2026年6月24日水曜日

音楽　：　Lester Bowie

 


Lester Bowie

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lester Bowie
Bowie performing in the mid-1990s
Bowie performing in the mid-1990s
Background information
BornOctober 11, 1941
Frederick, Maryland, U.S.
OriginChicago, Illinois
DiedNovember 8, 1999 (aged 58)
Brooklyn, New York
Occupations
  • Musician
  • composer
Instruments
  • Trumpet
  • flugelhorn
  • percussion
Years active1965–1999
Labels

Lester Bowie (October 11, 1941 – November 8, 1999)[1] 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.[2]

Biography

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Born in the historic village of Bartonsville in Frederick County, Maryland, United States, Bowie grew up in St Louis, Missouri.[2] He grew up in a musical family; his father, W. Lester Bowie Sr., was a trained trumpeter who served as a high school band director in St. Louis for thirty years, and was Lester's first music teacher.[3] His brothers, trombonist Joseph Bowie and saxophonist Byron Bowie, also became professional musicians. At the age of five, he started studying the trumpet with his father. 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.[4] Together they had four children: Ju'Lene Bowie Coney, Bahnamous Lee Bowie (a keyboardist and record producer who appeared as a featured guest on two Art Ensemble of Chicago recordings, Ancient to the Future (1987) and Coming Home Jamaica (1998)), Neuka Bowie Mitchell, and Larry Stevenson.[5][6][7][8][9] He was a co-founder of Black Artists Group (BAG) 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.[10] In 1968, he founded the Art Ensemble of Chicago[2] with Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, and Malachi Favors. In 1969, Bowie and the ensemble relocated to Paris, France, where they performed and recorded extensively over a two-year residency; during this period, his wife Fontella Bass appeared as a featured vocalist on the film soundtrack Les Stances à Sophie (Pathé Marconi/EMI France, 1970), recorded at Pathé Marconi studio, Boulogne, France on August 22, 1970, documented by the Library of Congress Jazz on the Screen database.[11] 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.[1] 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.[12] (Lester and David Bowie were not related.)

Bowie took an adventurous and humorous approach to music,[12] and criticized Wynton Marsalis for his conservative approach to jazz tradition.[13]

Bowie died of liver cancer in 1999 at his Clinton Hill, Brooklyn, New York house he shared with second wife Deborah for 20 years.[1] The following year, he was inducted into the DownBeat Jazz Hall of Fame.[14] 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.[15]

Discography

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Lester Bowie, New Jazz Festival Moers (Moers Festival), 1978
Lester Bowie, with the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Jazz Festival Zeltweg (Spielberg), 1983

As leader

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TitleYearLabel
Numbers 1 & 21967Nessa
Gittin' to Know Y'All (features Bowie conducting the Baden-Baden Free Jazz Orchestra)1970MPS
Fast Last!1974Muse
Rope-A-Dope1976Muse
African Children1978Horo
Duet (with Phillip Wilson)1978Improvising Artists
The 5th Power1978Black Saint
The Great Pretender1981ECM
All the Magic1983ECM
Bugle Boy Bop (with Charles "Bobo" Shaw)1983Muse
Duet (with Nobuyoshi Ino)1985Paddle Wheel

Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy

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TitleYearLabel
I Only Have Eyes for You1985ECM
Avant Pop1986ECM
Twilight Dreams1987Venture
Serious Fun1989DIW
My Way1990DIW
Live at the 6th Tokyo Music Joy (with the Art Ensemble Of Chicago)1990DIW
The Fire This Time1992In & Out
The Odyssey Of Funk & Popular Music1999Atlantic
When the Spirit Returns2000 (recorded Oct. 1997)Birdology

Lester Bowie's New York Organ Ensemble

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TitleYearLabel
The Organizer1991DIW
Funky T. Cool T.1992DIW

