About Me
In a jazz climate that rewards neo-conservative tributes and far-flung exercises in deconstruction, David Weiss has distinguished himself another way: through finding flexibility and innovation in the mainstream. The trumpeter, composer, and arranger has had the opportunity to learn from some of the music's quintessential figures. Weiss was born in New York City, but began his musical studies in earnest by attending North Texas State University. He graduated in 1986 and returned to New York. He soon found work with Jaki Byard, Frank Foster and Jimmy Heath and began to study with fellow trumpeters Tommy Turrentine and Bill Hardman. He also attended Barry Harris' weekly workshops, a valuable learning experience for Weiss and an opportunity for him to play with Mr. Harris and Walter Davis Jr. Weiss also began leading the "After Hours" jam session at the Blue Note with many of the up and coming musicians of the day including Stephen Scott, Winard Harper, Leon Parker, Sam Newsome, Justin Robinson and Rodney Kendrick. Among the musicians he performed with during his tenure were Roy Hargrove, Clifford Jordon, Mulgrew Miller, Jeff Watts, Terence Blanchard, Benny Green, and Billy Hart. ************************************************************
****************In 1990, Weiss formed a band with tenor saxophonist Craig Handy and began performing in various clubs around New York. The bands various personnel included Benny Green, Stephen Scott, or Dave Kikoski on piano, Christian McBride on bass, and Billy Hart or Jeff Watts on drums. Weiss also assisted Handy with music to the NBC series "The Cosby Mysteries" and arranged the main theme for the show. Weiss began getting more calls for his arranging and transcribing skills. His arrangements/transcriptions have appeared on over 80 CDs. Highlights include CDs by Abbey Lincoln, Freddie Hubbard, and Rodney Kendrick, Alto Legacy with Phil Woods, Vincent Herring, and Antonio Hart, and a Rahsaan Roland Kirk tribute CD entitled Haunted Melodies featuring Joe Lovano, Donald Harrison, James Spaulding and many others. Weiss also arranged the music and performed on a series of tribute concerts to trumpet greats Freddie Hubbard, Booker Little, and Lee Morgan at Birdland in New York City. The personnel included fellow trumpeters Tom Harrell, Nicholas Payton, Roy Hargrove, Randy Brecker, Terell Stafford, Brian Lynch, Eddie Henderson, and Claudio Roditi and rhythm section greats Pete LaRoca, Jimmy Cobb, and Idris Muhammad. ************************************************************
****************In 1996, recognizing a lack of serious new jazz writing, Weiss recruited some young, first-call New York musicians and composers to form the New Jazz Composers Octet. With their passionate rendering of thoughtful arrangements and firm rooting in tradition, the collective quickly established itself as the "sound of the new jazz mainstream" (Ben Ratliff, NYTimes) and was praised for their ability to "stretch hard bops kind-of-unstretchable formula (Jim Macnie, Village Voice). Of Weiss' contribution to the Octet's 1999 recording debut, First Steps Into Reality (Fresh Sound Records), Willard Jenkins commented, "a skilled arranger, transcriber and all-round coordinator, Weiss also brings righteous trumpet chops to this potent mix." (Jazz Times). The CD was also lauded as a "gem" and received a Critic's Pick as one of the Top 5 Albums of the Year in Jazz Times. ************************************************************
***************
Weiss first developed an interest in writing for octet while arranging a couple of Freddie Hubbard compositions for the Hubbard album M.M.T.C. Both Weiss and Hubbard liked the miniature big band sound and decided to collaborate on another album of arrangements of several of Hubbard's more distinctive pieces from throughout his great career. In 2001, Hubbard recorded these selections with the New Jazz Composers Octet on New Colors (Hip Bop). The London Observer praised the Octet's "fine, surging ensemble sound" on the recording, as well as the group's "canny mixture of youth and experience," and finally observed, "Trumpeter-arranger David Weiss is definitely a name to watch." ************************************************************
****************The octet released their second CD Walkin' the Line (Fresh Sound Records) in 2003 to great critical acclaim which included being voted one of the critic's top ten picks of the year in JazzWise magazine. Weiss used his compositions from this CD to win the prestigious Chamber Music America Doris Duke Jazz Ensembles Project: New Works Creation and Presentation grant, which provides funds to a composer to create a new work for his ensemble. The octet is currently working on their third CD The Turning Gate and Weiss has already used his compositions from this album to win a grant from the American Composers Forum's Jerome Composers Commissioning Program. ************************************************************
***************In 2002, Weiss released his first album as a leader Breathing Room (Fresh Sound Records) featuring Craig Handy, Xavier Davis, Dwayne Burno, Marcus Strickland, and E.J. Strickland. The CD received great critical acclaim from JazzWise (4 stars, recommended, their highest rating), Down Beat (4 stars) and 52nd Street (41/z stars) among many others. He followed his debut with the recently released CD entitled The Mirror (Fresh Sound Records) which has already been hailed as a masterpiece by AllAboutJazz and was voted the .. 2 CD of the year (2004) by Tony Hall in JazzWise Magazine. ************************************************************
***************2005 finds Weiss touring the world with Freddie Hubbard and the New Jazz Composers Octet, The Charles Tolliver Big Band, "The Cookers" featuring James Spaulding and Pete "LaRoca" Sims, and the Clifford Brown 75th Birthday trumpet summit band featuring Nicholas Payton, Terell Stafford, Tom Harrell, and Jimmy Cobb ********************Selected Discography *********************************************************
Recordings ************************************************************
*****
David Weiss "The Mirror" Fresh Sound *****************************************
David Weiss "Breathing Room" Fresh Sound ************************************
New Jazz Composers Octet "Walkin' the Line" Fresh Sound ************************
New Jazz Composers Octet "First Steps Into Reality" Fresh Sound *********************As a sideman ************************************************************
***************
Freddie Hubbard and The New Jazz Composers Octet "New Colors" Hip Bop Records *** Charles Tolliver Big Band "With Love" Blue Note ********************************** Bob Belden "Prince Jazz" Something Else ***************************************
