John Gilmore (musician)

This article is about John Gilmore, the jazz saxophonist. See John Gilmore for a founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or John Gilmore (representative) for the Pennsylvania Representative.

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John Gilmore (October 29, 1931 - August 20, 1995) was a jazz tenor saxophone player best-known for his long tenure with Sun Ra.

Gilmore served in the United States Army from 1948 - 1952, then persued a musical career, playing briefly with Earl Hines before encountering Sun Ra in 1953.

For the next four decades, Gilmore recorded and perfomed almost exclusively with Sun Ra. This was puzzling to some, who noted Gilmore's talent, and thought he could be a major star like John Coltrane or Sonny Rollins. Coltrane, in fact, was impressed with Gilmore's playing, and took informal lessons from him in the late 1950's. Contrane's epochal, proto-free jazz "Chasin' the Trane" was inspired partly by Gilmore's sound.

Gilmore's devotion to Sun Ra was due, in part, to the latter's use of harmony, which Gilmore considered both unique and a logical extension of bebop. Gilmore had stated that Sun Ra was "more stretched out than Monk" [1] and that "I'm not gonna run across anybody who's moving as fast as Sun Ra ... So I just stay where I am." [2]

After Sun Ra's 1993 death, Gilmore led Ra's "Arkestra" for a few years before his own death. Marshall Allen then took over Arkestra leadership.