Leroy Jenkins, Chicago jazz composer and violinist dies at 74...
Greg Mouning
Some more sad news to share...
---------- Forwarded message ----------
2007 in New York City
(from AACM website) http://aacmchicago.org/
...Jenkins was already performing violin at the age of 8 at his local
Ebenezeer Baptist Church. The flavor of spirituals still remains in his
music. He studied music in high school and then attended Florida A&M
University Born in Chicago, Illinois in 1932, Jenkins was already performing
violin at the age of 8 at his local Ebenezeer Baptist Church. The flavor of
spirituals still remains in his music. He studied music in high school and
then attended Florida A&M University where he studied with Bruce Hayden and
completed his B.S. in music. For the next ten years Jenkins remained in the
South teaching music.
Jenkins returned to Chicago in 1965 and was drawn into the well spring of
Chicago s creative music activities. Almost immediately, he joined the
Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM). Jenkins recalls
that this union marked the first time that as a violin player he was truly
welcomed into creative music performances. During this time he played and
recorded with Muhal Richard Abrams , Leo Smith and Anthony Braxton .
In 1969, Jenkins left for Paris with Braxton and Smith. With the addition of
drummer Steve McCall , they formed the Creative Construction Company . Their
1970 performance in New York, joined by Richard Davis on bass and Abrams on
piano, gave New York the first taste of the new music that Chicago musicians
were creating.
Jenkins continued to work with the finest creative musicians.... Archie
Shepp , Albert Ayler , Alice Coltrane , Mtume , Cal Massey , to name a few.
But it was the work of the collective Revolutionary Ensemble (co-founded
with bassist Sirone and drummer Jerome Cooper) that gained Jenkins
prominence as the most significant violinist of the modern era. par
Leroy works in a multitude of contexts. His recording on Tomato, Space
Minds, New Worlds, Survival in America has received rave reviews. He is
performing in solo, trio and quintet contexts, and is also performing in duo
settings with woodwindist Oliver Lake .
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Born in Chicago, composer and violinist Leroy Jenkins was one of the most important musicians to emerge from the AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians), the legendary collective of which he still a member. Like many of the Association's members, Jenkins studied under the legendary Walter Dyett at DuSable High School, where he learned the alto saxophone.
He received a music degree (in violin)
from Florida A&M University, where he studied composition and the
classical masters of the violin. Subsequently, he taught music both in
Mobile, Alabama (1961-5) and in the Chicago schools (1965-9). During the
latter period, Jenkins joined the AACM. He made his first recording with
Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, and Leo Smith in the sixties before
achieving international acclaim in Paris along with Braxton, Smith, and
the Art Ensemble of Chicago. In 1970 Jenkins moved to New York, where
he founded the Revolutionary Ensemble, the critically acclaimed ensemble
which recorded 7 albums and toured North America and Europe.
When
many of the AACM musicians left during 1969, Jenkins went to Europe with
Anthony Braxton & Leo Smith. There, with drummer Steve McCall, they
were called the Creative Construction Company. He also played with Ornette
Coleman, whose house he & Braxton stayed at when they subsequently
moved to New York City.
Playing with Taylor (1970) and Braxton (1969-72), he also worked with Albert Ayler, Cal Massey, Alice Coltrane, Archie Shepp & Rahsaan Roland Kirk. Between 1971-7, he played in his Revolutionary Ensemble, a trio featuring Sirone (Norris Jones) on bass & trombone, and drummer/pianist Jerome Cooper. Thereafter, he toured the US & Europe, led the Mixed Quintet (Jenkins and 4 woodwind players), a blues-based band called Sting, and again played with Cecil Taylor.
Jenkins is continually inventing
his own language in music. His is an extraordinary bonding of a variety
of sounds associated with the black music tradition, while simultaneously
bridging with European styles. His intermeshing of jazz and classical
influences leaves critics wondering at his musical identity; however,
as one San Francisco Chronicle critic says, "Jenkins is a master
who cuts across all categories."
Jenkins has received a number of major commissions
and is in demand for experimental and theater-based work. Mother of
Three Sons, a dance-opera collaboration with Bill T. Jones, premiered
in Aachaen, Germany and had ten performances. The Rockefeller Foundation,
National Endowment for the Arts, Meet the Composer, and Mutable Music
have awarded him numerous commissioning funds and grants to support several
new theater works. Among them are Fresh Faust (a jazz-rap opera), which
was performed in workshops in Boston at the Institute of Contemporary
Arts; The Negro Burial Ground (a cantata), performed at The Kitchen, New
York City; and The Three Willies (a multimedia opera), performed at the
Painted Bride, Philadelphia. He has also been commissioned to create new
works for the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra,
the Albany Symphony, the Lincoln Center Out of Doors, and the Kronos Quartet.
Among his recordings are 3 Compositions of New Jazz
(1968; Delmark); Lifelong Ambitions (1977; Black Saint; with Muhal Richard
Abrams); Space Minds, New Worlds, Survival America (1978; Tomato); Live
(1992, Black Saint); Carla Bley's Escalator Over The Hill and Braxton's
Three Compositions Of New Jazz.
-Greg