Bob Belden "Shades of Red" Something Else **************************************
Tom Harrell Big Band "Time's Mirror" BMG ****************************************
NY Funk All-Stars "Hip Hop Bop" Meldac Jazz ************************************ Bop City "Hip Strut" Hip Bop Records ************************************************************
*****************As an arranger ************************************************************
****
Alto Legacy "Alto Summit" Milestone ********************************************
Tim Hagans/Marcus Printup "Hubsongs" Blue Note *********************************
Freddie Hubbard "M.M.T.C." Music Masters **************************************
Rodney Kendrick "Dance World Dance" Verve ************************************
Rodney Kendrick "Last Chance For Common Sense" Verve *************************
Abbey Lincoln "Over the Years" Verve *****************************************
Bheki Mseleku "Beauty of the Sunrise" Verve ***********************************
Various Artists/The Songs of Rahsaan Roland Kirk "Haunted Melodies" Metropolitan ******As a producer ************************************************************
***
New Jazz Composers Octet "Walkin' the Line" Fresh Sound **********************
Freddie Hubbard and The New Jazz Composers Octet "New Colors" Hip Bop Records ****
New Jazz Composers Octet "First Steps into Reality" Fresh Sound *******************
Jeremy Pelt "Profile" Fresh Sound *********************************************
Gregory Tardy "The Hidden Light" J Curve *************************************
Ralph Peterson "Back to Stay" Sirocco *****************************************
Robert Glasper "Mood" Fresh Sound ********************************************
Marcus Strickland "Brotherhood" Fresh Sound ***********************************
Marcus Strickland "At Last" Fresh Sound ***************************************
Myron Walden "Higher Ground" Fresh Sound ************************************
Xavier Davis "Innocence of Youth" Fresh Sound *********************************
Mark Gross "Riddle of the Sphinx" J Curve ************************************************************
****************What the critics are saying......................................................
......................"Now with The Mirror, he demonstrates that Breathing Room was no fluke as he serves up a programme marking him as one of the more cerebral yet visceral writers to arise in recent years. With an album that is heady in both senses of the word-intelligent and exhilarating-Weiss emerges as one of the finest artists to mine the post bop arena, with an ability to develop longer-form composition that is clearly indebted to Wayne Shorter. Not since Dave Douglas rose to prominence in the mid-'90s has a trumpet player come along with such a perfect combination of technical prowess, unerring instinct for captivating melody, harmony and counterpoint, and sheer emotional force. A masterpiece by any definition, The Mirror deserves a place high in most listeners' top ten lists for '04 for its ability to engage more than just the ears; Weiss' compositions are remarkably visual as well"......................................................J
ohn Kelman All About Jazz ***********
"The compositions and especially the colourful, warm, often pedal-point punctuated arrangements show how rapidly Weiss is maturing. His writing may well be initially inspired by what Wayne Shorter was doing for Miles in the mid '60s, but it is totally contemporary in its expansion of that era's unfinished business. And his two scores for the larger line-up are exceptional. The outstanding work on this album is The Mirror which he dedicates to Tarkovsky. The emotional depth of the scoring and the solos make it really something special. So is the whole album. Watch for Weiss. He's a major new talent. One of my 2004 Top Three CDs"..................................-Tony Hall JazzWise Magazine **************
Weiss writes tunes with evocative melodic ambivalence and veering surprises and hovering pedal points and metrical asymmetry, all qualities associated with the sensibility that Wayne Shorter brought to jazz. But Weiss does not repeat it, he expands upon it"..................................-Thomas Conrad Downbeat Magazine *****************
"Wayne Shorter's influence may be apparent in the charts and Freddie Hubbard's in the playing, but Weiss' craftsmanship and individuality in both areas lift his music out of retrograde movement. It is an indicator of his skill that his five compositions complement the Shorter compositions on the album. Weiss' writing suggests that a major composer/arranger may be developing" ............................................................
....... Doug Ramsey Jazz Times Magazine ***
"Rather than re-creating the music of the artists he respects, as, say, The Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra does, Weiss combines the hard-bop vocabulary he loves with his own ideas for an updating of the music. With too few small groups working from tightly arranged music, not to mention from new difficult-to-play compositions, Weiss' sextet deserves attention for the opportunity to enjoy too-seldom-heard musicians who have matured musically ahead of their time. As did the earlier generation of musicians they revere".......................................-Don Williamson 52nd Street Jazz ***********
"Solid is key term here. Not in any "pedestrian" sense but in a more architectural one. Strong foundations, historically and structurally, and plenty of freedom and imagination in the design that goes on top, that is how Breathing Room operates. And, believe me, the operation is wholly successful." .............-Maurice Bottomley Pop Matters ***********"Weiss has everything that makes a jazz trumpeter great: a full-bodied sound, a complete command of the instrument, a thorough knowledge of the tradition and an intelligent application of those talents. He may be lesser known of the current trumpet kings, but this splendid recording will change that"..............-Eugene Holley Jr. JazzUSA *************"The influence of Wayne Shorter looms large over Breathing Room both in composition and execution. Weiss borrows from the Shorter muse with haunting themes, deceptive intros and tough playing, but he is far too restless an artist to settle for imitation. His own compositions like "Breathing Room" and "Dark Forces" deliver intelligently paced, emotionally charged hard bop that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Shorter gems like "Armageddon" and "Those Who Sit And Wait." ...........-Ken Hohman All About Jazz
