About John Tchicai

John Martin Tchicai (born April 28, 1936) is a Danish jazz saxophonist. He was one of the earliest European free jazz musicians. He is of Danish and Congolese descent. Tchicai studied violin in his youth, and in his mid-teens began playing clarinet and alto saxophone, focusing on the latter. By the late 1950's he was travelling around northern Europe, playing with many musicians. After moving to New York City in 1963, Tchicai fell into the free jazz scene, co-forming the New York Contemporary Five and the New York Art Quartet, and playing on John Coltrane's epochal Ascension.