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Dorothy Ashby

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What The Heck Is That? Odd Instruments In Jazz

Hans Reichel's daxophone is a block of wood that changes the vibration frequency of a wooden blade inside another block with contact microphones. Above, the daxo tongues. Courtesy of the artist hide caption

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Courtesy of the artist

Take Five: A Jazz Sampler

What The Heck Is That? Odd Instruments In Jazz

WBGO

February 1, 2010 • Jazz is strange enough for some listeners. Dig a little deeper and it gets ever so bizarre. Some musicians take instruments from other traditions and make it their own. Some go for the big and bold. Others just invent. Hear the strange worlds of Cloud Chamber Bowls, the daxophone, mollusks and more.

Shadow Classics

Dorothy Ashby and a Harp That Swings

November 15, 2006 • Ashby swings, plain and simple. When she plays some mid-tempo scooting-along tune, all the stock riffage and jazz bravado common on so many '50s records disappears. Leading her chamber group, she operates in an unassuming way, leaping through intricate arpeggios that no other jazz instrumentalist could attempt.