Reynold D. Philipsek
Reynold D. Philipsek May 2010
Background information
Birth name	Reynold David Philipsek
Born	December 8, 1952 (age 58)
Origin	Richmond, Minnesota, U.S.
Genres	Gypsy jazz, jazz, rock, pop rock
Occupations	Guitarist, vocalist, composer, string arranger, guitar instructor
Instruments	Guitar, voice
Years active	1967 – present
Label	Rephi Records
Associated acts	East Side, Twin Cities Hot Club, Sidewalk Café
Website	http://www.reynold.com/

Reynold David Philipsek (born December 8, 1952) is an American musician

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, jazz guitarist, singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

 and poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

. Philipsek has released thirty-four CDs of original compositions since 1989. A member in good standing in the American Federation of Musicians

American Federation of Musicians

The American Federation of Musicians of the United States and Canada is a labor union of professional musicians in the United States and Canada...

 labor union since the age of 14, Philipsek has explored numerous musical genres including pop rock

Pop rock

Pop rock is a music genre which mixes a catchy pop style and light lyrics in its guitar-based rock songs. There are varying definitions of the term, ranging from a slower and mellower form of rock music to a subgenre of pop music...

, rock

Rock music

Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

, jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

, and gypsy jazz

Gypsy jazz

Gypsy jazz is an idiom often said to have been started by guitarist Jean "Django" Reinhardt in the 1930s. Because its origins are largely in France it is often called by the French name, "Jazz manouche," or alternatively, "manouche jazz," even in English language sources...

.

Philipsek’s work as a guitarist has been reviewed in Guitar Player, Acoustic Guitar, Vintage Guitar, Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

 and Downbeat, where Philipsek received a four star review at the age of 22. Philipsek was chosen as a Guitar Player Magazine Jazz Poll nominee for six consecutive years (1975 to 1980), has been nominated for five Minnesota Music Awards, and has had three songs in the iTunes

ITunes

iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad....

 Top 75 Gypsy Jazz Essentials.

Active as a composer and performer, Philipsek can be seen as a solo performer, and in numerous collaborative efforts. Philipsek has performed in support of national and international acts such as Connie Evingson

Connie Evingson

Connie Evingson is an American singer who performs jazz and pop music. She is lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She has been a guest soloist with the Minnesota Orchestra and the Toronto Symphony. She has appeared with Doc Severinsen and Bobby McFerrin...

, Clint Hoover, The Wolverines Big Band, Glen Helgeson, and Patrick Harison. Philipsek played with French Gypsy Jazz master Dorado Schmitt during his 2005 U.S. tour. On August 28, 2010, Philipsek was one of two opening acts for Leo Kottke

Leo Kottke

Leo Kottke is an acoustic guitarist. He is widely known for his innovative fingerpicking style, which draws on influences from blues, jazz, and folk music, and his syncopated, polyphonic melodies...

 at Bayfront Festival Park in Duluth, Minnesota.

In addition to writing, arranging and performing, Philipsek has been a guitar instructor for twenty-five years and has provided instruction to more than 2,700 students in both individual and group settings.

Early career

Philipsek began playing guitar at the age of 9, and joined the American Federation of Musicians (AFM) labor union at the age of 14 (1967). Philipsek has been a member in good standing with the AFM since that time. At the age of 16, Philipsek wrote and recorded the single Oval Portrait, and its B-side Stepping Stone, with the musical act Cure of Ares. Oval Portrait received enough mid-west regional radio airplay to garner an invitation to perform on the ABC Television show THE HAPPENING '69, produced by Dick Clark Productions, as an act performing in the band contest feature of the show. Cure of Ares taped on Sunday, April 20, 1969, for the Season 2, Episode 24 installment, which aired on May 17, 1969. The telecast included performances by Three Dog Night

Three Dog Night

Three Dog Night is an American rock band best known for their music from 1968 to 1975. During that time the band charted 21 Billboard top 40 hits in America, three of which reached Number One...

, and The Peppermint Rainbow

The Peppermint Rainbow

The Peppermint Rainbow were an American sunshine pop group from Baltimore, Maryland. They formed in 1967 under the name New York Times, playing to local gigs in the mid-Atlantic states before changing their name to The Peppermint Rainbow in 1968...

