Latest news with #Ubiquity
The Age
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
‘You could feel her in the room': Carla Zampatti label returns to form
It's out with the new and in with the old as the Carla Zampatti label celebrated its 60th anniversary by opening Australian Fashion Week at Circular Quay in Sydney on Monday night. Behind the scenes at this year's annual industry event everything is different, with new operators the Australian Fashion Council and fewer big names on the schedule, but the spectacular runway show by Carla Zampatti was as comforting as one of the brand's signature black crepe gowns. 'Opening AFW is an honour that we don't take for granted,' says Alexander Schuman, Carla Zampatti chief executive, and son of the designer who died following a fall in April 2021. 'Mum was always altruistic towards the industry.' 'This collection is a bold statement of where we are, offering a contemporary DNA for the next generation of customers.' With a focus on separates and fresh blazer silhouettes alongside evening wear, it is deliberately not as bold as last year's fashion week presentation, where risque sheer pieces and plunging cuts had traditional customers clutching their Paspaley pearls. Loading Captains of industry, newsreaders and mothers of the bride who worship Zampatti as the patron saint of style can relax. 'The shift is a sign of the times because women have moved into a different space,' Schuman says. 'It's no longer all about the glamour of the gown. There's still sex appeal for the fashion-forward customer in their 30s, but we are thinking about the professional woman who is the mainstay of the brand.' Adding a layer of new to Carla Zampatti's aesthetic, so familiar that the collection is called Ubiquity, were dresses by designers including Christopher Esber, Akira Isogawa and Zampatti's daughter Bianca Spender. Rather than challenge customers, these pieces were designed for the Powerhouse Museum.
Sydney Morning Herald
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘You could feel her in the room': Carla Zampatti label returns to form
It's out with the new and in with the old as the Carla Zampatti label celebrated its 60th anniversary by opening Australian Fashion Week at Circular Quay in Sydney on Monday night. Behind the scenes at this year's annual industry event everything is different, with new operators the Australian Fashion Council and fewer big names on the schedule, but the spectacular runway show by Carla Zampatti was as comforting as one of the brand's signature black crepe gowns. 'Opening AFW is an honour that we don't take for granted,' says Alexander Schuman, Carla Zampatti chief executive, and son of the designer who died following a fall in April 2021. 'Mum was always altruistic towards the industry.' 'This collection is a bold statement of where we are, offering a contemporary DNA for the next generation of customers.' With a focus on separates and fresh blazer silhouettes alongside evening wear, it is deliberately not as bold as last year's fashion week presentation, where risque sheer pieces and plunging cuts had traditional customers clutching their Paspaley pearls. Loading Captains of industry, newsreaders and mothers of the bride who worship Zampatti as the patron saint of style can relax. 'The shift is a sign of the times because women have moved into a different space,' Schuman says. 'It's no longer all about the glamour of the gown. There's still sex appeal for the fashion-forward customer in their 30s, but we are thinking about the professional woman who is the mainstay of the brand.' Adding a layer of new to Carla Zampatti's aesthetic, so familiar that the collection is called Ubiquity, were dresses by designers including Christopher Esber, Akira Isogawa and Zampatti's daughter Bianca Spender. Rather than challenge customers, these pieces were designed for the Powerhouse Museum.
