Joseph Jarman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Joseph Jarman (born on September 14, 1937 in Pine Bluff, Arkansas), is a musician, composer, poet and Shinshu Buddhist priest.
He is perhaps best known as a saxophonist in the Art Ensemble of Chicago, but Jarman has had a long, interesting career apart from that group.
[edit] Biography
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 army after graduation.
After he was discharged from the army in 1958, Jarman attended Wilson Junior College, where bassist Malachi Favors Maghostut and saxophonists Roscoe Mitchell, Henry Threadgill, and Anthony Braxton were also studying. Mitchell introduced him to pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, and Jarman, Mitchell, and Favors Maghostut joined Abrams' Experimental Band 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 AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) in 1965.
Jarman's recording career began at this time with two releases on the Delmark Label from Chicago - they were different than other "jazz" records insofar as they included spoken word, and the "little instruments" that Jarman and Mitchell would use to effectiveness in the Art Ensemble. The recordings on Delmark include Charles Clark and Christopher Gaddy, who each passed away after making the recordings (they also feature startling trumpet work from Chicago underground legend Billy Brimfield). Shortly after his bandmates died, in 1967 Jarman joined Mitchell, Favors Maghostut, and trumpeter Lester Bowie in the Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble, which became known shortly thereafter as the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The group moved to Paris in 1970 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 master bassist Fred Hopkins. Jarman stayed with the Ensemble until 1993, when he left the group to focus on his spiritual practice. He didn't have anything to do with music until 1996, when he resumed playing and composing; when Bowie died in 1999, Jarman rejoined the Art Ensemble, and he continues to play with them.
Along with the saxophone and clarinet, Jarman also plays (and has 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 is also involved in the practice of Zen Buddhism and aikido. He is a Jodo Shinshu priest, and holds a rank of godan (fifth degree black belt) in aikido.
