John Tchicai Trio & Marshall Allen @ The Cinema, 3925 Walnut St., 8 p.m.
Of Danish and Congolese decent, John Tchicai (b. 1936) is best known for his contribution to John Coltrane’s 1965 new jazz masterpiece, “Ascension.” He co-founded the New York Contemporary Five with Archie Shepp and Don Cherry as well at the New York Art Quartet with Milford Graves and Roswell Rudd. Tchicai recorded with Albert Ayler (New York Eye and Ear Control), the Jazz Composers Guild, and John Lennon (Life With the Lions). And, following three years as a central figure in New York’s avant garde, Tchicai relocated to Denmark in 1966 and founded a large workshop ensemble called Cadentia Nova Danica, which he led until 1971. Shortly thereafter, he cut back on performing to concentrate on teaching. In 1977, he returned to the studio, leading a fairly steady series of recording dates into the ’80s, when he switched to tenor sax and joined Pierre Dorge’s New Jungle Orchestra. In 1990, Tchicai received a lifetime grant for jazz performance from the Danish Ministry of Culture; and the following year he relocated to California’s Bay Area, where he and his keyboardist wife Margriet founded John Tchicai & the Archetypes and the John Tchicai Unit, which both recorded during the ’90s.
New York Eye & Ear Control — “ITT”