Lester Bowie

Did You Know?

• Lester Bowie's father, W. Lester Bowie Sr., was his first music teacher and served as a high school band director in St. Louis for thirty years.
• Bowie co-founded the Black Artists Group (BAG) in St. Louis before moving to Chicago.
• He recorded the opening theme for the eighth and final season of the television series The Cosby Show in 1991.
• Bowie's composition "Ska Reggae Hi-Bop" was performed with the Skatalites on their 1994 album Hi-Bop Ska.
• The 1994 compilation Stolen Moments: Red Hot + Cool, on which Bowie appeared, was named "Album of the Year" by Time magazine.

Biography

Lester Bowie was born in the historic village of Bartonsville, Maryland, and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. His father, a trained trumpeter who led a high school band program for three decades, gave him his first trumpet lessons at age five. Both of his brothers also became professional musicians: Joseph Bowie on trombone and Byron Bowie on saxophone. Early in his career, Bowie performed with blues artists like Little Milton and Albert King, as well as R&B singers Solomon Burke, Joe Tex, and Rufus Thomas.

In 1965, he married Fontella Bass and became her musical director; the couple had four children. He also helped found the Black Artists Group in St. Louis. Moving to Chicago in 1966, he worked as a studio musician, joined the AACM, and met Muhal Richard Abrams and Roscoe Mitchell. Two years later, he co-founded the Art Ensemble of Chicago with Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, and Malachi Favors.

The group spent a two-year residency in Paris starting in 1969, where Bass sang on the film soundtrack Les Stances à Sophie. Bowie remained with the Art Ensemble for life and also played in Jack DeJohnette’s New Directions quartet. He lived in Jamaica and Nigeria, recording with Fela Kuti. Onstage, he wore a white lab coat and waxed his goatee into two points, a signature part of the ensemble’s visual presentation.