Jazz88 celebrates the birthday of pianist and composer Muhal Richard Abrams, who was born September 19th, 1930 in Chicago. Early on, Abrams worked with a wide variety of musicians from blues artists to saxophonist Dexter Gordon and trumpeter Woody Shaw. In 1965, Abrams was a founding member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, or AACM, an organization that fostered generations of innovative avant garde musicians, including Anthony Braxton, Lester Bowie, George Lewis and Roscoe Mitchell. His legacy is very closely linked with that innovative group. Abrams was a versatile pianist and possessed a brilliant mind for composition and theory. His influence is extensive and his music has inspired artists like Vijay Iyer, Craig Taborn and Jason Moran. He composed for a wide range of contexts – from small chamber works to orchestral pieces. He received the Danish Jazzpar Prize, he was named an NEA Jazz Master in 2010 and received a Lifetime Achievement Award at New York’s Vision Jazz Festival. Abrams died at 87 in 2017. Listen to Nate Chinen’s remembrance to Abrams here. Here is a link to an Abrams playlist on youtube.
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