The Art Ensemble Of Chicago - Biography
Their slogan is “Great Black Music - Ancient To the Future,” and for all the humor in their music, the Art Ensemble of Chicago takes that credo totally seriously. Mixing everything from marching band music to pop songs, deep blues to African percussion, plus the entire history of jazz, then melding the disparate musical and artistic interests of its members so that the whole was always much more than merely the sum of its parts, the Art Ensemble persisted and survived, against all odds, into the 21st Century. This cadre of rugged individualists might in part owe their collective endurance to the parallel nurturance of individual careers as bandleaders and collaborators.
Although the eventual lineup of trumpet, two reeds, bass, and drums approximated the “normal” instrumentation of an improvising unit, the Art Ensemble was anything but conventional. The group’s early history includes long stretches without a dedicated percussionist, which necessitated rhythmic duties for all. Between them, reedmen Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman command an army of saxophones, clarinets, and flutes in addition to vibes, whistles, and noise-makers of all kinds. While the Art Ensemble could be spotty on record, it was in concert where they really made their reputation. The sight of a stage covered with literally hundreds of instruments was inspiring before a single performer took the stage. When the band would come out, with Lester Bowie in his white lab coat and Jarman, Malachi Favors, and Don Moye with painted faces and festive costumes, then turn to the east for a moment of silence before commencing to play, the ritualistic and theatrical aspect of their vision became clear in a way that was not possible by just playing an album at home. As Jarman explained it, “So what we were doing with that face painting was representing everyone throughout the universe, and that was expressed in the music as well. That's why the music was so interesting. It wasn't limited to Western instruments, African instruments, or Asian instruments, or South American instruments, or anybody's instruments.”
The most influential avant-garde band of the Seventies and Eighties began life as the Roscoe Mitchell Quartet. Mitchell played baritone saxophone in his high school band, adding the alto as a senior. After performing with Army bands during military service in Germany, he returned to the Midwest in 1961 where he played in bop-oriented groups alongside future associates like saxophonists Joseph Jarman, Henry Threadgill, Anthony Braxton, and bassist Malachi Favors. In 1962, he started to work with Muhal Richard Abrams’ Experimental Band, a rehearsal group that explored new avenues in composition and improvisation. The formation of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in 1965 was a natural consequence of the vision and organizational skills of Abrams and co-founders pianist Jodie Christian, drummer Steve McCall, and composer Phil Cohran. This valuable cultural organization, still operating as of this writing (2008), is organized as “a collective of musicians and composers dedicated to nurturing, performing, and recording serious, original music.”
In 1966, Mitchell’s sextet with trumpeter Lester Bowie, tenor saxophonist Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, bassist Favors, trombonist Lester Lashley, and drummer Alvin Fiedler, became the first AACM group to make a record, the simply-titled Sound (1966 Delmark). Their music announced new ways of approaching improvised music, turning away from the extroverted style cultivated in New York and toward a more intimate music with a much broader range of coloristic possibilities. The core trio of Mitchell, Favors, and Bowie continued to work together through 1967 and 1968, sometimes joined by Jarman and a variety of drummers. Bowie’s Numbers 1 & 2 (1967 Nessa), recorded in the summer of the year, featured, on “Number 2," the four future Art Ensemble members (Bowie, Mitchell, Jarman, Favors) recording as a quartet for the first time. Although the group continued to hone their music in a series of workshop performances and rehearsals, many of which were recorded, only a few albums appeared at the time. Old/Quartet, credited to Roscoe Mitchell (1968 Nessa), and Congliptious by the Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble (1968 Nessa), are two of the most important free jazz albums of the period. Not always easy to find, they were later collected in the limited edition 5-CD boxed set 1967/68 (Nessa 1993) along with Numbers 1 & 2 and much previously unavailable music from the period. With its series of solo statements by Favors on bass, Mitchell on alto, and Bowie on trumpet on the first side, and a lengthy quartet piece on the reverse with Robert Crowder added on drums, Congliptious presents in microcosm the musical world that would be limned and explored at length in the years to come.
Starting in December 1966, the group was known simply as the Art Ensemble, consisting of Mitchell, Bowie, Favors and drummer Phillip Wilson. Sometime in 1967, when Wilson left the group to go on tour with the popular Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the remaining trio expanded their use of percussion and “little instruments.” Jarman, after leading a series of his own sessions for Delmark, chose to work exclusively with the Art Ensemble beginning in the fall of 1968. The following year, the band, now a quartet of Mitchell, Jarman, Bowie, and Favors headed for Paris, joining a slew of American jazz musicians on the Continent that summer including some fellow Chicagoans. They became the Art Ensemble of Chicago that June, thanks to a French concert promoter, and the name stuck.
