Malachi Favors, 76; Bass Player With Art Ensemble of Chicago

Malachi Favors, a jazz bassist known for his long association with the avant-garde Art Ensemble of Chicago, died Jan. 30 in Chicago of pancreatic cancer, relatives told the Associated Press. He was 76.

The Art Ensemble of Chicago’s performances were a mixture of music, theatricality and humor that combined traditional elements of jazz and blues, West African music, chanting, ritual, abstract sounds and, often, silence. The group also used such nontraditional instruments as bicycle horns, bird calls, rattles and kazoos.

Favors and some other members of the group dressed in traditional African garb and painted their faces. They all interacted with the audience, sometimes starting a performance in the aisles or parading through the customers as the show progressed.

Working outside the mainstream of commercial music, the Art Ensemble toured and recorded extensively. The group appeared in a variety of venues, including churches, schools, coffeehouses and colleges around Chicago. Its recordings were issued by such recognizable labels as Atlantic and ECM and smaller labels, including Japan’s DIW.

The ensemble’s most notable albums are “A Jackson In Your House” and “Urban Bushmen.”

Favors, a Chicago native, began playing the bass when he was 15. He studied with bassists Wilbur Ware and Israel Crosby after serving in the Army during the Korean War. He played with such be-bop leaders as trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie and pianist Andrew Hill.

Favors became interested in the free-jazz movement, playing with pianist Muhal Richard Abrams’ Experimental Band in 1961. He played with saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell on his influential “Sound” album in 1966.

Mitchell’s band evolved into the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The band, then a quartet consisting of Mitchell, Favors, trumpeter Lester Bowie and saxophonist Joseph Jarman, left Chicago in 1969 and established a base in Paris, while playing to great critical and popular acclaim throughout Europe.

The band returned to Chicago two years later with drummer Don Moye added to the lineup and enjoyed an increased popularity.

Favors is survived by a daughter, two brothers, three sisters and two grandchildren.