Multi-instrumentalist, composer and improviser Roscoe Mitchell turns 80 today. He has been a restless explorer of forms, ideas and concepts for more than 50 years and, as player, composer and thinker, has been an inspiration for successive generations of musicians.
His early album Sound brought a new dynamic into improvised music with emphases on texture and silences and group creativity and set some directions for the shape of new jazz to come – directions further crystallized in the pioneering work of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the Note Factory and many other groups.
Happy Birthday, Roscoe
photo by Elvira Faltermeier
