George Emanuel Lewis is a prolific, world-renowned composer, trombonist, electronicist, and educator. He has been closely associated with the musical vanguard since joining the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) at age 19. His musical interests and recordings are boundlessly diverse, and his compositions have been performed by orchestras across the globe. Though he has worked in many jazz styles -- from New Orleans and bebop to hard bop, modal, and free -- he emphatically states that he's not a jazz musician. His playing trademarks include long lines, elegant phrasing, and voice-like effects. An exceptional soloist, he's able to improvise cleanly at blistering tempos yet still plays with warmth, humor, and originality (see Solo Trombone Record, 1976, and Elements of Surprise with Anthony Braxton, 1978). Lewis is equally adept at composing, conducting, and performing electronic works. Alongside electronic composer Richard Teitelbaum, he issued 1979's Homage to Charles Parker. Among his 21st century encounters with electronics is 2021's The Recombinant Trilogy. His modernist classical work includes 2001's The Shadowgraph Series: Compositions for Creative Orchestra and 2011's Les Exercices Spirituels. Lewis is the author of the nearly 800-page AACM: A Power Stronger Than Itself, The AACM and American Experimental Music. It took home the American Book Award in 2009. In 2023, George Lewis: Afterword, An Opera in Two Acts (based on the book) was recorded by the International Contemporary Ensemble. Lewis was born in Chicago in 1952. His father, George Thomas Lewis, was a postal worker who also studied electronics under the GI Bill and loved jazz. His mother, Cornelia Griffith Lewis, liked blues, soul, and R&B. Lewis originally attended the city's public school system. At age nine, his parents enrolled him at the University of Chicago Laboratory School. During his first semester he began studying the trombone, revealing a natural affinity for music theory, harmony, and arrangement. By the time he was 12, Lewis was transcribing Lester Young solos for the trombone. During the late '70s, he studied theory with Muhal Richard Abrams through an AACM outreach program. In 1969, age 17, he became a freshman in pre-law at Yale. He also took music theory classes, but lost interest in school after his sophomore year and took a hiatus. In Chicago in 1971, Lewis heard musicians jamming together near his parents' house. He followed the sound and introduced himself to AACM co-founder/pianist/composer Muhal Richard Abrams, trumpeter/actor John Shenoy Jackson, saxophonist Steve Galloway, and guitarist Pete Cosey (shortly before the guitarist began his tenure with Miles Davis). Lewis was invited to a show at the Pumpkin Room. The young man misunderstood the invite and brought his trombone so he could sit in, and they let him. The players he joined that evening included Joseph Jarman, Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, and Steve McCall. Afterwards, McCall invited him to play another gig. During rehearsal he met Roscoe Mitchell, Malachi Favors, Douglas Ewart, and others. Abrams encouraged him to join AACM. Lewis did and became reading secretary, taking minutes at weekly meetings. He regularly played late gigs with the Muhal Richard Abrams Big Band, and during the day, worked a United Steelworkers union job. Lewis returned to Yale in 1972, just as the university began its Duke Ellington Fellowship Program. Its guest lecturers and workshop conductors included Ellington, Charles Mingus, Max Roach, and Dizzy Gillespie, among others. While at Yale he met future collaborator, trumpeter/composer Wadada Leo Smith, who was living in New Haven, Connecticut. Lewis graduated from Yale with a degree in philosophy in 1974. Lewis got busy fast. He'd been a member of the AACM for five years and since 1975 had been working in Roscoe Mitchell's groups. In early 1976, he replaced Kenny Wheeler in Anthony Braxton's quartet. Further, he spent the spring of 1976 touring Japan and North America with the Count Basie Orchestra. He also recorded and released his debut, The George Lewis Solo Trombone Record, for Canada's Sackville label. That year he appeared on Braxton's landmark Arista recording Creative Orchestra Music, and on the Roscoe Mitchell Quartet (also on Sackville). 