Lester Bowie (October 11, 1941 â November 8, 1999) 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.
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. 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.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. In 1968, he founded the Art Ensemble of Chicago 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 àSophie (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. 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, '. 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. (Lester and David Bowie were not related.)
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.
With David Bowie
With James Carter
With Jack DeJohnette
With Brigitte Fontaine
With Melvin Jackson
With Fela Kuti
With Frank Lowe
With Jimmy Lyons
With Roscoe Mitchell
With David Murray
With Sunny Murray
With Charles Bobo Shaw
With Archie Shepp
With Alan Silva
With Wadada Leo Smith
With others