Chris Swansen

Trombonist, composer and synthesizer player. Died on December 4, 1995. Between 1957 and 1961 he studied music at Dartmouth and graduated. He had absolute (‘perfect’) pitch. After Dartmouth, he attended the Berkelee School of Music in Boston in 1961-1962, and played trombone and wrote for [a=The Herb Pomeroy Orchestra]. In 1963 he was the first jazz composer to attend Tanglewood, and in that year studied conducting with [a=Gunther Schuller], [a=Aaron Copeland] and [a=Iannis Xenakis]. He played with many of jazz greats in his era, including [a=Phil Woods], [a=Gary Burton], [a=John McLaughlin], [a=Eddie Gomez], and [a=Joe Henderson]. He also played with [a=Stan Kenton] and [a=Maynard Ferguson]. He fulfilled writing commissions from the BBC, Stan Getz, and the L.A. Orchestra, among others. Musical visionary, in about 1968 he became involved in developing, playing and composing for the Moog synthesizer contributing to the its early development and becoming one of the first composers to write for the instrument.