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Chris Kelsey (born June 5, 1961) is an American-born jazz saxophonist, composer, music critic, and novelist. His music draws on bebop, free jazz, free improvisation, funk, and fusion, and is augmented by elements of non-tonal, contemporary classical music. His fiction is inspired by such crime writers as Raymond Chandler, Jim Thompson, and Dashiell Hammett. As a musician, Kelsey has worked almost exclusively as a leader of his own ensembles, usually trios and quartets. From the late 1980s, his principal instrument has been soprano saxophone, though in recent years he has recorded and performed on tenor and alto, as well. Kelsey has recorded nearly twenty albums under his own name, many for the C.I.M.P. label. With rare exceptions, he has recorded and performed his own original compositions. His first novel, Where the Hurt Is, was published in 2018 by Black Rose Writing. As a critic, he has written for leading jazz publications and web sites, including Jazziz, JazzTimes, Cadence Magazine, AllMusic, and Jazz.com.
In 1992, Kelsey formed The Almost Jazz Trio with electric bassist Dom Richards and drummer Edward Ware. The band recorded Stomp Own It, a funk and groove-influenced cassette-only release on Kelsey's own Saxofonis Music label. During this period he played the Knitting Factory (including performing at several of that club's annual summer jazz festivals) and other Downtown NYC venues. In 1996, Kelsey recorded Observations – a duo with trombonist Steve Swell – for the then-new C.I.M.P. label. The next year he recorded The Ingenious Gentleman of the Lower East Side with a trio that included Ware and bassist Dominic Duval, also for C.I.M.P.
After releasing a trio of albums on his own label in 1999, Kelsey essentially stopped playing the saxophone for several years, while he and his wife raised their two small children. During this time, he experimented with computer music, but did not perform or record.
Kelsey returned to music in early 2003. He formed a new trio with bassist Francois Grillot and drummer Jay Rosen, the band's music influenced by the compositional concepts of John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, and Albert Ayler. The group recorded a series of albums for the C.I.M.P. label, usually with a second horn. In late 2004, they recorded Renewal, with trombonist Swell added. In 2005 the core trio recorded Wishing You Were Here. That same year, Kelsey recorded a solo soprano sax album for Cadence Jazz, Beyond Is and Is Not. Two years later, with trumpeter John Carlson, the group recorded its final two albums for C.I.M.P., The Crookedest Straight Line Vols. 1 & 2. The Kelsey/Grillot/Rosen unit (with Chris DiMeglio on trumpet) recorded once more, in 2009 for Kelsey's own Tzazz Krytyk label. The resultant album, Not Cool (... In Other Words, the Opposite of Paul Desmond), "The Chris Kelsey 4: Not Cool (… as in, “The Opposite of Paul Desmond”)", Free Music Archive. featured a cover of Albert Ayler's “Ghosts”, the first time one of Kelsey's groups would record a composition other than his own. It was also the first time Kelsey would record on tenor and alto sax.
Kelsey renewed his association with guitarist DeSalvo, beginning around 2010. In 2011, DeSalvo's Unseen Rain label released Happy House, a set of interpretations of Ornette Coleman tunes by a quartet comprising Kelsey, trombonist Pat Hall, six-string electric bassist Joe Gallant, and drummer Dean Sharp. The new label also issued Stutches, a long-unreleased early-1990s recording of a trio that included Kelsey, DeSalvo, and percussionist Tom Tedesco; Live at Magnolia’s, a live duo set by Kelsey and DeSalvo recorded in 2012; and Live From Nowhere, a set by a modal-oriented quintet, 1UP1DOWN (Gallant, DeSalvo, keyboardist Lewis Porter, and drummer Alan Lerner). In 2013, Kelsey published a book of original compositions, The Attack of the Contrafact. In 2015, he released a pair of duo albums: Duets: NYC/Woodstock with the guitarist Dom Minasi, and Free: Kelsey/Porter Duo Plays Ornette, Vol. 1 with Porter. Plays Ornette, Vol. 2 was released in 2017.
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