1977 proved a watershed year for Lewis as a sideman. He worked live with Abrams and saxophonist Fred Anderson. He also appeared on three vanguard jazz records, two of which are now iconic: Bassist Barry Altschul's You Can't Name Your Own Tune, Mitchell's classic Nonaah (Nessa), and Braxton's influential double-length Montreux/Berlin Concerts. The following year saw Lewis recording with Anderson for the first time on Another Place for Germany's Moers Music, as well as Elements of Surprise, a duo recording with Braxton cut in 1976. Lewis played a central role on Mitchell's double long-player L-R-G; The Maze; S II Examples (Nessa). He also released Monads-Triple Slow Mix-Cycle-Shadowgraph, 5, (Sextet) on Italy's Black Saint. The date was the first to credit Lewis with playing Moog Synthesizer in addition to trombone. The group he led included pianist/composer Anthony Davis, multi-instrumentalist Doug Ewart, violinist Leroy Jenkins, cellist Adbul Wadud, Mitchell, and Abrams. The '70s proved a decade of growth and international critical notice, along with touring, and recording important albums for Black Saint such as Jila-Save! Mon.- The Imaginary Suite, Shadowgraph, and 1979's Homage to Charles Parker, with Lewis playing trombone and electronics, accompanied by Davis, Ewart, and composer/keyboardist/electronicist Richard Teitelbaum (1979). The trombonist also appeared on recordings by Anderson (Another Place), Abrams (Mama and Daddy), Mitchell (Sketches from Bamboo), the Leo Smith Creative Orchestra (Budding of a Rose), Jenkins (Space Minds, New Worlds, Survival of America), and Sam Rivers (Contrasts). During the '80s, the already well-established Lewis branched out creatively. Among the dozens of records he appeared on during the decade, several are now considered essential for students of the vanguard. He recorded the completely improvised Fables with Company (guitarist Derek Bailey, bassist Dave Holland, and saxophonist Evan Parker), and played on Karl Berger and Woodstock Workshop Orchestra's Live at the Donaueschingen Music Festival. He also joined the cast of Zorn's legendary game piece Archery. He contributed to Memory Serves by avant-rock supergroup Material; Laurie Anderson's Big Science; he cut Yankees with Zorn and Bailey, and played on Steve Lacy's Hat Art albums Prospectus (retitled Cliches) and Futurities. He appeared with Globe Unity Orchestra on Intergalactic Blow. Lewis worked with many Europeans overseas and in the U.S. live and in-studio during the decade. He took part in Misha Mengelberg's Change of Season (Music of Herbie Nichols) and Dutch Masters (recorded in 1987, it was released in 1992). He also played on three important Gramavision recordings by Davis -- Episteme, Hemispheres, and Variations in Dream Time -- Braxton's seminal Four Compositions (Quartet) 1983, ICP Orchestra's Bospaadje Konijneho, Rhys Chatham's Factor X, Evan Parker's Hook, Drift & Shuffle, Heiner Goebbels' Der Mann im Fahrstuhl, and Irene Schweizer's The Storming of the Winter Palace. Arguably the most accessible recording bearing his name that decade was News for Lulu on Hat Hut. It was a trio recording with Zorn and guitarist Bill Frisell playing late-'50s and early-'60s hard bop tunes. In 1990, guitarist/flutist Joe Sachse released Duos: Berlin Tango, a completely improvised recording. His partners on the date were vocalist, electronicist, and percussionist David Moss and Lewis playing trombone. More News for Lulu, almost as lovely as its studio counterpart, was drawn from the trio's concerts in Paris, France and Basel, Switzerland. In 1993, Lewis issued Voyager accompanied by Mitchell, it was his first leader date in nearly a decade and showcased acoustic and electronic compositions. The year also saw his participation in the James Newton Ensemble's Suite for Frida Kahlo, and an appearance on pianist Vijay Iyer's debut album Memorophilia. 1993's Changing with the Times, a series of chamber jazz pieces, appeared on New World Records. Two years later, he teamed with Vinny Golia and Bertram Turetzky for Triangulation on Nine Winds. That same year he joined Tietelbaum's ensemble for the electro-acoustic masterwork Golem. In 1997, Lewis joined saxophonist Steve Coleman's groups on the double length Genesis & The Opening of the Way. In 1998, Music + Arts released The Usual Turmoil and Other Duets by Lewis and Miya Masaoka, a musician, sound artist, and experimental composer. Lewis also appeared on Masaoka Orchestra's What Is the Difference Between Stripping & Playing the Violin? The trombonist closed out the century by playing on Mitchell's Nine to Get Ready and Now Orchestra's