A. Spencer Barefield

A. Spencer Barefield, “… an extraordinary guitarist/composer" according to JazzTimes, is an acclaimed guitarist, soloist, composer and ensemble leader. He has performed, toured and recorded extensively for more than four decades as a ensemble leader, soloist, and with many jazz legends, such as Roscoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie, Oliver Lake, Richard Davis, Andrew Cyrille and Reggie Workman. He has played at hundreds of festivals and concerts in Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Hungary, Yugoslavia, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Holland, and throughout the US and Canada, including Alaska and the Yukon.

Barefield's innovative compositions, virtuosity and improvisational skills, and artistic vision has earned him numerous distinguished grants and honors, including the 2010 Kresge Artist Fellowship. He is the executive and artistic director of the Creative Arts Collective, which has received support from The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for major commissions and performances in Detroit, including at the Detroit Institute of Arts featuring NEA Jazz Master Roscoe Mitchell and Grammy nominated PUBLIQuartet. 

Barefield's works have been debuted and performed at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Montreux-Detroit Jazz Festival and the Art X Festival with members of the Detroit Symphony, New Music America Festival in New York and San Francisco, Nickelsdorf and Leverkusener Jazz Festivals, and at other venues worldwide. His compositions have been commissioned with support of the National Endowment for the Arts, Meet-the-Composer/Readers Digest/Lila Wallace Fund, Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, Arts Foundation of Michigan, Meet-the-Composer/ Commission USA, Arts International and others.

Barefield’s recordings “Live Detroit” and “Xenogenesis 2000” (CAC label), and his Sound Aspects (Germany) releases “After the End” and “Live at Leverkusen” have received rave international reviews and honors, including best new release in Cadence Critics’ Poll, Jazz Times (guitar issue), Metro Times Music Awards and others. Barefield is featured in Detroit Jazz City, a compilation of jazz greats produced by one of Detroit’s native sons, Blue Note Records president Don Was. The recording includes catalog tracks by Detroit-born jazz legends from the Blue Note vaults and alternates them with new recordings of the city’s current jazz elite, including vocalist Sheila Jordan, guitarist Spencer Barefield, bassist Marion Hayden, saxophonist James Carter, and the late trumpeter Marcus Belgrave.

Since 1978, Barefield has directed the Creative Arts Collective (CAC), whose 13-year concert series Creative Music at the DIA, held at the Detroit Institute of Arts and elsewhere, earned CAC the Michigan’s Governor’s Arts Award for excellence and international recognition for its innovative presentations. Over a hundred of CAC’s concerts have been broadcast on National Public Radio. Barefield has taught guitar and improvisation at the University of Michigan School of Music and elsewhere.

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“… a treasure to Detroit and to the world of music and art … [Barefield is] a gifted and innovative ­ musician, as well as a profoundly creative composer.”
— Legendary saxophonist/composer Roscoe Mitchell