New York Times
06-03-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Roy Ayers, Vibraphonist Who Injected Soul Into Jazz, Dies at 84
Roy Ayers, a vibraphonist who in the 1970s helped pioneer a new, funkier strain of jazz, becoming a touchstone for many artists who followed and one of the most sampled musicians by hip-hop artists, died on Tuesday in New York City. He was 84. His death was announced on his Facebook page. The announcement said he died after a long illness but did not specify a cause or say where in New York he died. In addition to being one of the acknowledged masters of the jazz vibraphone, Mr. Ayers was a leader in the movement that added electric instruments, rock and R&B rhythms, and a more soulful feel to jazz. He was also one of the more commercially successful jazz musicians of his generation. He released nearly four dozen albums, most notably 22 during his 12 years with Polydor Records. Twelve of his Polydor albums spent a collective 149 weeks on the Billboard Top 200 chart. His composition 'Everybody Loves the Sunshine,' from a 1976 album of the same name, has been sampled nearly 200 times by artists including Tupac Shakur, Dr. Dre, Mary J. Blige and Snoop Dogg. The electric piano hook from 'Love,' on his first Polydor album, 'Ubiquity' — which introduced his group of the same name — was used in Deee-Lite's 1990 dance hit 'Groove Is in the Heart.' 'Roy Ayers is largely responsible for what we deem as 'neo-soul,'' the producer Adrian Younge, who collaborated with Mr. Ayers and Ali Shaheed Muhammad of the hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest in 2020 on the second album in the 'Jazz Is Dead' series, which showcases frequently sampled jazz musicians, told Clash magazine. 'His sound mixed with cosmic soul-jazz is really what created artists like Erykah Badu and Jill Scott. It was just that groove. 'That's not to say people around then weren't making music with a groove," he added, 'but he is definitely a pioneer.' Roy Edward Ayers Jr. was born on Sep. 12, 1940, in Los Angeles, one of four children, and the only son, of Roy and Ruby Ayers. His father was a scrap dealer and an amateur trombonist; his mother, a schoolteacher and piano tutor, gave Roy lessons from an early age. Speaking to the English newspaper The Nottingham Post in 2013, Mr. Ayers recalled that his first exposure to the vibraphone came via a giant of the instrument, when his parents took young Roy to see him perform: 'I got my first set of vibraphone mallets from Lionel Hampton when I was 5 years old, so I always wanted to be like Lionel Hampton. At one time, when I was very young, I was thinking I was going to be Lionel Hampton. My mother and father always played his music, so I was reared on Lionel Hampton.' Mr. Ayers studied music and music history with the celebrated instructor Samuel R. Browne, whose other students included Dexter Gordon and Charles Mingus, while attending Thomas Jefferson High School in Los Angeles. He made his first records in the months after his 21st birthday, under the leadership of the saxophonists Curtis Amy and Vi Redd. He made his debut as a leader before he turned 23 with the aptly titled United Artists album 'West Coast Vibes.' Mr. Ayers received his first national exposure in 1966, when he joined the band of the flutist Herbie Mann, one of the more successful musicians in jazz at the time. He would go on to make 11 albums as a member of Mr. Mann's group for Atlantic Records and Mr. Mann's own label, Embryo. Mr. Mann helped him get a contract with Atlantic and produced his four albums for the label and Columbia Japan between 1967 and 1969. Those were instrumental albums very much in keeping with the post-bop style of the era, but the Laura Nyro-written title track of his 1968 album, 'Stoned Soul Picnic,' with its use of electric bass and a horn section emulating the sound of a church choir and electric bass, foretold Mr. Ayers's next period. In 1970, he formed the Roy Ayers Ubiquity, the band with which he would become a soul-jazz star. The name was suggested by his manager, Myrna Williams — and, he explained in a 2016 oral interview for website The HistoryMakers, the choice 'was wonderful, because I can tell everybody I can be everywhere at the same time.' After his contract with Atlantic ended, Mr. Ayers began a long and fruitful partnership with Polydor. He and his band released 11 albums from 1970 to 1977, with such evocative titles as 'Change Up the Groove' and 'Vibrations.' In addition to using electric instruments and producing grooves more suited to a dance floor than a jazz club, the Roy Ayers Ubiquity included vocals by Mr. Ayers. Some members of the group were featured on Mr. Ayers's soundtrack for the 1973 blaxploitation film 'Coffy,' starring Pam Grier. While the group was popular and would ultimately prove highly influential, it received a mixed reaction from critics. Reviewing a performance at the Village Vanguard in New York in December 1970, John S. Wilson of The New York Times wrote, 'Even though Mr. Ayers gets a hard, heavy tone from his vibraphone, his playing is often buried under the eruptive power of his accompaniment or is absorbed by the very similar sound of the electric piano.' Mr. Wilson went on to say that the fuzztone attachment Mr. Ayers had added to his vibes 'produces a rasping noise, which, in its amplified state, gives one an all too vivid idea of what it might be like to be locked in a closet with a troupe of demented bagpipers.' Much as Mr. Ayers's career had been nurtured by Mr. Mann, he would nurture his younger charges in Ubiquity; he also produced an album by the group, without him, in 1978. The keyboardist Philip Woo, who was part of the band in its later stages and continued to work with Mr. Ayers after Ubiquity's dissolution in the early 1980s, wrote in an email: 'Roy Ayers discovered me in Seattle in 1976 when I was 19. It is very unusual for an artist to pick up musicians while on tour, so I was very fortunate for this to happen. I was in local bands until then. I credit him for launching my career.' Three of Mr. Ayers's most significant albums were collaborations: with the trombonist Wayne Henderson, a founder of The Jazz Crusaders, in 1978 and 1980, and with the Afrobeat trailblazer Fela Kuti in 1980. That album, 'Music of Many Colors,' was recorded in Mr. Kuti's native Nigeria. Mr. Ayers was the inspiration for the 2022 memoir 'My Life in the Sunshine: Searching for My Father and Discovering My Family,' by the musician and record producer Nabil Ayers, who wrote of growing up as Mr. Ayers's son even though Mr. Ayers played no role in raising him. Information on other survivors was not immediately available. In the last decades of his career, Mr. Ayers recorded for several different labels while staying loyal to the genre he had helped create. He also made guest appearances on albums by Rick James, Whitney Houston, George Benson, the rapper Guru and others. Discussing his legacy as an artist and entertainer with The HistoryMakers, Mr. Ayers said: 'There's an old saying, when you do what you do, you do it to others too. My legacy is that I can make everybody happy. Everybody, even the negative ones.'
