Daily Dose Of Jazz…

Billy Bang was born on William Vincent Walker on September 20, 1947 in Mobile, Alabama and while he was still an infant his family moved to the Bronx in New York City. As a child he attended a special school for musicians in Harlem and being small in physical size was assigned a violin instead his first choices, the saxophone or drums. It was around this time that he acquired the nickname of “Billy Bang”, derived from a popular cartoon character.

Billy studied the violin until he earned a hardship scholarship to a private high school in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, at which point he abandoned the instrument due to a lack of a music program. He had difficulty adjusting to school life, encountering racism and developing confusion about his identity, and his later onset of schizophrenia.

Bang left the school after two years, attended a school in the Bronx, dropped out when he was drafted, at 18 joined the Army and arrived in Vietnam in time for the Tet Offensive. Returning from the war he became politically active, fell in with an underground group of revolutionaries, purchased weapons and impulsively bought another violin from the same pawnshop.

In 1977, Bang co-founded the String Trio of New York with guitarist James Emery and bassist John Lindberg, exploring his experience in Vietnam in two albums: Vietnam: The Aftermath and Vietnam: Reflections.

Free jazz composer and violinist Billy Bang passed away on April 11, 2011 from complications due to lung cancer. He is survived by a legacy of some three-dozen albums.

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