John Tchicai

At Club Montmartre `77 and Copenhagen 1977 and 87 (1038431)

At Club Montmartre `77 and Copenhagen 1977 and 87 View larger

At Club Montmartre `77 and Copenhagen 1977 and 87

John Tchicai

Storyville

717101843121

STA 135375

1038431

JAZZ

2

At Club Montmartre `77 and Copenhagen 1977 and 87

More details

CD 19,99 €

Saxophonist John Tchicai was best known for his time in New York during the height of the ‘60s free jazz explosion, but he actually spent the majority of his career advancing the cause of avant-garde jazz in Northern Europe. Tchicai was born April 28, 1936, in Copenhagen to a Danish mother and Congolese father; he began playing violin at age ten, switched to both clarinet and alto sax at 16, and focused on the latter at Denmark’s Conservatory of Music. In the late ‘50s, Tchicai began making the rounds of the North European jazz scene, which was quick to pick up on the early innovations of the American avant-garde. In 1963, he moved to New York City to immerse himself in the epicenter of free jazz. He hooked up with Archie Shepp and Don Cherry, eventually co-founding the New York Contemporary Five with them; he was also a founding member of the New York Art Quartet with Roswell Rudd and Milford Graves. Tchicai also recorded with Albert Ayler (on New York Eye and Ear Control), the Jazz Composers Guild, and John Lennon (Life With the Lions), and -- most importantly -- appeared on John Coltrane’s legendary free jazz landmark Ascension.
After a whirlwind three years, Tchicai returned to Denmark in 1966 and founded a large workshop ensemble called Cadentia Nova Danica, which he led until 1971. Shortly thereafter, he cut back on performing to concentrate on teaching full-time. In 1977, he returned to the studio, leading a fairly steady series of recording dates into the ‘80s, when he switched to tenor sax and joined Pierre Dorge’s New Jungle Orchestra. In 1990, Tchicai received a lifetime grant for jazz performance from the Danish Ministry of Culture; and the following year he relocated to California’s Bay Area, where he and his keyboardist wife Margriet founded John Tchicai & the Archetypes and the John Tchicai Unit, which both recorded during the ‘90s. After the turn of the millennium he returned to Europe and moved to Southern France; in June 2012 Tchicai suffered a brain hemorrhage, and although he reportedly began physiotherapy, he died in Perpignan, France in October of that year. John Tchicai was 76 years old.

PERSONNEL:

CD 1 -
Strange Brothers
JOHN TCHICAI (ss, as, bamboo-flute)
SIMON SPANG-HANSSEN, (tenor sax)
PETER DANSTRUP  (bass)
OLE ROMER (drums)

[1-5] Recorded at Rosenberg Studio, March 29, 1977
[6-11] Recorded at Club Montmartre, March 15, 1977

Tracklist:
01. K.W.
02. Turning Point
03. I En Kaelder
04. Darktown Highlights
05. Gromyko Lik Lak
06. Bright Shadows
07. Cloak ‘N Dagger
08. Mao
09. Increasing Cosmopo
10. I Can’t Give You Anything But Love
11. Cosmopo Confused Bird

CD 2- Put Up The Fight
JOHN TCHICAI  (tenor & soprano sax, bass clarinet, vocals)
BENT CLAUSEN (vibraphone, percussion, guitar, synthesizer)
PETER DANSTRUP  (bass guitar, synthesizer)
OLE ROMER  (drums, percussion, electric guitar)

Recorded in Studio 39, Copenhagen, November 10-14, 1987

Tracklist:
01. Put Up The Fight
02. Forgotten Kindness
03. Little Bori’s Tribulations
04. Adam On The Rails
05. Colomentality
06. Barbe Better
07. Two For Bendetto
08. Calypso Boswell
09. Adieu Tristisse
10. Mai-Mai
11. The Secret
12. Yoke Them Johnny