Jazzhus Montmartre is the historic jazz hotspot of Copenhagen, presenting world class live jazz at the original intimate venue where the famous club started back in 1959.

Hamiet Bluiett was born just north of East St. Louis in Brooklyn Illinois (also known as Lovejoy) a predominantly African-American village that had been founded as a free black refuge community in the 1830s and which later became America’s first majority-black town. As a child he studied piano trumpet and clarinet but was attracted most strongly to the baritone saxophone from the age of ten. He began his musical career by playing the clarinet for barrelhouse dances in Brooklyn Illinois before joining the Navy band in 1961. He attended Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

In his mid-twenties Bluiett heard Harry Carney (the baritone player in the Duke Ellington band) play in a live concert in Boston which also made a strong impression on the young Bluiett providing an example of a baritone saxophonist who played as soloist rather than accompanist.

Following his time in the Navy he returned to the St. Louis area in the mid-1960s. In the late 1960s Bluiett co-founded the Black Artists’ Group (BAG) of St. Louis Missouri a collective dedicated to fostering creative work in theater visual arts dance poetry film and music. He led the BAG big band during 1968 and 1969.In late 1969 Bluiett moved to New York City where he joined the Charles Mingus Quintet and the Sam Rivers large ensemble.

In 1972 Bluiett joined Charles Mingus and toured to Europe with him. He would often play off and on with him leaving at some points to play with another band but would come back a year later. In 1974 Bluiett returned to Mingus and played in quintet alongside George Adams. He also performed in Mingus at Carnegie Hall. He continued to play with Mingus until 1975 when he left to make his own recordings as a leader.

In 1976 he co-founded the World Saxophone Quartet along with two other Black Artists’ Group members Julius Hemphill and Oliver Lake as well as multi-reedist David Murray.

He has remained a champion of the somewhat unwieldy baritone saxophone organizing large groups of baritone saxophones. In the 1980s he also founded the Clarinet Family a group of eight clarinetists playing clarinets of various sizes ranging from E-flat soprano to contrabass. Since the 1990s Bluiett led a quartet the Bluiett Baritone Nation made up entirely of baritone saxophones with drum set accompaniment.

Bluiett also worked with Babatunde Olatunji Abdullah Ibrahim Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye. From Wikipedia.