Lester Bowie
Lester Bowie was an American jazz trumpet player and composer. He was a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and co-founded the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
Biography
Born in the historic village of Bartonsville in Frederick County, Maryland, United States, Bowie grew up in St Louis, Missouri. At the age of five, he started studying the trumpet with his father, a professional musician. He played with blues musicians such as Little Milton and Albert King, and rhythm and blues stars such as Solomon Burke, Joe Tex, and Rufus Thomas. In 1965, he became Fontella Bass's musical director and husband. He was a co-founder of Black Artists Group in St Louis.In 1966, he moved to Chicago, where he worked as a studio musician, and met Muhal Richard Abrams and Roscoe Mitchell and became a member of the AACM. In 1968, he founded the Art Ensemble of Chicago with Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, and Malachi Favors. He remained a member of this group for the rest of his life, and was also a member of Jack DeJohnette's New Directions quartet. He lived and worked in Jamaica and Nigeria, and played and recorded with Fela Kuti. Bowie's onstage appearance, in a white lab coat, with his goatee waxed into two points, was an important part of the Art Ensemble's stage show.
In 1984, he formed Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy, a brass nonet in which Bowie demonstrated jazz's links to other forms of popular music, a decidedly more populist approach than that of the Art Ensemble. With this group he recorded songs previously associated with Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and Marilyn Manson, along with other material. His New York Organ Ensemble featured James Carter and Amina Claudine Myers. In the mid-1980s, he was also part of the jazz supergroup The Leaders, which included tenor saxophonist Chico Freeman, alto saxophonist Arthur Blythe, drummer Famoudou Don Moye, pianist Kirk Lightsey, and bassist Cecil McBee. In 1991, Bowie recorded the opening theme for the eighth and final season of the television series The Cosby Show.
Although seen as part of the avant-garde, Bowie embraced techniques from the whole history of jazz trumpet, filling his music with humorous smears, blats, growls, half-valve effects, and so on. His affinity for reggae and ska is exemplified by his composition "Ska Reggae Hi-Bop", which he performed with the Skatalites on their 1994 Hi-Bop Ska, and also with James Carter on Conversin' with the Elders. He also appeared on the 1994 Red Hot Organization's compilation album, Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool. The album, which was produced to raise awareness and funds in support of the AIDS epidemic in relation to the African-American community, was heralded as "Album of the Year" by Time.
In 1993, he played on the David Bowie album Black Tie White Noise, including the song "Looking for Lester", which was named after him.
Bowie took an adventurous and humorous approach to music, and criticized Wynton Marsalis for his conservative approach to jazz tradition.
Bowie died of liver cancer in 1999 at his Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, New York house he shared with second wife Deborah for 20 years. The following year, he was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame. In 2001, the Art Ensemble of Chicago recorded Tribute to Lester. In 2020, Bowie was featured in a mural painted by Rafael Blanco in his hometown of Frederick, Maryland.
Discography
With the Leaders
Mudfoot, 1986Out Here Like This, 1986Unforeseen Blessings, 1988Slipping and Sliding, 1994As sideman
With David BowieBlack Tie White NoiseWith James CarterConversin' with the Elders
With Jack DeJohnetteNew Directions New Directions in Europe Zebra
With Brigitte FontaineComme à la Radio
With Melvin JacksonFunky Skull
With Fela KutiStalemate No Agreement Sorrow Tears and Blood Fear not for man
With Frank LoweFresh
With Jimmy LyonsFree Jazz No. 1 Other Afternoons
With Roscoe MitchellSound
With David MurrayLive at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club
With Sunny MurraySunshine Homage to Africa
With Charles Bobo Shaw
- Under the Sun Streets of St. Louis
With Alan SilvaSeasons
With Wadada Leo SmithDivine Love
With othersFunky Donkey Vol. 1 & 2 Under the Sun 1974 Funky Donkey 1977 Free to Dance, 1978 6 x 1 = 10 Duos for a New Decade, 1980 The Razor's Edge/Strangling Me With Your Love, 1982 The Ritual, 1985 Meet Danny Wilson, 1987 Sacred Love, 1988 Avoid The Funk, 1988 Environ Days, 1991 Cum Funky, 1994 Hi-Bop Ska, 1994 Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool, 1994 appears on one track with Digable PlanetsBluesiana Hurricane, 1995 with Rufus Thomas, Bill Doggett, Chuck Rainey, Bobby Watson, Will Calhoun, and Sue FoleyBuddy Bolden's Rag, 1995 Not Two, 1995 No Ways Tired, 1995 Mac's Smokin' Section, 1996 Hello Friend: To Ennis with Love, 1997 My Secret Life, 1998 Amore Pirata, 1998 Smokin' Live, 1999 G:MT – Greenwich Mean Time, 1999 Talkin' About Life And Death, 1999 Test Pattern, 2004 Hiroshima, 2007 The Ancestors Are Amongst Us - with Kahil El'Zabar and the Ritual Trio