In Paris, the scene was wide open, and there were recording opportunities galore. A Jackson In Your House (1969 BYG/Actuel) was the first of their many French releases, followed in short order by The Spiritual (1969 RCA/Freedom),Tutankhamun (1969 RCA/Freedom), People In Sorrow (1969 Pathé-EMI/Nessa), Message To Our Folks (1969 BYG/Actuel), Reese and The Smooth Ones (1969 BYG/Actuel), and others. There were also a pair of albums featuring singer Fontella Bass, Bowie’s wife, for whom he had served as music director. The Art Ensemble became a quintet early in 1970 with the addition of percussionist Don Moye, who made his first appearance on record with the Art Ensemble on Chi Congo (1970 Carson/ Paula). The group continued to be based in Paris through the end of 1971, when the quintet triumphantly returned to the Chicago scene. Live At Mandel Hall (1972 Delmark), a continuous 76-minute performance, documents their homecoming show.
The Art Ensemble continued to hone its group approach with concerts and recordings in the Seventies. Their visibility increased in their home country, with the release of their first albums for a major label, Bap-Tizum (1972 Atlantic), presenting their entire set from the 1972 Ann Arbor Blues & Jazz Festival, and the studio follow-up Fanfare For The Warriors (1974 Atlantic) with guest artist Muhal Richard Abrams on piano. Not much was heard from the band for a few years after that, until they formed their own record company, AECO Records, in 1978. Solo projects by Favors, Jarman, and Moye appeared on the label, along with a 1974 concert, Kabalaba (1978 AECO). With their signing to the internationally renowned ECM label in 1978, the group embarked on their most visible and prosperous period.
Four albums appeared on ECM over the next few years, solidifying and expanding their reputation. Nice Guys (1979 ECM) was followed by Full Force (1980 ECM). Two years later, the indispensable live double-album Urban Bushmen (1982 ECM), taken from a concert in Munich, Germany, was released. Their final album for the label, The Third Decade (1985 ECM), emphasized the continuity of musical expression in the African diaspora by including a performance of “Walking in the Moonlight,” written by Roscoe Mitchell’s father.
With their greater prominence, the band found new fans in Japan, and in the spring of 1984 began an association with Japan’s DIW label. A series of concert and studio recordings appeared steadily through the early Nineties, including collaborations with the Amabutho Male Chorus led by Elliot Ngubane, a vocal ensemble from South African (Art Ensemble of Soweto, 1994 DIW), Cecil Taylor (Thelonious Sphere Monk: Dreaming of the Masters, Vol. 2, 1991 DIW/Columbia), and Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy (1990 DIW).
When Jarman left the band in 1993 in order to concentrate on his Buddhist and martial arts studies, the Art Ensemble continued as a quartet, although their recording activity was greatly decreased, with only the reggae-tinged Coming Home Jamaica (1995 Dreyfus) and the concert CD Urban Magic (1997 Musica Jazz) appearing in the latter half of the decade. Bowie, stricken with liver cancer, passed away in November 1999. The Art Ensemble, now down to a trio, recorded the heartfelt Tribute To Lester in 2001 (2003 ECM). Jarman returned to the fold in 2003 in time for a Rome concert, Reunion: Live in Roma (2003 Il Manifesto). With a new sense of purpose, the quartet recorded twice for Pi Recordings that year, resulting in The Meeting (2003 Pi) and Sirius Calling (2004 Pi). Once again, a member’s death forced a new direction in the group when Malachi Favors passed away at the end of January 2004. To the surprise of some fans, the group continued with brassman Corey Wilkes and bassist Jaribu Shahid joining as “guest artists,” and appearing on the double-CD Non-Cognitive Aspects of the City (2006 Pi) with performances taken from a club date in New York City.
Famoudou Don Moye later recalled Bowie’s prescience. The trumpeter told him at an early rehearsal to not “even mess with us or get any more involved if you can’t commit to playing Great Black Music at a very high level, becoming famous, and taking our place in the History of Jazz.” Moye was more than ready, and the Art Ensemble of Chicago would indeed find its place in the jazz pantheon.
