A consistently strong accompanist and bassist, Alan Silva played on several recordings during the '60s and '70s, working with many top groups and players. He's a strong soloist, particularly with the bow, and has an assertive stylist. Silva studied piano and violin in his youth, and later attended the New York College of Music. He began playing bass in the early '60s. Silva teamed with Burton Greene in the Free Form Improvisation Ensemble, and participated in the October Revolution in Jazz concert series. He played with Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Sunny Murray, and Archie Shepp in the late '60s and early '70s, before settling in Europe. Silva formed the Celestrial Communication Orchestra, a group with rotating personnel, and also played with Frank Wright, Bobby Few, and Muhammad Ali (drums). He lived and worked in both Paris and New York during the '70s and '80s, playing and recording with Taylor, Bill Dixon, Andrew Hill, and the Globe Unity Orchestra. He recorded as a leader for BYG and Sun. Silva has no sessions available as a leader, but can be heard on Taylor and Ayler CD reissues. ~ Ron Wynn, All Music Guide
Born a British subject to an AzoreanPortuguese woman (Irene da Silva) and a black Bermudian man known only as "Ruby" at the very height of segregation, Silva emigrated to the United States at the age of five with his mother, eventually acquiring U.S. citizenship by the age of 18 or 19. He adopted the professional name Alan Silva in his twenties.
He was quoted in a Bermuda newspaper in 1988 as saying that although he left the island at a young age, he always considered himself Bermudian. He grew up in Harlem, New York City, first taking up the trumpet.
Silva is known as one of the most inventive bass players in jazz and has performed with many of the great names in the world of avant-garde jazz, including Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Albert Ayler, Sunny Murray, and Archie Shepp.
Silva performed in 1964's October Revolution in Jazz and for Ayler's Live in Greenwich Village album. He has lived mainly in Paris since the early 1970s, where he formed the Celestial Communication Orchestra, a group dedicated to the performance of free jazz with various instrumental combinations. In the 1990s he picked up the electronic keyboard, declaring that his bass playing no longer surprised him. He has also used the electric violin and electric sarangi on his recordings.
Since around 2000 he has performed more frequently as a bassist and bandleader, notably at New York City's annual Vision Festivals.