. Each member of Cure of Ares received a Westclox wrist watch as a prize for their participation. From 1969 through 1971, Cure of Ares toured extensively throughout the midwest (North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota) and recorded a second single called Sunshine.

In 1970, Cure of Ares was chosen from over 15,000 entries as one of 50 semi-finalists in a national music competition, "Iced Tea's Big Search for the New Sound" presented by the Tea Council of the U.S.A., Billboard Magazine and over 200 radio stations. Judges included Hal David

Hal David

Harold Lane "Hal" David is an American lyricist. He grew up in Brooklyn, New York. David is best known for his collaborations with composer Burt Bacharach.-Career:...

 (Academy Award

Academy Awards

An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...

 winning lyricist for "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head"

Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head

"Raindrops Keep Fallin' on My Head" is B. J. Thomas's #1 song, written by Hal David and Burt Bacharach for the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It won an Academy Award for Best Original Song. David and Bacharach also won Best Original Score. It was recorded in seven takes, after...

), John Hammond

John H. Hammond

John Henry Hammond II was an American record producer, musician and music critic from the 1930s to the early 1980s...

 (Columbia Records

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

 executive), Al Bell

Al Bell

Al Bell is an American record producer, songwriter, and record executive. Bell is best known as one of the key figures behind and a co-owner of Memphis, Tennessee-based Stax Records during the latter half of the label's nineteen-year existence...

 (Vice President and producer for Stax Records

Stax Records

Stax Records is an American record label, originally based in Memphis, Tennessee.Founded in 1957 as Satellite Records, the name Stax Records was adopted in 1961. The label was a major factor in the creation of the Southern soul and Memphis soul music styles, also releasing gospel, funk, jazz, and...

), Vince Calandra (talent coordinator for the Ed Sullivan Show), Bob Crewe

Bob Crewe

Bob Crewe is an American songwriter, dancer, singer, manager, record producer and fine artist. He is known for producing, and co-writing with Bob Gaudio, a string of Top 10 singles for The Four Seasons...

 (President of Crewe Records), and Don Ovens (Director of reviews for Billboard Magazine).

At the age of 18, Philipsek was exposed, through a radio broadcast, to gypsy jazz music performed by Jean "Django" Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt

Django Reinhardt was a pioneering virtuoso jazz guitarist and composer who invented an entirely new style of jazz guitar technique that has since become a living musical tradition within French gypsy culture...

 for the first time. This proved to be a pivotal experience that would have a defining influence on his later career. At the age of 22 (1975), Philipsek received a private lesson and attended two workshops from jazz guitarist Joe Pass

Joe Pass

Joe Pass was an Italian-American jazz guitarist of Sicilian descent. He is generally considered to be one of the greatest jazz guitarists of the 20th century...

. During this same time period, Philipsek studied jazz guitar and The Complete Johnny Smith Approach to Guitar with Mike Elliott

Mike Elliott (guitarist)

For other artists named Mike Elliott, see Mike Elliott Mike Elliott was an American jazz guitarist.-Biography:Elliott born in Chicago and was raised in Colorado and where he later studied guitar with Johnny Smith. His father was a studio musician and his mother a blues singer. He learned guitar at...

, a protégé of Johnny Smith

Johnny Smith

Johnny Smith is an American cool jazz and mainstream jazz guitarist.-Early years:...

. These experiences cemented Philipsek's lifelong interest in jazz.

After Philipsek's stint in Cure of Ares, Philipsek continued to play in various musical acts in the midwest in the 1970s and 1980s. In the early 1990s Philipsek founded and recorded three CDs with Reynold's Remarkable Rhythm Cattle — Uptown and Country (1990), What’s Inside? (1991), and Memory Lane (1992).

Solo work

Beginning in 1989, Philipsek became primarily a solo artist. Between 1989 and the present, Philipsek has released thirty-seven solo CDs (in genres including rock, pop-rock, jazz and gypsy jazz) on his Rephi Records label. The releases include both purely instrumental and vocal offerings.

In 1998, Philipsek contributed to the album Grok This / Defacing the Music of Todd Rundgren, providing the Todd Rundgren

Todd Rundgren

Todd Harry Rundgren is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and record producer. Hailed in the early stage of his career as a new pop-wunderkind, supported by the certified gold solo double LP Something/Anything? in 1972, Todd Rundgren's career has produced a diverse range of recordings...

