Of Jamaican and Louisiana Creole descent, Abstract Black / Jayve Montgomery was born at Ft. Hood, Texas on the last day of 1979 and raised a dependent of the department of defense in Berlin, Germany, before and after the wall; Rayne, Louisiana, before the frogs left; Columbia, SC, a home of the confederate flag; and Ft. Campbell, KY, home of the 101st Airborne Division. Montgomery received a double BA in Japanese Studies and Anthropology from Centre College of KY and has also studied sound at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

He is a Nashville sound artist and multi-instrumentalist of the Chicago school of Free, Creative, and Improvised musics, Sonic Healing Ministries sector. He was Senior Program Specialist for the Chicago Park District’s Inferno Mobile Recording Studio (2006-2013), a collaborative sound making program for youth and people with disabilities. He was also a curator and artist-in-residence at Brown Rice (2008-2012), an art space for listening in Chicago, IL.

Since moving to Nashville, he has become an integral member of the improvised and experimental music scene of the city and region; gaining local recognition for Nashville Scene solo performance of the year 2019; and becoming alum of Pitchfork Music Festival (Standing on the Corner), High Zero Festival of Improvised and Experimental Music, and True/False Film and Music Festival. 2021 has taken Montgomery on two tours of France with The Bridge.