Founding Member & First Violin: Quartette Indigo, Founding Member & original First Violin: Max Roach Double Quartet, Founding Member & original First Violin: Uptown String Quartet
Founding Member, First Violin & President: The String Reunion
Solos on disc: Quartette Indigo/QI, James Newton/Luella (album nominated for Grand Prix du Disque @ Montreaux Jazz Festival, also #67 on Top 100 Jazz Albums of all Times web site), Steve Turre/Fire & Ice, Woody Shaw/For Sure, Buster Williams/Dreams Come True, Heartbeat, Carlos Franzetti/The Prime Element, James "Blood" Ulmer/Harmolodic Guitar with Strings.
Latin Music: performances & recordings: Lou Perez & su charanga, Orquesta Tipica Novel, Charanga 76, Nestor Torres II/no me provoques [featuring "The Afro American String Quartet"] (Suave/Kim Records 1981), Johnny Pacheco, Willie Colon, Hector Lavoe/Tu bien lo Sabes, Alfredo Rodriguez/Sonido Solido, Israel "Cachao" Lopez, Tito Puente, Charlie Palmieri, Machito, Alfredo de la Fe (nominated for Latin music award), Fania All-Stars, Hermeto Pascoal, Airto Moreira, Flora Purim. Numerous Latin recordings with and for noted violinist/arranger Eddie Drennon, also the disco classic, It Don't Mean A Thing [featured The String Reunion](Casablanca 1978).
String contractor & concertmaster: Walter Murphy/A Fifth of Beethoven (Private Stock, 1976).
Ensembles: MRDQ -- debut concert at KOOL Jazz Festival, Avery Fisher Hall/Lincoln Center, NYC (1982). First European tour of MRDQ (1983).
Quartette Indigo -- KOOL Jazz Festival (NYC), Berlin Jazz Festival (Germany).
AGA Trio (Amina Claudine Myers, Gayle Dixon & Akua Dixon)
Engaged by Ruth Ellington to perform Akua Dixon's string arrangements of Duke Ellington compositions
Jazz Festivals: Pori, Molde, Montmartre, Bari, Nickelsdorf, Lugano, Seville and others
Solo violin on stage (big band): Black & Blue (Broadway musical),
Many concerts for Great Performances (PBS-WNET/TV),including solo violin Black & Blue
Old King Cole's Jazz Fiddlers Three for Sesame Street -- recorded all three solo violin parts (Children's Television Workshop)
Many concerts with Collective Black Artists, Jazzmobile (elected Lifetime Honorary Member of Winnepeg Jazz Society).
World Music: Mantuila Nyomo, Youssou NDour (solo violin, David Letterman Show),
Featured performer - string quartet on stage: Dance Theatre of Harlem/South African Suite (music of the Soweto String Quartet) performances at City Center, Aaron Davis Hall (CUNY) and world-famous Apollo Theatre. Dance Theater of Harlem: Soloist -- Bach Double Violin Concerto, orchestra member for many years. Alvin Ailey Dance Co: orchestra member for many seasons, including performances with Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, with Wynton Marsalis, conductor,
Carnegie Hall Jazz Band, with Jon Faddis, conductor. Performances of re-constructed ballets by Katherine Dunham (Ms. Dunham supervising),
Studio work: recordings for Lena Horne, Tony Bennett, Carmen McRae, Cleo Laine, Archie Shepp, Phyllis Hyman, Wynton Marsalis/Hothouse Flowers, Kenny Barron, Charles Tolliver, Hubert Laws, Bernard "Pretty" Purdie, Steve Turre, Antonio Hart, and numerous others
Stage Orchestras: many NY, US and international performances with major artists including Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Sarah Vaughan, Shirley Bassey, Ray Charles, Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Wilson, Peggy Lee, Sammy Davis, Jr., Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Johnny Mathis, Diana Ross, Liza Minnelli, Michel Legrand, Charles Aznavour, Natalie Cole and many others at Carnegie Hall, Radio City Music Hall, Lincoln Center, City Center. Apollo Theatre: James Brown, Aretha Franklin and a host of others. Dionne Warwick at the Apollo Theatre, Westbury Music Fair, Carnegie Hall, and Monte Carlo Sporting Club, Monaco
Strings with Jazz Ensemble: McCoy Tyner, Yusef Lateef, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, An Evening with Cleo Laine & John Dankworth, Regina Carter/Paganini: After A Dream, at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center.
Fellowships: Ford Foundation, Martha Baird Rockefeller Foundation
Violin Teachers: Nathan Nathanson, Stanley Bednar, Raphael Bronstein, Sam Kissel, Burton Kaplan.
Chamber Music coaches: Lillian Fuchs, Samuel Applebaum, Charles Treger, Arianna Bronne.
Coached by Harry Glickman for string quartets and octets of Symphony of the New World.
Coached by Jimmy Heath for Quartette Indigo's recording of John Coltrane's Naima
Gayle Dixon, violinist
Music Industry & Writing
Member, Local 802 AFM, Associated Musicians of Greater NY. Elected member of the Trial Board and Executive Board of Local 802 AFM for many years
Featured Articles published in "Allegro" (journal of Local 802), won First Prize for Best Writing and Best Article in successive years from NY Labor Press Council. Subject was early Black violinists including Solomon Northrup, James Reese Europe, and Will Marion Cook.
Gayle Dixon, violinist
Teaching
Noel Pointer String Program: (1998-2002) Designed inaugural program, created curriculum and methodology, wrote method books, composed and arranged music, taught violin and ensemble, selected, trained and supervised teachers for string program in 16 public schools in Brooklyn, NY, created assessment program. A number of my students were admitted to the Juilliard School of Music MAP program.
Gayle Dixon, violinist
Broadway Theater This list is coming. Original orchestra member - "The Phantom of the Opera," Broadway company. 1988-2008 In the words of the timeless Negro Spiritual, "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last!"
Gayle Dixon, violinist
Current Employment
Violin instructor at two Independent Black schools in Brooklyn and the Bronx, NY (2003 to present), Students ages 3-12. Also maintain a private studio. Several former (and present) students are major artists.
Teacher & Clinician - Akua Dixon's Hip-Hop Blues Project President, Jazzbows Music
photo by Olive Pointer
Gayle Dixon, violinist
Affiliations
Local 802 AFM, Associated Musicians of Greater NY (AFM) American String Teachers Association (ASTA) ASTA String Industry Council International Association for Jazz Education (IAJE) The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Music Publishers Association (MPA) Recording Industy Association of America (RIAA) El-Sistema NY Steering Committee (El-SNYC) Strings Organized for Understanding and Learning (S.O.U.L.)
Gayle Dixon
Thank you for your interest! This page is far from complete -- only a portion of Gayle's resume relating to jazz strings has been included. Still to come -- the vast amount of work she has done in the classical, Broadway, popular, "legit," and commercial music fields.
