Leroy Jenkins (March 11, 1932 As a youth, he lived with his sister, his
mother, two aunts, his grandmother, and, on occasions, a boarder, in a three-bedroom apartment. Jenkins was immersed in music from an early age, and recalled listening to Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and singers such as Billy Eckstine and Louis Jordan. When Jenkins was around eight years old, one of his aunts brought home a boyfriend who played the violin. After hearing him play a difficult Hungarian dance, Jenkins begged his mother for a violin, and was given a red, half-size Montgomery Ward violin that cost twenty-five dollars. He began taking lessons, and was soon heard at St. Luke's Baptist Church, where he was frequently accompanied on piano by Ruth Jones, later known as Dinah Washington. After graduating, Jenkins attended Florida A&M University, where he resumed study of the violin. At one point, he attended an AACM event featuring music by Roscoe Mitchell, performed by Maurice McIntyre, Charles Clark, Malachi Favors, Alvin Fielder, and Thurman Barker. Jenkins recalled being both confused and excited, and was thrilled to be included in a collective improvisation after taking out his violin. Jenkins would rehearse and perform with the group for roughly four years,
During this time, Jenkins began playing in a trio format with fellow AACM members Anthony Braxton and Leo Smith, recording the album 3 Compositions of New Jazz in 1968. (Abrams also appears on the album.) In 1969, the trio moved to Paris, where they began playing with drummer Steve McCall, in a group that became known as the Creative Construction Company. While in Paris, Jenkins had to opportunity to perform with a wide range of musicians, including Archie Shepp and Philly Joe Jones, with whom he recorded, Alan Silva, on whose album Luna Surface he appeared, and Ornette Coleman, who at one point organized a joint Paris concert featuring the Creative Construction Company, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and Coleman's own group. That same year, Jenkins participated in the recording of Braxton's album B-Xo/N-0-1-47a for BYG Actuel.
In 1970, Jenkins left Paris, later stating that he did not feel comfortable with the fact that he did not speak French, and moved to New York City. Upon his arrival, he reconnected with Coleman and moved into Coleman's Artists House loft, where he lived for several months. He recalled: "We stayed downstairs... It was cold down there, where we slept. Ornette gave us a mattress but he didn't realize how cold it was." The concert, which also featured Muhal Richard Abrams and bassist Richard Davis, was recorded thanks to Coleman, who arranged for an engineer to be present, Jenkins went on to form the Revolutionary Ensemble with bassist Sirone and percussionist Jerome Cooper, a group that would last roughly six years. During the early and mid-1970s, he also performed and recorded with Alice Coltrane, Don Cherry, Carla Bley, Grachan Moncur III, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Paul Motian, Dewey Redman, and Archie Shepp. In 1974, the Jazz Composer's Orchestra commissioned Jenkins to compose a large-scale work, resulting in the album For Players Only. In 1975, he recorded Swift Are the Winds of Life, an album of duets with drummer Rashied Ali. These albums would be followed by over a dozen releases under his name over the next thirty years.
During the late 1970s, Jenkins performed and recorded with pianist/composer Anthony Davis and drummer Andrew Cyrille, During this time, in addition to placing in reader and critic polls in Jazz Magazine and DownBeat, he began receiving greater recognition as a composer, garnering commissions and grants from the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts, and performances from groups like the Kronos Quartet, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, the New Music Consort, the Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, and the Cleveland Chamber Symphony, among others. In the late 1980s, Jenkins toured and recorded with Cecil Taylor,
The 1990s and 2000s saw a continuation of Jenkins's success as a composer. New works included Fresh Faust, a jazz-rap opera, written for Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art; The Negro Burial Ground, a cantata presented by The Kitchen and workshopped at UMass Amherst; the opera The Three Willies, presented at the Painted Bride in Philadelphia and at the Kitchen; and Coincidents an opera with librettist Mary Griffin, performed at Roulette in New York. and performed and recorded with the group Equal Interest, which featured Jenkins on violin, Joseph Jarman on woodwinds, and Myra Melford on piano. At the time of his death he was working on two new operas: Bronzeville, a history of South Side Chicago, and Minor Triad, a music drama about Paul Robeson, Lena Horne, and Cab Calloway.