist Jeff Johnson and drummer John Bishop initiated a trio gig. On occasion guitarist John Stowell would drop in if he was off the road and in Seattle. The band that began as a trio reverted back to that format after that inaugural recording, this time Stowell in tow as Mandyck slipped into a decade-long hiatus from ...
Continue ReadingScenes: Variable Clouds: Live at the Earshot Jazz Festival
by Dan McClenaghan
The group Scenes has released seven excellent albums over two decades of recording together, beginning with their eponymous debut (Origin Records, 2001). All of those are studio efforts. The group's 2022 outing, Variable Clouds is a first for Scenes--their first album recorded live in front of an audience, in 2021 at the Earshot Jazz Festival. This is a return to the group's original line-up. Saxophonist Rick Mandyck sat out for a time due to health problems, leaving Scenes ...
Continue ReadingCelebrating Origin Records at All About Jazz
Source:
All About Jazz
Origin Records is a Seattle-based independent jazz label, run for musicians by musicians. Their expansive catalog over sibling labels Origin & OA2 Records, covers a wide range of jazz from an international collection of 370 artists. All About Jazz interviewed the founders John Bishop and Matt Jorgensen in 2018 and you can read their story here. Approaching their 25th year as a record label, readers can discover some of the very best in modern jazz by listening to any of ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: John Bishop
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating John Bishop's birthday today!
“One can hear many influences in Bishop’s playing, including more than a touch of Elvin, but he is clearly an original voice…” - Percussive Note One of the primary voices in Northwest Jazz for 30 years, drummer John Bishop has performed in concerts and clubs with Bobby McFerrin, Lee Konitz, Slide Hampton, Benny Golson, George Cables, Kenny Werner, Bobby Hutcherson, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Joanne Brackeen, Carla Bley, Steve Swallow... Read more. ...
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Jazz Musician of the Day: John Bishop
Source:
Michael Ricci
All About Jazz is celebrating John Bishop's birthday today!
”...a wonderfully creative and fluid percussionist who weaves an often understated but complex web of textures...” - ALL ABOUT JAZZ One of the primary voices in Northwest Jazz for 30 years, drummer John Bishop has performed in concerts and clubs with Bobby McFerrin, Lee Konitz, Slide Hampton, Benny Golson, George Cables, Kenny Werner, Sonny Fortune, Bobby Hutcherson, Dr. Lonnie Smith, Tom Harrell, Herb Ellis, Buddy DeFranco... Read more.
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Jazz Musician of the Day: John Bishop
Source:
All About Jazz is celebrating John Bishop's birthday today!
”...a wonderfully creative and fluid percussionist who weaves an often understated but complex web of textures...” - ALL ABOUT JAZZ One of the primary voices in Northwest Jazz for 25 years, John Bishop\'s drumming has complemented the performances of Bobby McFerrin, Lee Konitz, Sonny Fortune, Bobby Hutcherson, Dr. Lonnie Smith, George Cables, Carla Bley, Joanne Brackeen, Slide Hampton, Kenny Werner, Benny Golson, Steve Swallow...”...a wonderfully creative and fluid percussionist who weaves ...
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Hal Galper, Jeff Johnson and John Bishop Play Birdland in NYC Tuesday Night
Source:
Seattle Jazz Scene
"Deft-limbed, wildly eclectic, and renowned for his sympathetic ear, Seattle drummer John Bishop is a veritable jazz-renaissance man who, besides founding his own label (Origin Records), has supported legends such as Bobby McFerrin, Carla Bley, and Slide Hampton." -Bumbershoot Festival Guide "On this adventurous, open-ended trio outing, the Seattle-based drummer and founder of Origin Records forges an extraordinary, freewheeling chemistry with kindred spirits Jeff Johnson on bass and Rick Mandyck on alto sax. A ubiquitous figure on the northwest jazz scene, Bishop's first recording under his own name runs the gamut of dynamics from a spacious, hymnlike cover of Curtis Lundy's "Orange Blossom," underscored by Bishop's ultrasensitive brushwork, to an off-kilter funk number, Johnson's "Hurt Brothers," fueled by the drummer's insistent, slamming backbeats." -BILL MILKOWSKI (JazzTimes Review of "Nothing if Not Something") “The New Stories trio is likewise nothing less than extraordinary
Primary Instrument
Drums
Location
Seattle
Willing to teach
Advanced only
Credentials/Background
Private teaching for 35 years. Former faculty at the University of Washington.
Photos
Music
Song for Shaw
From: InfluencesBy John Bishop
Rücksichtslos
From: AntwerpBy John Bishop
Mississippi 1955 Confessional
From: Caught in the RhythmBy John Bishop
Tilbury Hill
From: Variable Clouds: Live at the...By John Bishop
Against Silence
From: The Poets Are GatheringBy John Bishop
Suspension
From: Trip the Light FantasticBy John Bishop
The Edge
From: Humble OriginsBy John Bishop
Three French Nuns
From: Silent PhotographerBy John Bishop
Comencio
From: ReunionBy John Bishop
All Day Pass
From: Nothing if Not SomethingBy John Bishop
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