John Tchicai, Saxophone Player in Free Jazz Movement, Dies at 76 John Tchicai, a soft-toned Danish saxophonist who was at the center of the free-jazz movement in the mid-1960s - notably as a member of the New York Art Quartet and a presence on John Coltrane's watershed album "Ascension" - and later in Europe, died on Monday in Perpignan, France. He was 76. Morten Langkilde/Polfoto, via Associated Press John Tchicai was at the center of the free-jazz movement in the mid-1960s, notably as a member of the New York Art Quartet. The cause was complications of a stroke he suffered in June, said the filmmaker Alan Roth, a friend. Mr. Tchicai's participation in "Ascension," the 1965 large-ensemble recording that marked Coltrane's great push into a looser and louder kind of music, away from traditional harmony and rhythm and the rigor of his own quartet, solidified his place in the jazz avant-garde. But even amid the cathartic assault of "Ascension," Mr. Tchicai's sound set him apart from other free-jazz saxophone players. He borrowed some of the heart-rending wail of Albert Ayler, possibly the most passionate, dramatic and noisy of the new players. But whether in ballad whispers or jagged bursts, on any of the various saxophones and wind instruments he played, Mr. Tchicai's sound was delicate, narrow-toned and basically gentle. John Martin Tchicai (pronounced chih-KYE) was born in Copenhagen on April 28, 1936, the son of a Congolese father and a Danish mother. He started learning violin at the age of 10. Partly inspired by his half-brother, who played drums in the Harlem Kiddies, a trio of black Danish musicians, and partly by seeing Duke Ellington and other American musicians perform in Copenhagen, Mr. Tchicai turned to jazz and picked up the alto saxophone around the age of 15. After serving in the Danish Navy he moved to Copenhagen, where he soaked up the vibrant jazz scene. He played with a local band at a festival in Helsinki in 1962, where he met the saxophonist Archie Shepp and the trumpeter Bill Dixon, already growing forces within the New York avant-garde. That fall he moved to New York. He became a member of the New York Contemporary Five, a group including Mr. Shepp and the trumpeter Don Cherry, which made two albums in 1963. The next year, with the trombonist Roswell Rudd, he helped found the New York Art Quartet, whose other members were the bassist Lewis Worrell (later replaced by Reggie Workman) and the drummer Milford Graves. The group recorded only two albums, but they are among the outstanding documents of the free jazz of that period. In 1964 he played on "New York Eye and Ear Control," a collaborative album including Mr. Ayler and Mr. Cherry, and on Mr. Shepp's "Four for Trane," dedicated to Coltrane. The next year, he was a member of the 11-man lineup that recorded Coltrane's "Ascension." Mr. Tchicai returned to Denmark in 1966. He helped found the large ensemble Cadentia Nova Danica and started collaborating with European free improvisers from the Netherlands, Germany and England. In 1969 he was hired to take part in a concert in Cambridge, England, on a bill including John Lennon and Yoko Ono; they joined the jazz musicians at the end for a jam session, which was recorded and appears on the Lennon-Ono album "Unfinished Music #2: Life With the Lions." In 1972 Mr. Tchicai withdrew from regular playing for several years to study yoga and meditation. After his retreat, he resumed a broad and productive career. He played with the guitarist Pierre Dorge's New Jungle Orchestra; he took part in the pianist Cecil Taylor's 1984 big-band album "Winged Serpent"; he wrote orchestral works including "Hymne til Sofia" (2001), a composition for choirs, vocal soloists, marimba and rhythm section. His later recordings included "John Tchicai With Strings" in 2005 and "In Monk's Mood," consisting mostly of Thelonious Monk's music, in 2009. In 1990 he was awarded a lifetime grant by the Danish Ministry of Culture. The next year he took a teaching position at the University of California in Davis, where he stayed for a decade. Near the end of that period, in 1999, the New York Art Quartet reconvened for some performances and a new album. Mr. Tchicai, who since 2002 lived in Claira, in southern France, near the Spanish border, was married and divorced four times, most recently to the pianist Margriet Naber Tchicai, from whom he was divorced in 2010 after 17 years of marriage. He is survived by a daughter, Julie Tchicai Iverson; a son, Yolo; and a brother, Mauritz.