Alan Silva

Alan Lee da Silva (born 22 January 1939, in Bermuda) is an American free jazz double bassist and keyboard player.

Biography
Silva was born a British subject to an Azorean/Portuguese mother, Irene da Silva, and a black Bermudian father known only as "Ruby". He emigrated to the United States at the age of five with his mother, eventually acquiring U.S. citizenship by the age of 18 or 19. He adopted the stage name of Alan Silva in his twenties.

Silva was quoted in a Bermudan newspaper in 1988 as saying that although he left the island at a young age, he always considered himself Bermudian. He was raised in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City, where he first began studying the trumpet, and moved on to study the upright bass.

Silva is known as one of the most inventive bass players in jazz and has performed with many in the world of avant-garde jazz, including Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Sunny Murray, and Archie Shepp.

Silva performed in 1964's October Revolution in Jazz as a pioneer in the free jazz movement, and for the 1967 live album Albert Ayler in Greenwich Village. Since the early 1970s, Silva has lived mainly in Paris, France, where he formed the Celestrial Communication Orchestra, a group dedicated to the performance of free jazz with various instrumental combinations. In the 1990s he picked up the electronic keyboard, declaring that his bass playing no longer surprised him. He has also used the electric violin and electric sarangi on his recordings.

In the 1980s, Silva opened a music school I.A.C.P. (Institute for Art, Culture and Perception) in Central Paris, together with François Cotinaud and Denis Colin, introducing the concept of a Jazz Conservatory patterned after France's traditional conservatories devoted to European classical music epochs.

Since around 2000, he has performed more frequently as a bassist and bandleader, notably at New York City's annual Vision Festivals.

As sideman
with Albert Ayler
 * Albert Ayler in Greenwich Village (Impulse!, 1967) – live recorded in 1966–67
 * Love Cry (Impulse!, 1968) – recorded in 1966–67

with Abdelhai Bennani
 * Enfance (Marge, 1998)
 * Entrelacs (Tampon Ramier, 2003) – live recorded in 1999
 * New Today, New Everyday (Improvising Beings, 2012)
 * Free Form Improvisation Ensemble 2013 (Improvising Beings, 2015)[2CD]

with Dave Burrell
 * Echo (BYG Actuel, 1969)
 * After Love (America, 1971) – recorded in 1970

with Bill Dixon
 * Bill Dixon in Italy Volume One (Soul Note, 1980)
 * Bill Dixon in Italy Volume Two (Soul Note, 1981)
 * Considerations 1 (Fore, 1981)
 * November 1981 (Soul Note, 1982)

with Bobby Few
 * More Or Less Few (Center of the World)
 * Rhapsody in Few (Black Saint)
 * Solos & Duets with Frank Wright (Sun Records)

with Sunny Murray
 * Sunny Murray (ESP Disk, 1966)
 * Big Chief (Pathé, 1969)
 * Sunshine (BYG Actuel, 1969)
 * Homage to Africa (BYG Actuel, 1970)
 * Aigu-Grave (Marge, 1980)
 * Perles Noires Volume 1 (Eremite, 2005) – live recorded in 2002-04

with Sun Ra
 * Sun Ra-Featuring Pharoah Sanders and Black Harold (Saturn, 1976) – live recorded in 1964
 * Nuit de la Fondation Maeght Vol. 1 (Shandar)
 * Nuit de la Fondation Maeght Vol. 2 (Shandar)
 * It's After the End of the World (MPS, 1970) – live
 * Out In Space (MPS)

with Archie Shepp
 * Poem for Malcolm (BYG Actuel, 1969)
 * Live at the Pan-African Festival (BYG Actuel, 1971) – live recorded in 1969

with Cecil Taylor
 * Unit Structures (Blue Note, 1966)
 * Conquistador! (Blue Note, 1968) – recorded in 1966
 * Les Grandes Répétitions (CBS/Sony, [not released]) – recorded in 1966
 * It is in the Brewing Luminous (hat Hut, 1981) – live recorded in 1980

with Frank Wright
 * Center of the World (Center of the World, 1972) – live
 * Last Polka in Nancy? (Center of the World, 1973) – live
 * Solos & Duets with Bobby Few (Sun, 1975)
 * Unity (ESP-Disk, 2006)

with others
 * Jacques Coursil, Trails of Tears (Sunnyside, 2010) – recorded in 2007-09
 * The Globe Unity Orchestra, Intergalactic Blow (JAPO, 1983)
 * Burton Greene, Firmanence (Fore, 1980)
 * Andrew Hill, Strange Serenade (Soul Note, 1980)
 * Franz Koglmann and Bill Dixon, Opium for Franz (Pipe, 1977) – recorded in 1976; 3 tracks reissued on Opium (Between the Lines, 2001)
 * Shipen Lebzelter, Rock and Other Four Letter Words (Columbia, 1968)
 * Jimmy Lyons, Other Afternoons (BYG Actuel, 1970) – recorded in 1969
 * Grachan Moncur III, New Africa (BYG Actuel, 1969)
 * Itaru Oki, Paris-Ohraï (Ohraï, 2001)
 * William Parker, Requiem with Charles Gayle (Splasc(H), 2006)
 * Francois Tusques, Intercommunal Music (Shandar, 1971)

Filmography

 * 2001 – Inside Out in the Open (2001). Directed by Alan Roth.