In the late 1960's Oliver became a founding member of the Black Artists Group in St. Louis along with with saxophonist Julius Hemphill, trumpeter Bakaida Carroll, cellist Abdul Wadud, trombonist Joseph Bowie and drummer Charles "Bobo" Shaw among others. Like it's Chicago based sister group, The AACM(The Association for the Advancement of Creative Music), BAG's members collaborated with poets, singers, actors and dancers in a variety of performance mediums. This aesthetic continues to serve as a guidepost to Oliver's work.

Since moving to New York to participate in the "Creative Music" revolution of the mid 70's, Oliver has performed in a wide array of contexts from the Oliver Lake Quartet and his groundbreaking Roots/Reggae/Jazz group, "Jump Up" in the Eighties and Nineties to his current groups including the Oliver Lake Steel Quartet, the Oliver Lake Big Band and a trio featuring Native American vocalist, Mary Redhouse. Oliver is also an original member of the acclaimed World Saxophone Quartet and has toured widely with two performance pieces "The Life Dance of is" and "Matador."

As a composer Oliver is a recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship and is the most commissioned composer in the history of the respected "Meet the Composer" Organization. Oliver has also received commissions from the Library of Congress, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Composers Forum and has written for, or collaborated with, artists from the Brooklyn Philharmonic to poets Ntozake Shange and Amiri Baraka, performance artist Anna Devere Smith and pop singer Bjork among many others.

As a composer, arranger, saxophonist, flautist, poet and conceptualizer, Oliver Lake embodies all the tenets of the Creative music idea. He is above all else, an original artist.