Bassist Nathan East and engineer Ed Cherney will be inducted into the NAMMTEC Awards Hall of Fame by the NAMM Foundation. The induction will take place during the 30th Annual NAMM Technical Excellence & Creativity Awards show on Saturday, January 24th in Anaheim, California.

Nominees across thirty creative and technical categories have also been announced for the NAMM TEC Awards. The TEC Awards are the longest-running awards show that specifically recognizes outstanding achievement in audio product innovation and sound production.

East has worked with some of the best in the industry that includes Daft Punk, Stevie Wonder, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Beyoncé, Phil Collins, Michael Jackson, Barry White, Anita Baker, Forplay and Andrea Bocelli. East is one of the most recorded bass players in the history of music with more than 2,000 recordings. East played bass on Eric Clapton’s multi-Grammy award winning Unplugged album, as well as playing bass on the Daft Punk’s Grammy winning album “Random Access Memories” and in 2014 released his debut album as a solo artist to worldwide acclaim. 
He has a B.A. in Music Performance from University of California San Diego, and as an educator has been teaching how to play bass guitar for decades.

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Music and Jazz legend, Bob James was inducted into the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theatre, and Dance Hall of Fame on October 31, 2014. (continue reading…)

“For many of his fans, Bob James is to jazz what James Brown is to R&B — the music and the musician go hand in hand.” (NPR Music) From his early years touring with Sarah Vaughan to founding smooth jazz supergroup Fourplay, U-M alumnus Bob James has explored a vast stretch of musical territory. A leading force in 1970s crossover jazz, the keyboardist, composer, and producer played an essential role on a series of hit records and has had a profound effect on the history of hip-hop music, with two of his songs among the most sampled in hip-hop history. James’s most recent album, Quartette Humaine, was recorded a month after Dave Brubeck’s death and pays tribute to the iconic pianist. His long-awaited homecoming will feature concert materials drawn from James’s extensive songbook, including tunes from his CTI Records catalog and Dave Brubeck compositions. A UMS debut.

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Join the legendary Bob James, as he is inducted into the University of Michigan’s Alumni Hall of Fame.

The awards ceremony will be from 4 pm – 6 pm at the Walgreen Drama Center at the University of Michigan, and is open to the public.

Preceding the awards ceremony will be a question & answer session with Bob James at 2 pm in room 2439.

Walgreen Drama Center

1226 Murfin Ave
Ann Arbor, MI

4 pm – 6 pm

The Hall of Fame Award (formerly Citation of Merit) was established to recognize and honor individuals who have made outstanding contributions to society, their profession, the U-M School of Music, Theatre & Dance, one of its departments or programs, or to the School of Music, Theatre & Dance Alumni Society. This award has been presented annually since 1977.

Bob James is a two-time GRAMMY award-winning smooth jazz keyboardist, arranger and producer. James is recognized as one of the progenitors of smooth jazz, however, his music has also had a profound effect on the history of hip hop music, having been sampled often. Two of James’ songs – “Nautilus” from 1974’s Oneand “Take Me to the Mardi Gras” from 1975’s Two  – are among the most sampled in hip hop history. He was discovered by Quincy Jones at the Notre Dame Jazz Festival in 1963, and subsequently recorded his first solo album, Bold Conceptions, that year for Mercury Records.

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