Gayle Dixon

Here's a wonderfully informative and inspiring account of the career of one of the great string players in jazz, violinist Gayle Dixon, who together with her sister, cellist Akua Dixon, has brought the clarity and scope of classical string playing to the realm of jazz performance. In addition to her extensive work as a music educator and union organizer, Gayle was an original member and first violinist of the Uptown String Quartet and Quartette Indigo, has performed with singers such as Sarah Vaughan and Tony Bennett, and recorded with major jazz artists such as Woody Shaw, Max Roach (The Max Roach Double Quartet is pictured left), Steve Turre and James Newton. An excerpt from the essay-interview:

Dixon's music studies began at a time when enormous cultural opportunities were available to New Yorkers. For one thing, she notes, there were many community orchestras, opera companies and chamber music groups that she and her sister Akua, a cellist, could play with after school. Her professional career also began early. "In junior high school my sister and I earned money by playing in churches. We would play three or four Messiahs on the Sunday before Christmas."

After attending Performing Arts High School, she won a scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with Stanley Bednar for four years. She then studied violin with Raphael Bronstein and chamber music coached by Harold Berkley and his wife. She was awarded a Martha Baird Rockefeller Music Assistance Fund fellowship, and later studied violin with Sam Kissell and Burton Kaplan.

Along with her classical training, Dixon was deeply influenced by the music she grew up with: the blues, spirituals and gospel music. She also heard Latin music in her neighborhood, and has subsequently done a lot of work in that field.

Dixon's college roommate found out about the Symphony of the New World, which had been formed by a group of activist musicians in the early 1960s to give opportunities to Black musicians, and both of them played for the conductor, Benjamin Steinberg. "One of my finest musical experiences as a young musician was playing in the first chair octet of the Symphony of the New World, and in the octet for young players, which was funded by a Ford Foundation grant," Dixon recalls. "We rehearsed three or four times a week and played string quartet and octet concerts in New York City and the surrounding areas. Several people in the fellowship program went on to major orchestras."

Among the people who helped her get started were Selwart Clarke, Al Brown, Kermit Moore, Julien Barber and Sanford Allen. "Raphael Bronstein's daughter, Ariana Bronne, hired me to sub for her at the Palace Theatre, where I met Mel Rodnon. He hired me to work at the Westbury Music Fair and on Broadway while I was still in school, and is the contractor of Phantom. Red Press hired me over a period of many years."

Dixon has worked closely since the beginning of her career with her sister, cellist Akua Dixon Turre, a composer and arranger. "Akua has written many works, including a body of work for symphonic strings, compositions for string quartet, an oratorio based on the poetry of Henry Dumas, and a wonderful opera that I hope she will complete some day. Over the years I played in many ensembles she formed to play her music." Akua is married to jazz trombonist Steve Turre, a member of the Saturday Night Live band, and Gayle has also worked on many of his projects, including his CD "Fire & Ice," which featured Quartette Indigo.

She was among a group of 30 Black string players who founded The String Reunion in 1976, at violinist Noel Pointer's initiative, "to develop a repertoire of music by Black composers. We held workshops and presented concerts, classical as well as jazz, and were hired to do concerts and record dates," Dixon recalls. "Akua was the music director, and her compositions were the foundation of our repertoire.

"The most gratifying work I've done musically has been string quartets, and some of the most demanding has been as a string player in a jazz environment. The first time I played string quartet with jazz ensemble was a concert for McCoy Tyner at Town Hall about 1970. Akua put together a jazz string quartet to play at the Village Gate in 1972. I did lots of interesting projects with Jazzmobile, with the Collective Black Artists, with Charles Tolliver and Stanley Cowell for Strata East Records, and for The New Muse (the Community Museum of Brooklyn), where Reggie Workman was director."

She has also worked with many of the Latin greats, including Tito Puente and the great Cuban bassist, Israel "Cachao" Lopez, and has also worked and recorded with many popular charanga groups, including Lou Perez y su charanga and Tipica Novel.

Read it all.