WOWOW. In 1999, Cal Arts presented him with the Alpert Award in the Arts, and he began a second career as an educator. Between the end of the '80s and 2000 he taught at University of California San Diego, Mills College, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Koninklijke Conservatorium Den Haag, and Simon Fraser University’s Contemporary Arts Summer Institute. As the new century dawned, Lewis began recording again. In 2000 he issued Endless Shout as part of Tzadik's Composer Series. The album showcased a series of experimental, classical, and vanguard works performed by ensembles of varying sizes. He followed it in 2001 with The Shadowgraph Series: Compositions for Creative Orchestra in collaboration with Now Orchestra on Spool. In 2002 he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (commonly known as "the Genius grant"). Further, Lewis and Parker reunited for the acclaimed From Saxophone & Trombone; he also recorded Transition & Transformation with Turetzky and Mike Wofford. The following year, Lewis returned to Lacy's employ for The Beat Suite. Issued by Universal France, the set contained a series of through-composed songs set to the writings of Beat Generation authors. In 2004, Lewis joined the faculty of Columbia University in New York City as Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music, Composition & Historical Musicology. Though busy teaching, Lewis did appear on several recordings in 2004 and 2005, including Alvin Curran's Maritime Rites; Han Bennink's eponymous compilation, Schweizer's Portrait, and saxophonist David Borgo's Reverence for Uncertainty and Ubuntu. The following year saw Lewis issue the acclaimed Sequel (For Lester Bowie) on Intakt, and take part in the trio recording Streaming (Pi Recordings) with Abrams and Mitchell. In addition to playing, he produced the album. He also appeared on Rhys Chatham's electro-rock masterpiece Die Donnergötter on the indie Homestead label. In 2008 he published the essay "Foreword: After Afrofuturism" in the Journal of the Society for American Music in a special issue titled "Technology and Black Music in the Americas" but more importantly, he issued the monograph A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music. Issued by the University of Chicago Press, the universally acclaimed 768-page volume combines history, ethnography, biography, polemic, cultural, and critical theory in an exhaustive, myth-busting documentary that is ultimately a gargantuan labor of love. Lewis was so busy writing, teaching, and networking with musicians and orchestras across the globe that he found no time to record under his own name until Transatlantic Visions, released on France's Rogueart label in 2009. That same year he was a co-billed guest on the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra's Metamorphic Rock and co-released Sour Mash with Marina Rosenfield on Mute's Innova imprint. He also played on Paul Rutherford's Tetralogy. He won the American Musicological Society's Music in American Culture Award. He did find time to publish another essay as well. This one, "Interactivity and Improvisation," appeared in the Oxford Handbook of Computer Music. In 2010 he, Golia, and Turetzky released Transfiguration II on Nine Winds. 2011's Les Exercices Spirituels appeared from Tzadik. Recorded live in California, New York City, and Paris, it featured three unpublished chamber compositions (two from 2010) performed by three different ensembles. Lewis's music blends composition, improvisation, and electronic processing into a different aggregate. Two years later, Lewis, as a featured, co-billed soloist with Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra issued the archival Artificial Life 2007. That fall he published the critical essay "Americanist Musicology and Nomadic Noise" in the Journal of the American Musicological Society. Given his teaching, touring, and composing, Lewis didn't issue another title of his own until 2014, when he, Zorn, and Wadada Leo Smith released Sonic Rivers, a series of compositions and improvisations on Tzadik, as the inaugural volume in the label's Spectrum series. Fou Records released the archival concert document 28 Rue Dunois Juillet 1982 with Leandre and Bailey, while Jazzhead issued Hexis, featuring the trombonist in a co-billed role with the Monash Orchestra. In 2015, Lewis won a Guggenheim Fellowship and become a card-carrying member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The following