Peter Warren

Peter Warren's work on bass and cello reached a sizeable audience via his membership in drummer <a href="spotify:artist:7rDjbKTLlpNYJRWMm7QVxU">Jack DeJohnette</a>'s ensembles beginning in the mid-'70s. <a href="spotify:artist:0ubnN8VlgkD4nE25WI3LMm">DeJohnette's Special Edition</a> band recorded some of the more critically acclaimed jazz of the late '70s and early '80s; Warren played on the albums Special Edition and Tin Can Alley (both ECM), made during the group's most avant-garde phase. Warren played cello in his youth; he debuted at Carnegie Hall at 17 and attended the Juilliard School in New York. Warren began playing double bass while living in Las Vegas, and later studied with former <a href="spotify:artist:4jXfFzeP66Zy67HM2mvIIF">Bill Evans</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:5jtGuhEEDh07yaFfm8qHg7">Cecil Taylor</a> bassist <a href="spotify:artist:2OV6qeUJ6s8RFkQYdddmZn">Chuck Israels</a> in New York. He toured with singer <a href="spotify:artist:2JSjCHK79gdaiPWdKiNUNp">Dionne Warwick</a> in the mid-'60s before settling in New York, where he worked with <a href="spotify:artist:47odibUtrN3lnWx0p0pk2P">Ornette Coleman</a>'s bassist David Izenzon in the New York Bass Revolution, a band that featured ten bassists. He lived and worked in Europe in the early '70s, and played with such musicians as <a href="spotify:artist:3SInttLnvf5G4Aa95aAYPr">Jean-Luc Ponty</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:3uPWecBPNXAChysw1uOJwI">Don Cherry</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:3UXq4fckDmcPmleixlrl6i">Anthony Braxton</a>. Warren returned to the U.S. in 1974 and began playing with <a href="spotify:artist:7rDjbKTLlpNYJRWMm7QVxU">DeJohnette</a>, recording the drummer's Cosmic Chicken in 1975. In addition to his '70s work with <a href="spotify:artist:7rDjbKTLlpNYJRWMm7QVxU">DeJohnette</a>, Warren also was awarded an NEA grant to compose music for cello in 1976. He worked with guitarist <a href="spotify:artist:3zX0EMvB00JzxnRi5EIICP">Mike Stern</a> and John Scofield in the early '80s. In the '90s he lived in the Boston area and worked in improvisational settings with a variety of musicians, including the Chicago-based saxophonist <a href="spotify:artist:55Wpgt1Y1RISpita5RLxGm">Ken Vandermark</a>. In 1994 Warren founded two improvising groups, Cheap Suit Serenaders and Elastic Consort. The latter group included flutist Matt Samolis; Samolis would also collaborate with Warren on a project featuring the steel cello, a sonic sculpture built out of tuned steel rods and cymbals and played with a bow. Warren's recordings as a leader include Bass Is (with <a href="spotify:artist:5L4Qx1QRCADhlU2kBhsFwl">Glen Moore</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:1bqaQBqbqbEXPxLF0v6AAH">Dave Holland</a>, and Jamie Faunt; Enja [1970]), Solidarity (Japo [1981]), and Bowed Metal Music (with Samolis; Innova [2001]). ~ Chris Kelsey, Rovi