Led by trombone player Joseph Bowie — the son of a St. Louis-based music teacher and the brother of big band arranger Byron Bowie and late trumpet player of the Art Ensemble Of Chicago Lester Bowie — Defunkt created some of the most adventurous sounds of the last quarter of the century. Formed in 1978, Defunkt initially took a danceable approach to jazz. Although their first three albums — Defunkt, Razor's Edge, and Thermonuclear Sweat — made them leaders of New York's radical underground music scene