Through his participation in Jack DeJohnette’s ensembles in the mid-’70s, Peter Warren’s cello and bass playing reached a large audience. DeJohnette’s Special Edition group recorded some of jazz’s most acclaimed music of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Warren was a member of Jack DeJohnette’s ensembles, and he played on the albums Special Edition (both ECM), which were made during the group’s most avant-garde period. Warren was a cellist in his youth. He made his debut at Carnegie Hall when he was 17 years old and subsequently attended the Juilliard School in New York. Warren started playing double bass in Las Vegas while he was living there. He later studied with Chuck Israels, ex-Bill Evans and Cecil Taylor bassists. Before moving to New York, Warren toured with Dionne Warwick, the singer. He then settled in New York where he was a bassist in the New York Bass Revolution. This band featured ten musicians. In the early 1970s, he lived and worked in Europe, where he played with Don Cherry, Jean-Luc Ponty and Anthony Braxton. Warren returned to the U.S. and started playing with DeJohnette in 1974. In 1975, he recorded DeJohnette’s Cosmic chicken. Warren was also awarded a NEA grant in 1976 to compose music for cello. In the early 1980s, he worked with John Scofield and Mike Stern as a guitarist. He lived in Boston in the 1990s and worked with many musicians in improvisational settings, including Ken Vandermark, a Chicago-based saxophonist. Two improvising groups were founded by Warren in 1994, Elastic Consort and Cheap Suit Serenaders. The second group was led by Matt Samolis, flutist. Samolis would collaborate with Warren on a project that featured the steel cello. This is a sound sculpture made of tuned steel rods and drums and played with a bow. As a leader, Warren has recorded Bass Is (with Glen Moore and Dave Holland), Solidarity (1981), and Bowed Metal Music with Samolis [2001]. Allmusic
