Alvin Fielder

Who is Alvin Fielder?

Alvin Fielder is an American jazz drummer. He is a founding member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, Black Arts Music Society, Jackson, Mississippi, Improvisational Arts Trio/Quartet/Quintet and is a founding faculty member of the Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp. William Butler Fielder, jazz and classical trumpeter, Rutgers University Jazz Professor is Fielder's only sibling.

Fielder began playing drums at age 12, heavily influenced by recordings of Max Roach. While a student at Xavier University in New Orleans, he studied under Ed Blackwell at the recommendation of Earl Palmer, jazz drummer. When he continued studying pharmacy at Texas Southern University in Houston, he "worked with the "Pluma" Davis sextet, which included Don Wilkerson, Richard "Dicky Boy" Lillie, John Browning, and Carl Lott. Backed such artists as Lowell Fulsom, Amos Milburn and other R&B artists with extended engagements in Houston. Also did several studio dates for Duke records. Active on Houston jazz scene with Jimmy Harrison Quintet, John Browning Quintet, and Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson Sextet." He later went to graduate school in pharmacology. After taking his degree at the University of Illinois, he began playing in Chicago, co-founding the AACM in 1965. Over the next several years Fielder played with Sun Ra, Muhal Richard Abrams, Eddie Harris, Kalaparusha, Fred Anderson, Lester Lashley and Roscoe Mitchell. Fielder is among the musicians on Roscoe Mitchell's "Sound" recorded in 1966.