Joseph Jarman

Joseph Jarman
Born (1937-09-14) September 14, 1937
Origin Pine Bluff, Arkansas, US
Genres jazz
Instruments reeds
saxophone
percussion
Years active 1960s–present
Associated acts Muhal Richard Abrams' Experimental Band
Art Ensemble of Chicago
Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians
Equal Interest

Joseph Jarman (b. September 14, 1937 in Pine Bluff, Arkansas), is a jazz musician, composer and Shinshu Buddhist priest. He is perhaps best known as one of the first members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

Biography

Early life

Jarman grew up in Chicago, Illinois. At DuSable High School he studied drums with Walter Dyett, switching to saxophone and clarinet when he joined the United States Army after graduation.[1] During his time there, he was part of the 11th Airborne Division Band for a year.[2]

The AACM and his solo band

After he was discharged from the army in 1958, Jarman attended Wilson Junior College, where he met bassist Malachi Favors Maghostut and saxophonists Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, and Anthony Braxton. These men would often perform long jam sessions at the suggestion of their professor Richard Wang (now with Illinois University). Mitchell introduced Jarman to pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, and Jarman, Mitchell, and Maghostut joined Abrams' Experimental Band, a private, non-performing ensemble, when that group was founded in 1961. The same group of musicians continued to play together in a variety of configurations, and went on to found the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in 1965, along with Fred Anderson and Phil Cohran.

Jarman's solo recording career began at this time with two releases on the Delmark Label which included non-conforming recording methods, such as spoken word and "little instruments", the latter a technique that Jarman and Mitchell would use to effectiveness in the Art Ensemble.[1] The band he fronted and used during these recordings between 1966 and 1968 included Fred Anderson (tenor sax), Billy Brimfield (trumpet), Charles Clark (bass), Christopher Gaddy (piano) and Thurman Barker (drums). However, in 1969 Clark and Gaddy both died and Jarman disbanded his group.

The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Equal Interest

Shortly after his bandmates Clark and Gaddy died in 1969, Jarman joined Mitchell, Maghostut and Lester Bowie (trumpet) in the Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble in 1967; the group would be later rounded out with the addition of Don Moye on drums. This band eventually became known as the Art Ensemble of Chicago (AECO). The group was known for being costumed on stage for different reasons; Jarman wore facepaint and has mentioned that it "was sort of the shamanistic image coming from various cultures."[3] The group moved to Paris in 1969 and lived there for many years in a commune that included Steve McCall, the great drummer who went on the form the jazz trio Air with Threadgill and bassist Fred Hopkins. Moving back to Chicago in the 1970s, Jarman lived in a musicians' building in Hyde Park, in Chicago, with Malachi Favors as his roommate. In 1983, he moved to Brooklyn, New York from Chicago and has lived there since that time.[3]

Jarman stayed with the Ensemble until 1993, when he left the group to focus on his spiritual practice, "a cleansing process" as he stated.[3] The move wasn't announced at first, leading fans to speculate about Jarman's health when he didn't appear on stage for an AECO Thanksgiving weekend show at the Knitting Factory in 1994.[4] He didn't have much to do with music until 1996 when in January he recorded two CDs, The Scott Fields Ensembles' 48 Motives and the concert, duo CD Connecting Spirits with Marilyn Crispell, which Fields produced. Later in the year his friend and fellow AACM peer Leroy Jenkins asked him to join a trio with him and Myra Melford in Chicago, which would eventually be called Equal Interest.[4] Looking back on those three years without music, Jarman commented that "I didn't realize it, but it actually depressed me in many ways."[2] He was then commissioned to write a chamber orchestra piece, which led him to the realization of how to incorporate his Buddhist teachings into his music. Jarman returned to the AECO in January 2003.[5]

Along with the saxophone and clarinet, Jarman also plays (and has recorded on) nearly every member of the woodwind family, as well as a wide variety of percussion instruments. Aside from his work with relatively traditional jazz lineups, he has composed for larger orchestras and created multimedia pieces for musicians and dancers.

Spirituality

Jarman is most widely known for his musical accomplishments, but he has also been involved in the practice of Zen Buddhism and aikido. He began his study of aikido in the early 1970s in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago. He began studying Zen Buddhism in 1990 and visited various monasteries in Eastern Asia, including Higashi Honganji Honzon in Kyoto, Japan. A few years later, he opened his own aikido dojo/zendo, Jikishinkan ("direct mind training hall"),[3] in Brooklyn, New York.[4] He is currently a Jodo Shinshu priest, and holds a rank of godan (fifth degree black belt) in aikido.

Discography

As leader

With the Art Ensemble of Chicago

Title Year Label
Numbers 1 & 2 – Lester Bowie 1967 Nessa
Early Combinations - Art Ensemble 1967 Nessa
A Jackson in Your House 1969 BYG Actuel
Tutankhamun 1969 Freedom
The Spiritual 1969 Freedom
People in Sorrow 1969 Nessa
Message to Our Folks 1969 BYG-Actuel
Reese and the Smooth Ones 1969 BYG-Actuel
Eda Wobu 1969 JMY
Certain Blacks 1970 America
Go Home 1970 Galloway
Chi-Congo 1970 Paula
Les Stances a Sophie 1970 Nessa
Live in Paris 1970 Freedom
Art Ensemble of Chicago with Fontella Bass 1970 America
Phase One 1971 America
Live at Mandell Hall 1972 Delmark
Bap-Tizum 1972 Atlantic
Fanfare for the Warriors 1973 Atlantic
Kabalaba 1974 AECO
Nice Guys 1978 ECM
Live in Berlin 1979 West Wind
Full Force 1980 ECM
Urban Bushmen 1980 ECM
Among the People 1980 Praxis
The Complete Live in Japan 1984 DIW
The Third Decade 1984 ECM
Naked 1986 DIW
Ancient to the Future 1987 DIW
The Alternate Express 1989 DIW
Art Ensemble of Soweto 1990 DIW
America - South Africa 1990 DIW
Thelonious Sphere Monk with Cecil Taylor 1990 DIW
Dreaming of the Masters Suite 1990 DIW
Live at the 6th Tokyo Music Joy 1991 DIW
Fundamental Destiny with Don Pullen 1991 AECO
Salutes the Chicago Blues Tradition 1993 AECO
Reunion 2003 Around Jazz/Il Manifesto
The Meeting 2003 Pi
Sirius Calling 2004 Pi
Non-Cognitive Aspects of the City 2006 Pi

As sideman

With Anthony Braxton

References

  1. 1 2 Chris Kelsey. "Joseph Jarman biography at Allmusic". AllMusic.com. Retrieved 2007-01-03.
  2. 1 2 Fred Jung. "A Fireside Chat with Joseph Jarman". Jazz Weekly. Retrieved 2007-01-03.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Jason Gross (October 1998). "Joseph Jarman". Perfect Sound Forever. Retrieved 2006-01-02.
  4. 1 2 3 Kurt Gottschalk. "Joseph Jarman Interview". All About Jazz. Retrieved 2007-01-03.
  5. "Joseph Jarman". Retrieved 2007-06-09.

External links

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