In the mid-1960s, Jenkins moved back to Chicago, and took a job in the public school system. At one point, he attended an
AACM event featuring music by
Roscoe Mitchell, performed by
Maurice McIntyre,
Charles Clark,
Malachi Favors,
Alvin Fielder, and
Thurman Barker. Jenkins recalled being both confused and excited, and was thrilled to be included in a
collective improvisation after taking out his violin. Jenkins would rehearse and perform with the group for roughly four years, During this time, Jenkins began playing in a trio format with fellow AACM members
Anthony Braxton and
Leo Smith, recording the album
3 Compositions of New Jazz in 1968. (Abrams also appears on the album.) In 1969, the trio moved to Paris, where they began playing with drummer
Steve McCall, in a group that became known as the
Creative Construction Company. While in Paris, Jenkins had to opportunity to perform with a wide range of musicians, including
Archie Shepp and
Philly Joe Jones, with whom he
recorded,
Alan Silva, on whose album
Luna Surface he appeared, and
Ornette Coleman, who at one point organized a joint Paris concert featuring the Creative Construction Company, the
Art Ensemble of Chicago, and Coleman's own group. That same year, Jenkins participated in the recording of Braxton's album
B-Xo/N-0-1-47a for
BYG Actuel. In 1970, Jenkins left Paris, later stating that he did not feel comfortable with the fact that he did not speak French, and moved to New York City. Upon his arrival, he reconnected with Coleman and moved into Coleman's Artists House loft, where he lived for several months. He recalled: "We stayed downstairs... It was cold down there, where we slept. Ornette gave us a mattress but he didn't realize how cold it was." The concert, which also featured Muhal Richard Abrams and bassist
Richard Davis, was recorded thanks to Coleman, who arranged for an engineer to be present, Jenkins went on to form the
Revolutionary Ensemble with bassist
Sirone and percussionist
Jerome Cooper, a group that would last roughly six years. During the early and mid-1970s, he also performed and recorded with
Alice Coltrane,
Don Cherry,
Carla Bley,
Grachan Moncur III,
Rahsaan Roland Kirk,
Paul Motian,
Dewey Redman, and Archie Shepp. In 1974, the
Jazz Composer's Orchestra commissioned Jenkins to compose a large-scale work, resulting in the album
For Players Only. In 1975, he recorded
Swift Are the Winds of Life, an album of duets with drummer
Rashied Ali. These albums would be followed by over a dozen releases under his name over the next thirty years. During the late 1970s, Jenkins performed and recorded with pianist/composer
Anthony Davis and drummer
Andrew Cyrille, During this time, in addition to placing in reader and critic polls in
Jazz Magazine and
DownBeat, he began receiving greater recognition as a composer, garnering commissions and grants from the
New York State Council on the Arts, the
New York Foundation for the Arts, and the
National Endowment for the Arts, and performances from groups like the
Kronos Quartet, the
Brooklyn Philharmonic, the New Music Consort, the
Pittsburgh New Music Ensemble, and the
Cleveland Chamber Symphony, among others. In the late 1980s, Jenkins toured and recorded with
Cecil Taylor, The 1990s and 2000s saw a continuation of Jenkins's success as a composer. New works included
Fresh Faust, a jazz-
rap opera, written for Boston's
Institute of Contemporary Art;
The Negro Burial Ground, a
cantata presented by
The Kitchen and workshopped at
UMass Amherst; the opera
The Three Willies, presented at the
Painted Bride in Philadelphia and at the Kitchen; and
Coincidents an opera with librettist Mary Griffin, performed at
Roulette in New York. and performed and recorded with the group Equal Interest, which featured Jenkins on violin,
Joseph Jarman on woodwinds, and
Myra Melford on piano. He collaborated and toured with various choreographers, and formed a world-music improvisation ensemble. In 2004, he was awarded a
Guggenheim Fellowship. Jenkins also held residencies at a number of American universities, including
Duke,
Carnegie Mellon,
Williams,
Brown,
Harvard, and
Oberlin. ==Death==