This is the Music of Life

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”