Art Ensemble Of Chicago › Similar Artists

Anthony Braxton - 100% match to Art Ensemble Of Chicago

4 June 1945, Chicago, Illinois, USA. Braxton began playing clarinet in high school, studied music for one semester at Wilson Junior College, then joined the US Army, where he played clarinet and alto saxophone. In 1966 he joined Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (the AACM), a newly formed musicians’ co-operative whose leading members i Read more

Don Cherry - 92% match to Art Ensemble Of Chicago

18 November 1936, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA, d. 19 October 1995, Alhaurín El Grande, Málaga, Spain. Cherry began playing trumpet while still attending high school in Los Angeles, where he was raised. He also played piano and some of his first public performances were on this instrument when he worked in R&B bands. An early musical associate was Billy Hig Read more

Albert Ayler - 86% match to Art Ensemble Of Chicago

13 July 1936, Cleveland, Ohio, USA, d. 25 November 1970, New York City, New York, USA. In common with many of the radical figures of the 60s avant garde, tenor and alto saxophonist Ayler paid his dues in R&B bands. He started his musical education on alto, and played in the church attended by his family. At the age of 10 he began studying at the local academy of music, c Read more

Cecil Taylor - 75% match to Art Ensemble Of Chicago

15 March 1929, New York City, New York, USA. A towering figure in post-war avant garde jazz, Taylor has been hailed as the greatest piano virtuoso of the twentieth century because of the phenomenal power, speed and intensity of his playing. ‘We in black music think of the piano as a percussive instrument, ’ he told writer John Litweiler, ‘we beat the keyboard, Read more

Archie Shepp - 72% match to Art Ensemble Of Chicago

24 May 1937, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA. Shepp was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While studying dramatic literature at college he began playing on various instruments including the alto saxophone. His first professional engagement was on clarinet and he later played tenor saxophone with R&B bands. Settling in New York he tried to find work as an actor but was Read more

Sam Rivers - 61% match to Art Ensemble Of Chicago

25 September 1930, El Reno, Oklahoma, USA. Alto, soprano and tenor saxophone, flute and piano player and composer. After extensive studies, Rivers began playing in and around Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 40s. (His first professional engagement had been with Jimmy Witherspoon during his military service.) During the next few years he played mostly in the Boston area wit Read more

Roscoe Mitchell - 56% match to Art Ensemble Of Chicago

3 August 1940, Chicago, Illinois, USA. As a child Mitchell enjoyed listening to Nat ‘King’ Cole, Lester Young and Charlie Parker. He studied clarinet and baritone saxophone in high school, taking up alto saxophone in his senior year and continuing with it while in the army. He went to Europe with an army band, where he heard Albert Ayler, who was also playing in a Read more

Pharoah Sanders - 55% match to Art Ensemble Of Chicago

Farrell Saunders, 13 October 1940, Little Rock, Arkansas, USA. By the time he left high school Sanders was proficient on several instruments, but eventually chose the tenor saxophone. After working in R&B bands he settled in New York in the early 60s where he became a frequent musical associate of Don Cherry, Albert Ayler and others active in the ‘free jazz’ mo Read more

Sun Ra - 55% match to Art Ensemble Of Chicago

The Vandermark 5 - 54% match to Art Ensemble Of Chicago

Lester Bowie - 52% match to Art Ensemble Of Chicago

11 October 1941, Frederick, Maryland, USA, d. 9 November 1999, New York, USA. After taking up the trumpet as a child Bowie played in several R&B bands in and around St. Louis, Missouri. He led his own R&B bands and married singer Fontella Bass, accompanying her as musical director. Despite this and earlier connections with the R&B scene, Bowie’s chief musica Read more

Eric Dolphy - 51% match to Art Ensemble Of Chicago

20 June 1928, Los Angeles, California, USA, d. 29 June 1964, Berlin, Germany. A fluent performer on several reed instruments, Dolphy began to play clarinet while still at school. On the west coast of America in the second half of the 40s he worked with Roy Porter’s band, before spending a couple of years in the US army. After his discharge, he played with several leadin Read more

Wadada Leo Smith - 49% match to Art Ensemble Of Chicago

Leo Smith, 18 December 1941, Leland, Mississippi, USA. Smith’s stepfather was blues guitarist Alex ‘Little Bill’ Wallace and in his early teens Smith led his own blues band. He was already proficient on trumpet, which he later studied in college and continued to play in various army bands. In 1967 he moved to Chicago, where he joined the AACM, recording with M Read more

Andrew Hill - 44% match to Art Ensemble Of Chicago

30 June 1931, Chicago, Illinois, USA, d. 20 April 2007, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. Port Au Prince, Haiti, is usually given as Hill’s birthplace, but he actually hailed from Chicago. He studied composition privately with Paul Hindemith and Bill Russo, and played accordion and tap-danced on the streets where Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines heard him. In his teens he was i Read more

David S. Ware - 44% match to Art Ensemble Of Chicago

David Spencer Ware, 7 November 1949, Plainfield, New Jersey, USA. Before studying at the Berklee College Of Music in the late 60s, Ware had already begun playing several members of the saxophone family. He formed his own band, Apogee, and played in the USA and Europe with both Cecil Taylor and Andrew Cyrille, recording 1978’s Metamusicians’ Stomp with the latter. Read more