Joe McPhee

Joe McPhee (b. 1939, Miami, Florida) is an American saxophonist, trumpeter, and clarinetist whose work since the late 1960s has been central to American free jazz and experimental music. After military service, he developed his practice as a musician in Poughkeepsie, New York, recording his debut album Underground Railroad (1969) and establishing himself as a distinctive voice in the post-Coltrane free jazz tradition.

McPhee's playing encompasses both the lyrical and the intensely abstract, drawing from blues, spiritual music, and free jazz in ways that maintain contact with the roots of African-American musical tradition while pushing forward into experimental territory.