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| Gary Peacock, photo by Roberto Masotti. |
By Paul Acquaro
Bassist Gary Peacock passed away on Friday, September 4th at age 85. Peacock’s work in free jazz goes back to nearly to the genre’s beginning with his work in saxophonist Albert Ayler’s groups, recording the highly influential Ghosts (Debut, 1964), Prophecy (ESP-Disk, 1964), New York Eye and Ear Control (ESP-Disk, 1964), Spiritual Unity (ESP-Disk, 1965), and Spirits Rejoice (ESP-Disk, 1965).
Peacock also had a long association with pianist Paul Bley. The two appeared on many albums together, including Virtuosi (Improvising Artists, 1967), Mr. Joy (Limelight, 1968), and of course Paul Bley with Gary Peacock (ECM, 1970). Following the ECM thread, Peacock worked for over 30 years with pianist Keith Jarrett, appearing on Standards, Vol. 1 (ECM, 1983), Standards, Vol. 2 (ECM, 1983), Changes (ECM, 1983), Standards Live (ECM, 1985), At the Deer Head Inn (ECM, 1992) and many others, up through After the Fall (ECM, 2018).
Peacock was born in Idaho in 1935 and later studied music at Westlake School of Music in Los Angeles, before being drafted in the Army. In the 1950’s he was stationed in Germany and worked with European musicians such as Hans Koller and Atilla Zoller. Upon returning to the US, he worked in LA with Barney Kessel, Art Pepper, Don Ellis, Clare Fischer, Prince Lasha, and later in New York with Jimmy Giuffre, Roland Kirk, George Russell, Archie Shepp, and Bill Evans.
Pianist Marilyn Crispell has said Peacock as a “sensitive musician with a great harmonic sense” and Scott Yanow describes Peacock as “a subtle but adventurous bassist” whose “flexibility and consistently creative ideas have been an asset to several important groups”. This last point, especially in terms of free jazz, is further explored in an article in Jazz Times by pianist Ethan Iverson which details Peacock’s influence:
“In this molten context [Ayler’s music], the bassist needs to blanket the bottom with activity. Nobody did it better than Peacock, whose raw charisma and fiery temperament could almost match Ayler in songful intensity. The album they recorded in 1964 with roiling Sunny Murray for ESP, Spiritual Unity, has gone into the history books as one of the most important of all time. “
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Filmmaker IJ. Biermann shared an interview he conducted with Gary Peacock in 2015 (more info below in the comments):
ECM50 | 2015 Gary Peacock and Marc Copland from ijb on Vimeo.
