About Alan Silva

Alan Silva (born Alan Treadwell da Silva, Bermuda, January 22, 1939) is an American free jazz double bassist and keyboard player. Born a British subject to an Azorean Portuguese woman (Irene da Silva) and a black Bermudian man known only as "Ruby" at the very height of segregation, Silva emigrated to the United States at the age of five with his mother, eventually acquiring U.S. citizenship by the age of 18 or 19. He adopted the professional name Alan Silva in his twenties. He was quoted in a Bermuda newspaper in 1988 as saying that although he left the island at a young age, he always considered himself Bermudian. He grew up in Harlem, New York City, first taking up the trumpet. Silva is known as one of the most inventive bass players in jazz and has performed with many of the great names in the world of avant-garde jazz, including Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Sunny Murray, and Archie Shepp. Silva performed in 1964's October Revolution in Jazz and for Ayler's Live in Greenwich Village album. He has lived mainly in Paris since the early 1970s, where he formed the Celestial Communication Orchestra, a group dedicated to the performance of free jazz with various instrumental combinations. In the 1990s he picked up the electronic keyboard, declaring that his bass playing no longer surprised him. He has also used the electric violin and electric sarangi on his recordings. Since around 2000 he has performed more frequently as a bassist and bandleader, notably at New York City's annual Vision Festivals.