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

As leader

Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy

Lester Bowie's New York Organ Ensemble

With the Art Ensemble of Chicago

With the Leaders

  • Mudfoot, 1986
  • Out Here Like This, 1986
  • Unforeseen Blessings, 1988
  • Slipping and Sliding, 1994

    As sideman

With David Bowie
  • Black Tie White Noise
With James Carter
  • Conversin' with the Elders
With Jack DeJohnette
  • New Directions
  • New Directions in Europe
  • Zebra
With Brigitte Fontaine
  • Comme à la Radio
With Melvin Jackson
  • Funky Skull
With Fela Kuti
  • Stalemate
  • No Agreement
  • Sorrow Tears and Blood
  • Fear not for man
With Frank Lowe
  • Fresh
With Jimmy Lyons
With Roscoe Mitchell
  • Sound
With David Murray
  • Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club
With Sunny Murray
  • Sunshine
  • Homage to Africa
With Charles Bobo Shaw
  • Under the Sun
  • Streets of St. Louis
With Archie Shepp
  • Yasmina, a Black Woman
  • Blasé
  • Pitchin Can
  • Coral Rock
With Alan Silva
  • Seasons
With Wadada Leo Smith
  • Divine Love
With others
  • Funky 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 Planets
  • Bluesiana Hurricane, 1995 with Rufus Thomas, Bill Doggett, Chuck Rainey, Bobby Watson, Will Calhoun, and Sue Foley
  • Buddy 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

    Additional sources