year he returned to recording with two dates: Creative Construction Set with the Splitter Orchestra and The Will to Adorn with the International Contemporary Ensemble. An archival live date, Enfances 8 Janv. 1984, featuring the trombonist in the company of bassist Leandre and French free jazz saxophonist Daunik Lazro also appeared. He followed in 2017 with Assemblage from New Worlds Records, featuring unrecorded compositions from 2012-2014, recorded in the Northern Illinois University Recital Hall with Ensemble Dal Niente. His composition "Spinner" was recorded by classical/vanguard cellist Mariel Roberts on Cartography. Teaching, lecturing, and writing took up the vast amount of Lewis' life over the next several years. He published essays such as "From Network Bands to Ubiquitous Computing: Rich Gold and the Social Aesthetics of Interactivity" in Improvisation and Social Aesthetics, and "The Situation of a Creole: In 'Defining Twentieth-and-Twenty First-Century Music" in the journal of Twentieth-Century Music. On February 23, 2018, Lewis and Mitchell played a duo gig at Berlin's CTM Festival. Ther show was released in January 2019 by Rogueart. In October, another 2018 gig in Switzerland with violinist Harald Kimmig, double bassist Daniel Studer, and cellist Alfred Zimmerlin was released in 2019 by Hat's ezz-thetics imprint as Trio Kimmig-Studer-Zimmerlin and George Lewis. That year Lewis also became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Lewis wrote the essay "A Small Act of Curation" published by curating.org in 2020, as well as "Lifting the Cone of Silence From Black Composers" in The New York Times in July. In 2021, Carrier Records released Rainbow Family featuring Lewis in the company of Lacy, Bailey, Leandre, and Ewart. The volume showcases Lewis's interactive computer music recorded over three performances at France's Institut de Recherche et de Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) in 1984. The Rainbow Family performances featured from one to four human improvisers, performed it with three networked Apple II computers, and three Yamaha DX-7 synthesizers alongside bass, soprano saxophone, or guitar. Lewis did all programming and the hardware hacking for the album. The following year, his longform composition "As We May Feel" appeared alongside composer Oxana Omelchuk's "Wow and Flutter," recorded by a chamber group and released as Breaking News on ezz-thetics. New Focus Recordings released The Recombinant Trilogy. Comprising his electronic and electro-acoustic music, The Recombinant Trilogy offers three works for solo instrument and electronics recorded between 2016 and 2020, employing interactive digital delays, spatialization, and timbre alteration, to affect and eventually transform the acoustic sounds of a given instrument into multiple digitally created sonic personalities following diverse yet intersecting spatial trajectories. In 2023, George Lewis: Afterword, An Opera in Two Acts was recorded by the International Contemporary Ensemble, and appeared from Tundra. Though its live premier was held in 2015 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and subsequently traveled to U.S. and European venues, this was its first recording. The opera's title comes from the concluding chapter of Lewis's A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music. In that chapter he selected quotes from nearly 100 interviews conducted with AACM members engaging aesthetic, social, cultural, and political issues that the organization and its individual members have faced across the historical periods the collective's members have lived. Lewis described Afterword as "an opera of ideas, positionality, and testament…exploring history to reaffirm fundamentally human perspectives that mark not only the AACM, but also any social formation." As such, his opera, like his book, presents AACM not as fixed historical characters and plot lines, but as a stand-in for creative and transformational Blackness. In addition to the universally acclaimed release, Lewis published "Is Our Machines Learning Yet? Machine Learning's Challenge to Improvisation and the Aesthetic" in Leuven University Press's critical anthology Machinic Assemblages of Desire: Deleuze and Artistic Research 3. In 2023, he became chairman of Columbia University's composition area, and the director of its Reiner Center. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi

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