With the Art Ensemble of Chicago

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TitleYearLabel
Old/Quartet - Roscoe Mitchell1967Nessa
Numbers 1 & 2 - Lester Bowie1967Nessa
Early Combinations - Art Ensemble1967Nessa
Congliptious - Roscoe Mitchell1967Nessa
A Jackson in Your House1969Actuel
Tutankhamun1969Freedom
the Spiritual1969Freedom
People in Sorrow1969Pathe Marconi
Message to Our Folks1969Actuel
Reese and the Smooth Ones1969Actuel
Eda Wobu1969JMY
Certain Blacks1970America
Go Home1970Galloway
Chi-Congo1970Paula
Les Stances a Sophie1970America
Live in Paris1970Freedom
Art Ensemble of Chicago with Fontella Bass1970America
Phase One1971America
Live at Mandell Hall1972Delmark
Bap-Tizum1972Atlantic
Fanfare for the Warriors1973Atlantic
Kabalaba1974AECO
Nice Guys1978ECM
Live in Berlin1979West Wind
Full Force1980ECM
Urban Bushmen1980ECM
Among the People1980Praxis
The Complete Live in Japan1984DIW
The Third Decade1984ECM
Naked1986DIW
Ancient to the Future1987DIW
The Alternate Express1989DIW
Art Ensemble of Soweto1990DIW
America - South Africa1990DIW
Thelonious Sphere Monk with Cecil Taylor1990DIW
Dreaming of the Masters Suite1990DIW
Live at the 6th Tokyo Music Joy with Lester Bowie's Brass Fantasy1991DIW
Fundamental Destiny with Don Pullen1991AECO
Salutes the Chicago Blues Tradition1993AECO
Coming Home Jamaica1996Atlantic
Urban Magic1997Musica Jazz

With the Leaders

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Main article: The Leaders

As sideman

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With David Bowie

With James Carter

With Jack DeJohnette

With Brigitte Fontaine

  • Comme à la Radio (Saravah, 1971)

With Melvin Jackson

  • Funky Skull (Limelight, 1969)

With Fela Kuti

With Frank Lowe

  • Fresh (Freedom, 1975)

With Jimmy Lyons

With Roscoe Mitchell

With David Murray

With Sunny Murray

With Charles Bobo Shaw

  • Under the Sun (Freedom, 1973)
  • Streets of St. Louis (Moers Music, 1974)

With Archie Shepp

With Alan Silva

With Wadada Leo Smith

With others

References

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  1. ^ Jump up to:a b c Ratliff, Ben (November 11, 1999). "Lester Bowie Is Dead at 58; Innovative Jazz Trumpeter". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 27, 2015.
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b c "Lester Bowie | Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved August 16, 2021.
  3. ^ Steinbeck, Paul (October 11, 2021). "Theme for Lester". The Common Reader. Washington University in St. Louis. Retrieved April 1, 2026.
  4. ^ Voce, Steve (November 12, 1999). "Obituary: Lester Bowie". The Independent.
  5. ^ "Fontella Bass Obituary". Austin A. Layne Mortuary. Retrieved March 12, 2026.
  6. ^ "Fontella Bass, 72, Singer of 'Rescue Me,' Is Dead". The New York Times. December 28, 2012. Archived from the original on December 28, 2012.
  7. ^ Johnson, Kevin C. (April 8, 2001). "Fontella Bass is out to rescue her career in popular music". St. Louis Post-Dispatch. ProQuest 404088167.
  8. ^ Santella, Jim (February 1, 1999). "Art Ensemble Of Chicago: Coming Home Jamaica". All About Jazz.
  9. ^ "Bahnamous Lee Bowie: Credits". AllMusic. Retrieved March 12, 2026.
  10. ^ Larkin, Colin, ed. (1992). The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music (First ed.). Guinness Publishing. p. 305. ISBN 0-85112-939-0.
  11. ^ "Les Stances à Sophie". Library of Congress — Jazz on the Screen. Retrieved March 31, 2026.[dead link]
  12. ^ Jump up to:a b Larkin, Colin, ed. (1995). The Guinness Who's Who of Jazz (Second ed.). Guinness Publishing. p. 64. ISBN 0-85112-674-X.
  13. ^ Watrous, Peter (May 12, 1994). "Pop and Jazz in Review". The New York Times. Archived from the original on June 3, 2020. Retrieved January 10, 2026.
  14. ^ "2000 DownBeat Critics Poll". DownBeat. Maher Publications. Archived from the original on February 22, 2012. Retrieved October 19, 2015.
  15. ^ Cullen, Graham (December 2, 2020). "'Music is medicine' : New downtown Frederick mural honors jazz legend and native son". The Frederick News-Post. Archived from the original on December 7, 2020. Retrieved May 12, 2026.

Additional sources

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