Abrams, Muhal Richard, 1930-2017 (Personal Name)

Braxton, A. Creative orchestra music 1976 [SR] p1976: inner sleeve (Muhal Richard Abrams, piano)

His Levels and degrees of light [SR] 1967?: labels (Richard Abrams, composer) container (clarinetist, pianist; president of Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians)

New Grove dict. of jazz (Abrams, Muhal Richard (Abrahams, Richard); b. 9-19-30, Chicago; pianist, composer, administrator)

Grove music online, viewed November 25, 2013 (Abrams, Muhal Richard (Abrams, Richard Louis))

African American National Biography, accessed June, 29, 2015, via Oxford African American Studies Center database: (Abrams, Muhal Richard; pianist, composer; born on 19 Sept. 1930 in Chicago, IL, US; attended the Governors State University, Chicago, late 1940s; wrote arrangements in early 1950s; pianist, composer, hard-bop group MJT+3 (1957-59); Experimental Band, free styles (1963); formed Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), offered training to young musicians (1965); recording career started with Level and Degree of Light, Delmark Records (1967), Young at Heart, Wise in Time (1969); NY City (1976); mid-1970s to mid-1990s recorded series of albums for Italian Black Saint label, two 1978 efforts for Novus Records (LifeaBlinec, Spiral Live at Montreux); wrote compositions for big bands, Hearinga Suite (1989); BluBluBlu (1990); was the first recipient of the Jazzpar Prize by Danish government (1990); Library of Congress chose his orchestra for the opening of a concert (1996); became president of New York chapter of the AACM; taught at Columbia University and Syracuse University, served as mentor for scores of important contemporary American musicians)

New York times WWW site, viewed Nov. 3, 2017 (in obituary published Nov. 1: Muhal Richard Abrams; b. Richard Louis Abrams, Sept. 19, 1930, Chicago; took the name Muhal in 1967 (interviewed by the French magazine Jazz in 1973, he said that the word, its origin unclear, means "number one"); d. Sunday [Oct. 29, 2017], Manhattan, aged 87; autodidactic pianist, composer, and educator who was known both for his diverse, unclassifiable compositions and improvisations and for establishing and sustaining the influential Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians)