Shaw, Charles “Bobo”
Shaw, Charles “Bobo”
Shaw, Charles “Bobo” , free-jazz drummer, leader; b. Pope, Miss., Sept. 15, 1947. He studied drums with Joe Charles, Ben Thigpen Sr., Lige Shaw, Charles Payne, and Rich O’Donnell. He played trombone briefly, and played bass with Frank Mokuss. He played drums with Oliver Sain, Julius Hemphill, Ike and Tina Turner, Oliver Lake, Roland Hanna, Ron Carter, Elvin Jones, Albert King, Reggie Workman, Art Blakey, and the St. Louis Symphony Orch. He co-founded the Black Artists’ Group (BAG), toured Europe with them for a year in the late 1960s, and played free jazz in Paris for a year with Anthony Braxton, Steve Lacy, Frank Wright, Alan Silva, and Michel Portal. Shaw returned to St. Louis in the 1970s and recorded there with Oliver Lake (1971). He led the Red, Black & Green Solidarity Unit and Human Arts Ensemble in the mid-1970s, recording with Lester and Joseph Bowie, Julius Hemphill, Lake and others. After touring with the Human Arts Ensemble in Europe during the late 1970s, Shaw recorded with Billy Bang in the mid-1980s.
Discography
Bugle Boy Bop (1977); P’nkj’zz (1981); Junk Trap (1997). human arts ensemble: Whisper of Dharma (1972); Under the Sun (1973).
—Lewis Porter