-inspired track Invisible Man (Track 3).

Philipsek has composed string arrangements for songs by artists including Molly Maher, Patrick Eckart and others.

25

In the spring of 1980, Philipsek was diagnosed with testicular cancer

Testicular cancer

Testicular cancer is cancer that develops in the testicles, a part of the male reproductive system.In the United States, between 7,500 and 8,000 diagnoses of testicular cancer are made each year. In the UK, approximately 2,000 men are diagnosed each year. Over his lifetime, a man's risk of...

. The diagnosis was particularly frightening for Philipsek as, at the time, treatments for this form of the disease had not reached the high survival rates found today. After undergoing chemotherapy procedures over the course of six months, Philipsek has been cancer-free since.

In 2005, Philipsek was celebrating twenty-five years cancer-free when he realized that he had, to date, released twenty-four CDs. The concept for the CD 25 was born. Seven of the eight tracks on 25 are new recordings of Philipsek compositions from over the twenty-five years since the cancer diagnosis. Through a formal relationship with the American Cancer Society

American Cancer Society

The American Cancer Society is the "nationwide community-based voluntary health organization" dedicated, in their own words, "to eliminating cancer as a major health problem by preventing cancer, saving lives, and diminishing suffering from cancer, through research, education, advocacy, and...

 (ACS), for the first two years after its release, five dollars ($5.00US) from the sale of every 25 CD was donated to the ACS.

Evolving sound

Philipsek's early exposure to the influences of Joe Pass, Mike Elliott and Django Reinhardt have always informed his playing style and compositions, but it wasn't until after the release of 25 in 2005 that Philipsek began to concentrate on jazz and gypsy jazz in his writing and recording. The CD titles that Philipsek has released since 25 all reflect a predominately jazz and gypsy jazz style.

Philipsek's latest releases, All the Things You Are (2010) and Tales from the North Woods (2011), include elements of gypsy jazz, bebop

Bebop

Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...

, Latin folk music, modal jazz

Modal jazz

Modal jazz is jazz that uses musical modes rather than chord progressions as a harmonic framework. Originating in the late 1950s and 1960s, modal jazz is characterized by Miles Davis's "Milestones" Kind of Blue and John Coltrane's classic quartet from 1960–64. Other important performers include...

 and Slavic folk music informed by Philipsek's burgeoning interest in the folk music of his Czech and Polish heritage.

Since becoming predominately a jazz and gypsy jazz guitarist, Philipsek has appeared at various gypsy jazz festivals, jazz clubs and concert venues including the Grand Marais Jazz Festival, Twin Cities Hot Summer Jazz Festival, The Cedar Cultural Center, Dakota Jazz Club

Dakota Jazz Club

The Dakota Jazz Club and Restaurant is a jazz club in Twin Cities, Minnesota. The club opened in 1985 at Bandana Square in St. Paul as a restaurant with local jazz in the bar. In 1988, the programming expanded to national artists with performances by McCoy Tyner and Ahmad Jamal...

, and Artists’ Quarter

Artists' Quarter

The Artists' Quarter is a well known musician owned and operated jazz club in Twin Cities. The club opened in the early 1970s in South Minneapolis, Minnesota and moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1995. The club is in the basement of the historic Hamm Building in downtown St. Paul.The club...

.

In addition to solo performances, Philipsek collaborates with groups East Side and Sidewalk Café in the composition, recording and performance of gypsy jazz music.

Philipsek regularly receives press coverage from traditional print and online outlets such as the StarTribune, vita.mn, Vintage Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, MinnPost and International Musician. Philipsek appears regularly on television and radio — both as a solo performer and with his collaborative efforts — including KARE 11 Showcase Minnesota (Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN), WFMU (New York, NY), and Minnesota Public Radio (Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN).

Film, literature and video

In 1984, Philipsek scored the original music for the children’s film short, St. Cloud Sleep.

In June, 1999, Philipsek released a book of poetry entitled Journey to the Middle Ages. Based on autobiographical events and loosely inspired by Chaucer and Dante

DANTE

Delivery of Advanced Network Technology to Europe is a not-for-profit organisation that plans, builds and operates the international networks that interconnect the various national research and education networks in Europe and surrounding regions...

, the verse deals primarily with Philipsek's thoughts on death, aging, time, fear and religion.

