Joseph Jarman

Joseph Jarman Biography

Joseph Jarman (Pine Bluff, Arkansas, September 14, 1937 - January 9, 2019) was an American jazz musician, composer, and Shinshu Buddhist priest. He was one of the first members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and a member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. 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. During his time there, he was part of the 11th Airborne Division Band for a year. 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. 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. 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." 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 lived there since that time. Jarman stayed with the Ensemble until 1993, when he left the group to focus on his spiritual practice, "a cleansing process" as he stated. 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. 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. Looking back on those three years without music, Jarman commented that "I didn't realize it, but it actually depressed me in many ways." 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. Along with the saxophone and clarinet, Jarman also played (and 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. 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"), in Brooklyn, New York. He was a Jodo Shinshu priest, and holds a rank of godan (fifth degree black belt) in aikido. Discography As leader 1966 – Song For (Delmark) 1968 – As If It Were the Seasons (Delmark) 1971 – Together Alone (Delmark) with Anthony Braxton 1977 – Egwu-Anwo (India Navigation) with Don Moye 1979 – The Magic Triangle (Black Saint) with Don Pullen & Don Moye 1979 – Black Paladins (Black Saint) with Don Moye & Johnny Dyani 1981 – Earth Passage - Density (Black Saint) with Don Moye, Craig Harris & Rafael Garrett 1983 – Inheritance (Four Star, 1991) with Geri Allen, Fred Hopkins and Don Moye 1991 – Calypso's Smile (AECO) with Don Moye 1996 – Connecting Spirits (Music & Arts) with Marilyn Crispell 1996 – Pachinko Dream Track 10 (Music & Arts) 1997 – Bright Moments – Return of the Lost Tribe (Delmark) with Malachi Favors, Kahil El'Zabar 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 For Trio (Arista, 1978)