In 1965, he took part in the first sessions of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and in 1967, worked with Muhal Richard Abrams and Jodie Christian.
With the soul-jazz trio Young-Holt Unlimited around Redd Holt,[2] he recorded the title Soulful Strut, an instrumental version of the song "Am I the Same Girl", which sold over a million copies and reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts.
[3] After the dissolution of Young-Holt Unlimited in the early 1970s, Chaney founded the post-hard bop sextet The Awakening, which played in the style of Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers, supplemented by the electric piano and musical influences from Woody Shaw and Pharoah Sanders.
In the course of his career, Chaney played with John Klemmer (with whom he also made several albums), Milt Jackson, Eddie Harris, Slide Hampton and David Fathead Newman, among others, and worked with Chicago musicians such as Dee Alexander, Kimberly Gordon and Steve Hashimoto.
[6] A few months later, bandmate Ari Brown recorded a tribute to Chaney called "One for Ken" on his album Groove Awakening.