He is one of the founders of free jazz, but equally enjoys playing stride piano or composing classical music for the Kronos String Quartet. Yet Muhal Richard Abrams (1930) could rightly be called self-taught when he started as a professional musician with saxophone player King Fleming in 1948. Two years later he switched to the group MJT + 3 to play hard bop and it appeared that Abrams was adept at writing compositions and arrangements. In 1965 Abrams made an important, historic move: he founded the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in Chicago that educates young jazz musicians about the history of jazz and stimulates experimentation. This has given a stage to young free jazz artists like Lester Bowie, Anthony Braxton and George Lewis. In the 1970s Abrams moved to New York where he showed himself to be a versatile artist. He received an honorary doctorate for his work in 2012.
