Text by Jerome Harris (bassist and guitarist, MFM member)
In the mid-1970s, I was a jazz guitar student at The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. For a while, I played tenor banjo and guitar in The New England Conservatory Ragtime Ensemble, a student group founded by the school’s president, composer/conductor/scholar Gunther Schuller, to perform his orchestrations of ragtime music by Scott Joplin and others.
Text by Dawoud Kringle
It is with deep sadness that the members of MFM acknowledge the passing of Michael Harrison. Michael died in New York City on April 17, 2026, at the age of 67. The cause of death was complications from pancreatic cancer.
Text by Stephen Johnson
When I think of Jack, I remember him from a ‘Woodstocker’s’ experience, as many in his Woodstock community did… seeing him about the hamlet, friendly, approachable, with a cool rhythmic gait, down-to-earth and generous, a beautiful African American man.
In the early years of my ‘being in America‘, I was fortunate to move to Woodstock back in ’88, and while I was musically shuffling/surfing sofas, a housemate introduced me to Jack’s family — Lydia and their girls. (Thank you, Itar).
Text by Dawoud Kringle
John Mayall was born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, UK on 29 November 1933, and grew up in Cheadle Hulme. His father, Murray Mayall, was a guitarist. He taught himself to play the piano, guitars, and harmonica after immersing himself in the music of American blues players such as Lead Belly, Albert Ammons, Eddie Lang, and Pinetop Smith.
Text by Dawoud Kringle
Saxophonist, bandleader of The Contortions and Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and No Wave pioneer James Chance passed away.
Born James Alan Siegfried in Milwaukee, Chance began studying piano in elementary school and in his teens began playing the alto saxophone. He attended Michigan State University and Wisconsin Conservatory of Music in Milwaukee where he formed the James Siegfried Quintet and Death, a Stooges-influenced group. He would later study with jazz saxophonist David Murray.
He moved to New York in 1975 and began using the stage name James Chance. A year later he formed Teenage Jesus and the Jerks with singer Lydia Lunch. In 1977 he formed the first version of the Contortions.
