# Oliver Lake: new music and other disciplines in relation to music: Video

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2017/09/14/oliver-lake-new-music-disciplines-relation-music-video/
- Published: 2017-09-14T22:52:22+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**14.09. – Happy Birthday !!! Born in Marianna, Arkansas in 1942, Oliver moved to
St. Louis at the age of two. **

He began drawing at the age of thirteen (and paints daily, using oil, acrylics, 
wood, canvas, and mixed media), and soon after began playing cymbals and bass drum
in various drum and bugle corps. At 17, he began to take a serious interest in jazz.
Like many other members of BAG and its Chicago-based sister organization, the Association
for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), Lake moved to New York in the 
mid-’70s, working the fertile ground of the downtown loft scene and quickly establishing
himself as one of its most adventurous and multi-faceted artists. A co-founder of
the internationally acclaimed World Saxophone Quartet with Hemphill, Hamiet Bluiett
and David Murray in 1977 (and recently celebrating its 26th anniversary with an 
album of Jimi Hendrix pieces for Justin Time Records), Oliver continued to work 
with the WSQ and his own various groups – including the groundbreaking roots/reggae
ensemble Jump Up – and collaborating with many notable choreographers, poets and
a veritable Who’s Who of the progressive jazz scene of the late 20th century, performing
all over the U.S. as well as in Europe, Japan, the Middle East, Africa and Australia.

While he has continued to tour regularly with his own groups, collaborations and
guest appearances – in the last three months of 2003, he performed in Europe, Japan
and various U.S. cities – Oliver recognized the changing trends and new challenges
facing creative artists, especially those working in the jazz tradition. Always 
a strong proponent of artist self-empowerment and independence, in 1988 Lake founded
Passin’ Thru, Inc., a 501(c)(3) non-profit, dedicated to fostering, promoting and
advancing the knowledge, understanding and appreciation of jazz, new music and other
disciplines in relation to music.

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