Jump to content

Composer Steve Chambers


bertrand

Recommended Posts

  • 8 years later...
  • 2 weeks later...

I was in his Free Jazz Ensemble at Nassau Community College. It was fun, but he took that shit a little too seriously. He told me once that I could "hear around corners".

I told him I couldn't make a rehearsal, because I had a 'club date', and he started yelling at me, telling me that I was prostituting myself, and kicked me out of the Ensemble.

A blues guitar player friend of mine took his Jazz Survey course, and kept asking him one day in class about Bird's use of the pentatonic scale. Hakim kept ignoring him, but my friend kept asking him.

Finally, at the end of the class, my friend went up to him, and tapped him on the back, asking him, "How did Charlie Parker use the pentatonic scale in his solos"?

Hakim turned around, and punched him so hard that he knocked out a bunch of my friend's teeth! He sued Hakim for about 20K, and they kicked him out of the college.

Edited by sgcim
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, sgcim said:

I was in his Free Jazz Ensemble at Nassau Community College. It was fun, but he took that shit a little too seriously. He told me once that I could "hear around corners".

I told him I couldn't make a rehearsal, because I had a 'club date', and he started yelling at me, telling me that I was prostituting myself, and kicked me out of the Ensemble.

A blues guitar player friend of mine took his Jazz Survey course, and kept asking him one day in class about Bird's use of the pentatonic scale. Hakim kept ignoring him, but my friend kept asking him.

Finally, at the end of the class, my friend went up to him, and tapped him on the back, asking him, "How did Charlie Parker use the pentatonic scale in his solos"?

Hakim turned around, and punched him so hard that he knocked out a bunch of my friend's teeth! He sued Hakim for about 20K, and they kicked him out of the college.

anger issues!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 years later...
On 3/9/2019 at 5:54 AM, 7/4 said:

anger issues!

Wow! I took his Black Music course at Nassau Community College in 1971. It was a strange experience, but at least he didn't punch me!  I think he thought I was some jive-a** hippie who didn't know anything about Black music.  Then one day another student--who was a major jerk and bully, but I felt was getting a free pass because he was Black--started condemning classical music. I said,  "What about when Ornette Coleman writes for string quartets and orchestras?" and his reply was "I don't give a d### about no Ornette Coleman!" I didn't find out until later that Chambers/Hakim had extensively studied classical composers, composed for orchestras, and was friends with Ornette. So after that, he started grudgingly cutting me some slack. The next year, I switched to Adelphi University and was surprised to see him teaching there. I'm surprised they hired him after hearing how he left Nassau Community.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...