Yahoo
06-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Roy Ayers, Jazz-Funk Virtuoso, Dead at 84
Roy Ayers, the jazz vibraphonist whose smooth fusion planted the seeds of acid jazz and neo-soul, died Wednesday at the age of 84. Ayers's family confirmed his death on the musician's Facebook page. 'It is with great sadness that the family of legendary vibraphonist, composer, and producer Roy Ayers announce his passing which occurred on March 4, 2025 in New York City after a long illness.' A specific cause of death was not immediately available. More from Rolling Stone George Lowe, Voice of Space Ghost on 'Coast to Coast,' Dead at 67 Joey Molland, Badfinger Guitarist, Dead at 77 Angie Stone, Neo-Soul Singer, Dead at 63 Originally a practitioner of hard bop, Ayers eased into jazz fusion in the early 1970s, a transition he underscored by forming the group Roy Ayers Ubiquity. Cultivating a smooth signature sound that wove lush soul, elastic jazz, and tight funk, Ayers emphasized rhythm and texture, a combination that gave him a handful of crossover R&B hits; 'Running Away' cracked Billboard's R&B Top 20 in 1977, with 'Hot' matching that feat in 1985. It was a blend that also made his work ripe for sampling. 'Everybody Loves the Sunshine,' a Ubiquity track from 1976, became a ubiquitous sample in the 1990s after being featured in Mary J. Blige's 'My Life.' Over the years, Ayers's music was sampled by Dr. Dre, Kendrick Lamar, A Tribe Called Quest, Kanye West, Common, and Tyler the Creator, among scores of other acts. 'Roy Ayers was kind of a godfather of the contemporary vibes. He brought a different element to his sound, compared to everybody else,' vibraphonist Warren Wold told the New York Times last year. 'Roy's music is something you can jam to and have a good time, or you can just sit back and hang out with it in the background. The vibe is always strong.' A native of Los Angeles, Ayers was born September 10, 1940. Raised in a musical household, he found himself drawn to the vibraphone after witnessing Lionel Hampton's Big Band when he was five years old. Soon, he learned piano and sang in a church choir but didn't acquire his first vibraphone until he was 17. As he studied music theory at Los Angeles City College, he played jazz in nightclubs. The first time Ayers appeared on record was on a session by saxophonist Curtis Amy. By 1963, he had his own recording contract, releasing his debut album West Coast Vibes in 1963. Ayers began to gain widespread recognition for his collaboration with flutist Herbie Mann. The vibraphonist joined Mann's band in 1966, a favor the flutist returned by producing three albums for Ayers in the late sixties, sessions that helped push the vibraphonist toward funkafied fusion. Signing with Polydor, Ayers released Ubiquity in 1970, swiftly forming a group named after the album. His burgeoning jazz-funk had a cinematic flair that flowered on his soundtrack for the seminal blaxploitation film Coffy in 1973. Ayers hit his groove in the mid-1970s, releasing Everybody Loves The Sunshine, the 1976 album that became the cornerstone of his legacy. Its warm, comforting vibes turned it into an enduring standard that eclipsed its chart position, thanks considerably to it being repurposed on hip-hop records by generations of musicians raised on his music. Ayers continued to play fusion as the cult around his old records coalesced. He embraced the newer musicians who created acid jazz, neo-soul, and jazz-rap out of his albums. He appeared on Guru's pioneering 1993 album Jazzmatazz Vol. 1 and, nearly a decade later, took advantage of his status in neo-soul circles with Mahogany Vibe, a 2004 record featuring appearances by Erykah Badu and Betty Wright. Ayers didn't record more albums after Mahogany Vibe but he didn't become a recluse. He cameoed on Tyler, The Creator's 'Find Your Wings,' then played with Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad on the 2020 album Roy Ayers JID002. Best of Rolling Stone The 50 Greatest Eminem Songs All 274 of Taylor Swift's Songs, Ranked The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time