In July, 2003, Philipsek released That's My Face, a DVD

DVD

A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....

 of six promotional video shorts from Philipsek's back catalog.

Filmed in July 2004 and released in February 2005, Three Piece Suite/Munsinger Gardens (DVD) captures Philipsek, saxophonist Al Asmus and bassist Jeff Engholm performing eight Philipsek original compositions and three classic standards — Days of Wine and Roses

Days of Wine and Roses (song)

"Days of Wine and Roses" is a popular song, from the 1962 movie of the same name.The music was written by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. They received the Academy Award for Best Original Song for their work...

, Night and Day

Night and Day (song)

"Night and Day" is a popular song by Cole Porter. It was written for the 1932 musical play Gay Divorce. It is perhaps Porter's most popular contribution to the Great American Songbook and has been recorded by dozens of artists....

, and All of Me

All of Me (song)

"All of Me" is a popular song and jazz standard written by Gerald Marks and Seymour Simons in 1931.First performed by Belle Baker over the radio and recorded in December 1931 by Ruth Etting, it has become one of the most recorded songs of its era, with notable versions by Russ Columbo, Bing Crosby,...

.

Philipsek, as a member of the gypsy jazz ensemble The Twin Cities Hot Club, released in 2007 the DVD Live at The Times, featuring in concert footage, swing dancers, fan interviews and special guest performers.

Discography

Year	Information
1968	Oval Portrait (Cure of Ares, composed by Philipsek) Released: February 1969
1969	Sunshine (Cure of Ares, composed by Philipsek) Released: July 1969
1972	Sailor (Sailor self-title record) Released: July 1972
1984	Black and Blue (vinyl) Released: June 1984
1987	No Duds (The Bottlerockets) Released: July 1987
1989	The Peter Pan Principle Released: June 1989
1989	Apple Pie (cassette) Released: December 1989
1990	Uptown and Country (Reynold's Remarkable Rhythm Cattle) Released: May 1990
1990	Cottage Industry (cassette) Released: November 1990
1991	What's Inside? (Reynold's Remarkable Rhythm Cattle) Released: April 1991
1992	Memory Lane (Reynold's Remarkable Rhythm Cattle) Released: June 1992
1992	Rephi Christmas Present (cassette) Released: November 1992
1993	Reynold Released: May 1993
1994	Russian Nights Through Rose Colored Glasses (cassette) Released: January 1994
1994	Global Home Movie Released: December 1994
1995	House of Curiosities Released: November 1995
1996	The First Hundred Years (...are the roughest) Released: September 1996
1997	20th Century Good-bye Released: July 1997
1998	Paint Your Own World Released: May 1998
1999	Old Ghosts Released: October 1999
2000	Fool's Paradise Released: April 2000
2000	Paris Suite Released: November 2000
2001	14 Pieces for Guitar Released: June 2001
2001	Standards and Artifacts Released: September 2001
2002	Middle-aged Child Prodigy Released: January 2002
2002	Guitar Released: June 2002
2003	Themes from Imaginary Movies Released: January 2003
2003	Now What? Released: May 2003
2003	Homage to Django Released: July 2003
2003	Three Piece Suite Released: December 2003
2004	Grey Chalet Released: May 2004
2005	Bistro Released: January 2005
2005	25 Released: October 2005
2006	Artifacts and Curiosities Released: January 2006
2007	What It Is Released: September 2007
2007	Long Ago, Far Away Released: November 2007
2008	Tempus Fugit Released: April 2008
2008	Anthology Released: October 2008
2009	East Side Released: March 2009
2009	Cottage Industry Released: October 2009
2009	Imagine That Released: December 2009
2010	All the Things You Are Released: June 2010
2011	Tales from the North Woods Released: April 2011

Guitar Player Magazine

Guitar Player Jazz Poll 1975 (nominee)

Guitar Player Jazz Poll 1976 (nominee)

Guitar Player Jazz Poll 1977 (nominee)

Guitar Player Jazz Poll 1978 (nominee)

Guitar Player Jazz Poll 1979 (nominee)

Guitar Player Jazz Poll 1980 (nominee)

Minnesota Music Awards

Minnesota Music Awards 1995 Overall World Music Recording

Minnesota Music Awards 2006 Guitarist and Jazz Recording

External links

• Official website