Glenn Spearman

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Glenn Spearman (born February 14, 1947 in New York City , † October 8, 1998 in Berkeley ) was an American tenor saxophonist of free jazz .

Act

Glenn Spearman received his first lessons on these instruments from his stepfather, who himself played the violin, piano and saxophone. At first he was more interested in sports and wanted to become a football player. Because of his work in the Black Power movement, he became interested in music again and began his career in the late 1960s in Oakland , California , where he played with musicians such as Charles Tyler , Donald Garrett and Wilber Morris and dedicated himself to the music of Frank Wright interested. In 1972 he moved to Paris, where he studied with Wright and played alongside Boulou Ferré in Bob Reid's formation Emergency . This group released some albums on the Brain Records label in the 1970s and appeared on radio and TV broadcasts as well as at the Avignon Jazz Festival in France. He worked as artist-in-residence in Rotterdam for five years and toured Europe before returning to the United States in 1978. In 1981 a duo album was created with drummer Donald Robinson , which Richard Cook and Brian Morton compare with John Coltrane and Rashied Ali's work Interstellar Space . In 1982 he played in the Cecil Taylor Unit. He then returned to California and worked in the San Francisco area with various formations, with whom he also made guest appearances in Europe. From 1988 he also worked with William Parker , Bill Dixon and William Hooker and was a co-founder (with Marco Eneidi ) of the 21-piece Creative Music Orchestra , which was inspired by Cecil Taylor's large ensembles.

In the 1990s he worked in Raphe Malik's band and worked on his album 21st Century Texts at FMP , then founded the Double Trio with Larry Ochs , William Winant , and Lisle Ellis ; with this band he performed at the Monterey Jazz Festival and the Vancouver International Jazz Festival . The 1992 album The Mystery Project was dedicated to Ornette Coleman's work . He has also worked on record projects for the Rova Saxophone Quartet such as John Coltrane's Ascension and on projects by the filmmaker Lynn Kiby . He also taught at Mills College . He had his last appearance on July 25, 1998 at the Fire In The Valley Festival ; he died of colon cancer in October 1998.

After Cook and Morton, Spearman's personal style was heavily based on the blues . According to the same authors, he processed in an eclectic way influences from such diverse musicians as Illinois Jacquet , John Coltrane and Archie Shepp .

Discographic notes

  • Utterance ( Cadence Jazz , 1990)
  • Mystery Project ( Black Saint , 1992)
  • Smokehouse (Black Saint, 1993)
  • Free Worlds (Black Saint, 1994)
  • The Fields (Black Saint, 1996)
  • Th ( CIMP , 1997) with Dominic Duval
  • Blues for Falasha ( Tzadik Records, 1997)
  • Let it Go (Red Toucan Records, 1997)
  • First and Last (Eremite Records, 1997)
  • Surya: Stretch the Edge (1997)
  • Working with the Elements (CIMP, 1998)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ which should not be confused with the Munich jazz rock band of the same name
personal data
SURNAME Spearman, Glenn
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American free jazz tenor saxophonist
DATE OF BIRTH February 14, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH October 8, 1998
Place of death Berkeley