# The world of Great Black Music had its prophets, intellectuals: The music world gained an important figure in Joseph Jarman – 82: Videos, Photos

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2025/09/14/the-world-of-great-black-music-had-its-prophets-intellectuals-the-music-world-gained-an-important-figure-in-joseph-jarman-82-videos-photos/
- Published: 2025-09-14T19:33:41+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**The world of Great Black Music had its prophets, intellectuals, and mockers. It
also had its inspired shamans, and Joeseph Jarman was just such a man. He would 
have been 82 years old today.**

He passed away last year, and we will miss him especially, because in reality, we
were bidding Jarman farewell musically long before he left to play in the great 
celestial orchestra.

He appeared on stage less and less frequently, actually, since 1993, when he left
the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Therefore, perhaps it will be good to remember his 
birthday in particular.

As much as music, he was absorbed by spirituality, Buddhist practices, and another
great passion: aikido.

It was during this period, in the early 1990s, that Jarman began regularly visiting
monasteries in East Asia, eventually becoming a priest of the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist
Church in Kyoto, Japan, and an aikido master, holding not only fifth dan but also
a teacher at the Jikishinkan Aikido dojo in Brooklyn, which he founded.

It’s worth remembering, however, that the news of Jarman’s departure was not announced
in an official statement, and his absence from the stage of the world’s most famous
free jazz band sparked a wave of rumors about his alleged health problems and, according
to others, serious alcohol problems. The rumors persisted until the very end.

![](https://i0.wp.com/media.pitchfork.com/photos/5c38d9aa24005742dbcd1a3f/2%3A1/
w_790/Joseph%20Jarman.png?w=640&ssl=1)

Yet the period after leaving the Art Ensemble of Chicago wasn’t a time of complete
musical abstinence.

He didn’t record much music back then, and he didn’t perform many more concerts.
However, fans undoubtedly fondly remember his recordings with Scott Fields and Reggie
Workman, his exquisite duet with Marilyn Crispell, and finally, the material he 
recorded with the trio Equal Interest, a group that briefly united the talents of
Jarman, the outstanding violinist Leroy Jenkins, and the pianist Myra Melford, who
was then conquering the jazz scene and who is now one of the most important female
bandleaders on the jazz scene.

![Joseph Jarman 14/09/37 – 9/01/19 | Jazzwise](https://i0.wp.com/www.jazzwise.com/
media/73284/joseph-jarman-996x515-996x515.jpg?resize=640%2C331&ssl=1)

Polish admirers of his talent, or rather, musical genius, were lucky. In few places
outside the United States have Jarman been able to hear and see music since his 
retirement from music. And yet, somehow, we managed.

It wasn’t a large concert audience, and even smaller at the opening of the exhibition
by photographer Laureen Deutch at the Centre for Contemporary Art, but thanks to
the efforts of the late Wojtek Juszczak and Dionizy Piątkowski, then still co-hosts
of Era Jazzu, Joseph Jarman and Rob Garcia performed in the Chamber Hall of the 
Warsaw Philharmonic and earlier at the Blue Note in Poznań in a beautiful concert,
captivating with its folk simplicity.

![](https://i0.wp.com/direct.rhapsody.com/imageserver/images/Art.2276/356x237.jpg?
resize=640%2C426&ssl=1)

Yes, the folk simplicity and, as many say, the wild ethnic fervor of his playing,
somehow unusually blended with lyricism, were the most important characteristics
of his music and of his playing on all kinds of saxophones, flutes, and experimental
instruments.

They became a pillar of the sound of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and, earlier, of
Muhal Richard Abrams’ Experimental Band, because we must remember that Jarman was
one of the first to join the ranks of this magnificent and still enigmatic organization-
institution, the parent of the now-iconic Association of the Advancement of Creative
Musicians.

![Joseph Jarman, 81, Dies; Mainstay of the Art Ensemble of Chicago - The New  York
Times](https://i0.wp.com/static01.nyt.com/images/2019/01/12/obituaries/12JARMAN-
OBIT3/12JARMAN1-articleLarge.jpg?resize=640%2C960&ssl=1)

They also consistently characterized the activities he undertook under his own name,
both on albums and in concert. On stage, especially at AOC, he performed in shamanic
ritual costumes, sometimes with impressive plumes, and mask-like makeup, drawing
the audience’s attention to the theoretically incomparable and disparate elements
that make up the phenomenon of Great Black Music.

For some, it was a spectacular show, as Roscoe Mitchell, dressed in impeccable business
suits, and the madcap Lester Bowie, dressed in a white doctor’s coat, stood on stage
next to him. For others, it was an expression of the essence of the cultural identity
of the African American community, which, in its contemporary life, not only doesn’t
forget its heritage, whose roots reach back to a completely different continent,
but also makes it a significant source of its uniqueness.

![](https://i0.wp.com/www.jazzjonesphotos.com/images/j/Joseph%20Jarman%20217%2030%
20fs.jpg?resize=640%2C425)

Joseph Jarman was born on September 14, 1937, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. And if it
weren’t for his military service, he likely wouldn’t have become interested in either
jazz or the alto saxophone.

He began his musical education with drums, specifically the snare drum, under the
tutelage of his first mentor, Capt. Walter Dyett. It wasn’t until he left in 1955
to complete his military service with the 11th U.S. Paratroopers stationed in Germany
that he discovered jazz and changed his instrumental preferences.

At the time, he likely didn’t imagine that less than a decade later, he would be
playing a concert in Hyde Park with John Cage himself, seeing his name in a Down
Beat magazine review for the first time, and a year later, recording his debut album,“
Song For All,” for Delmark Records.

The music world gained an important figure in Jarman. A man who saw his work not
only as a musician and performer, bouncing from concert to concert, but also as 
an opportunity to show listeners that the worlds of music, dance, theater, and poetry
are a vast space in which disciplines influence and draw endless inspiration from
each other.

He died, perhaps, a fulfilled man, aware that he was important to his children, 
grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and wife. He last performed publicly in 2017
at a concert at the Miller Theatre in Manhattan during the 50th anniversary of the
founding of Art.

Ensemble Of Chicago. His great musical heart stopped beating as a result of his 
many battles with cancer and as a direct result of respiratory failure.

And we will be left with beautiful memories and, not so numerous, albums recorded
on the most famous labels such as Atlantic, DIW, Black Saint, and ECM.

![](https://i0.wp.com/www.jazzarium.pl/sites/default/files/styles/maxi_image_article/
public/jarman.jpg?resize=640%2C310&ssl=1)

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