Arthur
Juini Booth, bassist/composer, Aquarician, lives and works in
NewYork City.
Playing professionally
since 16, Juini Booth has expanded the range of the contrabass
into a refined personal language of intense acoustic awareness
and spatiality of sound. Firmly rooted in the forefront of the
American jazz tradition, which he has helped to shape, Booth's
music also integrates influences from world music, emerging beyond
the boundaries of categories to express the poetics of universal
humanness. His compositions reflect a masterful use of simple
melodic themes developed through unexpected harmonies, unusual
tonal qualities and time relationships, inviting the listener
to a new level of musical perception.
Booth , has
performed and toured for over 30 years with jazz musicians from
Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers to Tony Williams Lifetime to
Coleman Hawkins to Albert Ayler to Chuck Mangione to Sun Ra to
McCoy Tyner.
Juini tours
extensively in Western and Eastern Europe, performing solo bass
concerts in the U.S., Canada and Japan. Some career highlights
have been a concert with Randy Weston at the Tangiers Jazz Festival,
Morocco; and with Sun Ra Arkestra in Tiblisi,Georgia (USSR) a
film of painter Larry Rivers entitled "Round Trip."
He received
the Mingus-Zimmerman Award sponsored by ISB (International Society
of Bassists) for Most Imaginative Performance in the Free Choice
Category Music Curator at Hallwalls in Buffalo New York (1981-82)
and at NAC Niagara Arts Council in St. Catherine's, Ontario (1991).
His compositional work has been supported by an NEA composers'
grant, CAPS, and Meet the Composer. ...Booth is currently focusing
on composing new works for contrabass, and collaborative projects
with artists of other disciplines, as well as teaching and recording.
Recording
credits include: Shelley Mann, McCoy Tyner (3 albums), Freddie
Hubbard, Elvin Jones, Sun Ra, Hamiet Bluiett, and many other artists.
Selected
works:
- New Work
for Solo Bass, premiered at The Rivoli and The Music Gallery,
Toronto, Ontario, 1992; followed by 4-city tour of Ontario,
Canada.
- Suite
for Solo Contrabass, premiered at Ali's Alley, New York City,
1978. This is a set of five solo works from which many tangential
compositions have been developed and performed.
- Journey
to Enlightenment, solo contrabass, recorded on McCoy Tyner's "Enlightenment" album (Milestones label), in performance
at Montreux, France, 1973. Since that time, this piece has been
performed in many venues throughout Europe and is considered
a signature work.
- For Bean,
recorded on Contemporary Records with Shelley Mann's group,
Hollywood, CA, 1969
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