Дат саксофонисі және композиторы Джон Мартин Тшикай

Danish jazz saxophonist and composer

John Martin Tchicai (/tʃ//ɪ/'/k//aɪ/ chihKYE; 28 April 1936 – 8 October 2012) was a Danish free jazz saxophonist and composer.

Tchicai was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, to a Danish mother and a Congolese father. The family moved to Aarhus, where he studied violin when young, and in his mid teens began playing clarinet and alto saxophone, focusing on the latter. By the late 1950s, he was travelling around northern Europe, playing with many musicians. In 1962, he met trumpeter Bill Dixon and saxophonist Archie Shepp at a festival in Helsinki. Following his work in New York, Tchicai returned to Denmark in 1966, and shortly thereafter focused most of his time on music education. He formed the small orchestra Cadentia Nova Danica with Danish and other European musicians; this group collaborated with Musica Elettronica Viva and performed in multi media events. Tchicai was a founding member of Amsterdam's Instant Composers Pool in 1968, and in 1969 took part in the recording of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's Unfinished Music No.2: Life with the Lions. On 30 August 1975 Tchicai's appearance at the Willisau Jazz Festival was recorded and released later that year as Willi the Pig. On this record, he plays with Swiss pianist Irène Schweizer. Tchicai returned to a regular gigging and recording schedule in the late 1970s. In the early 1980s, he switched to the tenor saxophone as his primary instrument. In 1990, he was awarded a lifetime grant from the Danish Ministry of Culture. 2021 saw the publication of a biography titled "A Chaos with Some Kind of Order", written by Margriet Naber, Tchicai's former wife and collaborator for 20 years, and published by Ear Heart Mind Media. Writer Richard Williams called the book an "intimate and valuable account of (Tchicai's) life and work".