Robert Black, the bassist and founding member of the Bang on a Can All-Stars sextet, who helped expand the reach of experimental music, died at his home in Hartford, Connecticut, last week, The New York Times reports. According to his partner, Gary Knoble, the cause of death was colon cancer. Black was 67.
Throughout his career Black collaborated with and commissioned work from many composers, including John Cage and Philip Glass, whose large-scale work The Not Doings of an Insomniac featured poetry readings by Lou Reed and Patti Smith. A virtuoso player with contemporary tastes, Black drew remarkable sounds from his instrument, a double bass nicknamed Simone that was made in Paris in 1900.
Born Robert Alan Black in Denver on March 16, 1956, he started playing bass in middle school. Black attended the University of North Texas and the Hartt School in Connecticut, where he would later teach for 29 years. As a young freelancer in New York at the dawn of the 1980s, he split his time between classical orchestras and the downtown experimental scene.
In 1987, he was invited to perform at the first Bang on a Can festival, where he performed Iannis Xenakis’ “Theraps” and Tom Johnson’s “Failing.” In 1992, Michael Gordon and his fellow Bang on a Can directors, David Lang and Julia Wolfe, asked Black to join the newly formed All-Stars sextet, where his distinct playing style would become central to the group’s sound for the next three decades.
Black frequently championed contemporary composers, and, in 2017, formed the Robert Black Foundation to support them. During the pandemic, he livestreamed performances by young and emerging composers from his home as part of a monthly Friday series. Black’s final concert was held in April in Philadelphia, performing Eve Beglarian’s piece for 24 basses called A Murmur in the Trees.