Glenn Spearman was an American jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 tenor saxophonist. He was specifically associated with free jazz

Free jazz

Free jazz is an approach to jazz music that was first developed in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the music produced by free jazz pioneers varied widely, the common feature was a dissatisfaction with the limitations of bebop, hard bop, and modal jazz, which had developed in the 1940s and 1950s...

 and experimental music

Experimental music

Experimental music refers, in the English-language literature, to a compositional tradition which arose in the mid-20th century, applied particularly in North America to music composed in such a way that its outcome is unforeseeable. Its most famous and influential exponent was John Cage...

.

Spearman was active in Oakland, California

Oakland, California

Oakland is a major West Coast port city on San Francisco Bay in the U.S. state of California. It is the eighth-largest city in the state with a 2010 population of 390,724...

 from the late 1960s, but moved to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 in 1972, where he founded an ensemble called Emergency. This group recorded several albums on Brain Records

Brain Records

Brain was a Hamburg-based record label prominent in the 1970s releasing several important Krautrock records by bands such as Neu!, Cluster and Guru Guru...

 in the 1970s, performed on radio and television in France, and appeared at the festival in Avignon

Avignon

Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...

. He spent time as an artist-in-residence in Rotterdam

Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...

 and touring through Europe before returning to the United States in 1983. Following his return he worked in the Cecil Taylor

Cecil Taylor

Cecil Percival Taylor is an American pianist and poet. Classically trained, Taylor is generally acknowledged as one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an extremely energetic, physical approach, producing complex improvised sounds, frequently involving tone clusters and...

 Unit, working primarily out of San Francisco, though he performed on both sides of the Atlantic through the 1980s. In the 1990s, he led a Double Trio which included Larry Ochs

Larry Ochs (musician)

Larry Ochs is an American jazz saxophonist and composer.Ochs studied trumpet briefly but concentrated on tenor and sopranino saxophones. He worked as a record producer and founded his own label, Metalanguage Records, in 1978, in addition to operating the Twelve Stars studio in California...

, William Winant

William Winant

William Winant is an American percussionist.In addition to his work in contemporary classical music -- notably performing Lou Harrison's compositions—Winant has worked in a variety of genres, including noise rock, free improvisation and jazz. Notable collaborators include Glenn Spearman, Thurston...

, and Lisle Ellis

Lisle Ellis

Lisle Ellis, is a Canadian composer and bassist who is known for his improvisational style and use of electronics.-Biography:...

 as sidemen; this ensemble played at the Monterey Jazz Festival

Monterey Jazz Festival

The Monterey Jazz Festival is one of the longest consecutively running jazz festivals. It debuted on October 3, 1958 and was founded by San Francisco jazz radio broadcaster Jimmy Lyons.-History:...

 and the Vancouver International Jazz Festival

Vancouver International Jazz Festival

The Vancouver International Jazz Festival is an annual summer event in Vancouver, Canada.The festival grew out of a local jazz scene that centred around Vancouver Co-op Radio , a community radio station, in the early 1980s...

. They were also commissioned for a piece by the Move Dance Theater, which was performed at Laney College

Laney College

Laney College is a community college located in Oakland, California, next to the Lake Merritt BART station and the Kaiser Convention Center. Laney is the largest of the four colleges of the Peralta Community College District which serves northern Alameda County.Laney College originally opened in...

. He worked with the Rova Saxophone Quartet

Rova Saxophone Quartet

The Rova Saxophone Quartet is a San Francisco-based saxophone quartet formed in October 1977 at the same time as their "less adventurous" but better known colleagues the World Saxophone Quartet. The name "Rova" is an acronym formed from the last initials of the founding members: Jon Raskin, Larry...

 and with filmmaker Lynn Marie Kirby, in addition to teaching at Mills College

Mills College

Mills College is an independent liberal arts women's college founded in 1852 that offers bachelor's degrees to women and graduate degrees and certificates to women and men. Located in Oakland, California, Mills was the first women's college west of the Rockies. The institution was initially founded...

. He died of cancer

Cancer

Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...

 in 1998.

Discography

• Utterance (Cadence Jazz, 1990)
• Mystery Project (Black Saint Records, 1992)
• Smokehouse (Black Saint, 1993)
• Free Worlds (Black Saint, 1994)
• The Fields (Black Saint, 1996)
• Th (CIMP, 1997)
• Blues for Falasha (Tzadik Records
  Tzadik Records
  Tzadik Records is a record label based in New York City specialising in avant-garde and experimental music. The label was established by the eclectic composer and saxophonist John Zorn in 1995; Zorn is the executive producer of all Tzadik releases...
  
  , 1997)
• Let it Go (Red Toucan Records, 1997)
• First and Last (Eremite Records, 1997)
• Surya:Stretch the Edge (1997)
• Working with the Elements (CIMP, 1998)