One of only two major non-American figures in the free jazz movement of the early 1960s (alongside Joe Harriott), Denmark's John Tchicai studied violin but then took up alto saxophone and clarinet. He spent three years at the Aarhus Conservatory of Music before leading his own band at the World Youth Jazz Festival in Helsinki, where he met Archie Shepp and Bill Dixon. He subsequently joined the pair in the New York Contemporary Five, and in 1965 took part in John Coltrane’s epoch-making ASCENSION. Returning to Europe in 1966, Tchicai played with Don Cherry as well as leading his own group, Cadentia Nova Danica. In the early '80s he switched to tenor saxophone, and played with Chris McGregor’s Brotherhood Of Breath. In 1991, Tchicai moved to California where he founded the fusion septet Archetypes.