The Art Ensemble of Chicago is an avant-garde jazz group that grew out of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in the late 1960s. The ensemble integrates many jazz styles and plays many instruments, including "little instruments": bells, bicycle horns, birthday party noisemakers, wind chimes, and various forms of percussion. The musicians would wear costumes and face paint while performing. These characteristics combined to make the ensemble's performances both aural and visual. While playing in Europe in 1969, five hundred instruments were used.
History Members of what was to become the Art Ensemble performed together under various band names in the mid-sixties, as members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). They performed on the 1966 album Sound, as the Roscoe Mitchell Sextet. The Sextet included saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, trumpeter Lester Bowie, and bassist Malachi Favors. For the next year, they played as the Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble. In 1967, they were joined by fellow AACM members Joseph Jarman (saxophone) and Phillip Wilson (drums) and recorded for Nessa Records.
All of the musicians were multi-instrumentalists. Jarman and Mitchell's primary instruments were alto and tenor saxophone, respectively. Additionally, they both played other saxophones ranging from the small sopranino to the large bass saxophone, as well as the flute and clarinet. In addition to trumpet, Bowie played flugelhorn, cornet, shofar, and conch shells. Favors added touches of banjo and bass guitar. Most of them dabbled in piano, synthesizer, and other keyboards, and they all played percussion instruments.
They were known for wearing costumes and makeup on stage. Member Joseph Jarman described part of their style:
In 1967, Wilson left the group to join Paul Butterfield's band, and for a period the group was a quartet without a full-time drummer. Jarman and Mitchell served as artistic directors at the cooperative summer camp Circle Pines Center in Delton, Michigan, in August 1968, during the same week that the Democratic Convention was in Chicago. After a farewell concert at the Unitarian Church in Evanston, Illinois, in fall, 1968, the remaining group traveled to Paris. In Paris, the ensemble was based at the Théâtre du Vieux Colombier. In France, they became known as the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The impetus for the name change came from a French promoter who added "of Chicago" to their name for descriptive purposes. The new name stuck because band members felt that it better reflected the cooperative nature of the group. In Paris, the ensemble was based at the Théâtre du Vieux Colombier and they recorded for the Freedom and BYG labels. They also recorded Comme à la radio with Brigitte Fontaine and Areski Belkacem but without a drummer until percussionist Don Moye became a member of the group in 1970. During that year, they recorded the albums Art Ensemble of Chicago with Fontella Bass and Les Stances a Sophie with singer Fontella Bass, who was Lester Bowie's wife. The latter was the soundtrack to the French movie of the same title.
Fifty years on Lester Bowie died of liver cancer in 1999. Malachi Favors died in 2004 of pancreatic cancer. Joseph Jarman died on January 9, 2019, of respiratory failure.Jazz Musician and Buddhist Priest Joseph Jarman Dead at 81: Pitchfork. Retrieved 2019-01-11.
As of 2017-2019 Mitchell and Moye remained active, with new and previous collaborators as guest under the name Art Ensemble of Chicago - 50th Anniversary Large Ensemble. They released an album in 2019: Roscoe Mitchell – saxophones; Famoudou Don Moye – drums, congas and percussion. Guests: Babu Atiba – african drums and djembe Fred Berry – trumpet, flugelhorn – double bass – piano Jean Cook – violin Steed Cowart – conductor Rodolfo Cordova-Lebron – voice Dudu Kouaté – African percussion yuniya edi kwon – viola/violin William Lang - trombone Nicole Mitchell – flutes Moor Mother – spoken word Erina Newkirk – soprano vocals – double bass and objects Hugh Ragin – trumpet, flugelhorn and piccolo trumpet Tomeka Reid – cello Stephen Rush - conductor Jaribu Shahid – double bass Abel Selaocoe – cello – trombone Baba Sissoko – African percussion – vocals, congas, mbira, bells Christina Wheeler – voice, array mbira, autoharp, q-chord, theremin, sampler, electronics Enoch Williamson – congas, djembe and percussion
and another in 2023 with a smaller ensemble of 20 musicians – The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris.
Discography Title Year Label Sound - Roscoe Mitchell Sextet 1966 Delmark Old/Quartet - Roscoe Mitchell 1967 Nessa Numbers 1 & 2 - Lester Bowie 1967 Nessa Early Combinations - Art Ensemble 1967 Nessa Congliptious - Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble 1968 Nessa A Jackson in Your House 1969 BYG Actuel Tutankhamun 1969 Freedom The Spiritual 1969 Freedom People in Sorrow 1969 Nessa Message to Our Folks 1969 BYG-Actuel Reese and the Smooth Ones 1969 BYG-Actuel Eda Wobu 1969 JMY Comme à la radio 1970 Saravah Certain Blacks 1970 America Go Home 1970 Galloway Chi-Congo 1970 Paula Les Stances a Sophie 1970 Nessa Live in Paris 1970 Freedom Art Ensemble of Chicago with Fontella Bass 1970 America Phase One 1971 America Live at Mandel Hall 1972 Delmark Bap-Tizum 1972 Atlantic Fanfare for the Warriors 1973 Atlantic Kabalaba 1974 AECO Nice Guys 1978 ECM Live in Berlin 1979 West Wind Full Force 1980 ECM Urban Bushmen 1980 ECM Among the People 1980 Praxis The Third Decade 1984 ECM The Complete Live in Japan recorded 1984 1985, expanded 1988 DIW Naked 1986 DIW Ancient to the Future: Dreaming of the Masters Series Vol. 1 1987 DIW The Alternate Express 1989 DIW Art Ensemble of Soweto 1990 DIW America - South Africa 1990 DIW Dreaming of the Masters Suite 1990 DIW Thelonious Sphere Monk: Dreaming of the Masters Series Vol. 2 with Cecil Taylor 1990 DIW Live at the 6th Tokyo Music Joy 1990 DIW Salutes the Chicago Blues Tradition 1993 AECO Coming Home Jamaica 1996 Atlantic Zero Sun No Point with Hartmut Geerken 1996 Leo Urban Magic 1997 Musica Tribute to Lester 2001 ECM Reunion 2003 Around jazz / Il Manifesto The Meeting 2003 Pi Sirius Calling 2004 Pi Non-Cognitive Aspects of the City recorded 2004 2006 Pi Fundamental Destiny, recorded 1991 with Don Pullen 2007 AECO Live at Earshot Jazz Festival, 2002 with Fred Anderson 2007 Milo Peace Be Unto You with Fred Anderson 2008 AECO We Are on the Edge (A 50th Anniversary Celebration) 2019 Pi The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris 2023 RogueArt
Further reading Steinbeck, Paul. Message to Our Folks: The Art Ensemble of Chicago. University of Chicago Press, 2017. Lewis, George E. A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music. University of Chicago Press, 2008. Shipton, Alyn. A New History of Jazz. London: Continuum, 2001.
Films 1982 - Great Black Music - The Art Ensemble of Chicago Television documentary broadcast by Channel 4 in November 1982. 1982 - Live From the Jazz Showcase: The Art Ensemble of Chicago (directed by William J Mahin, the University of Illinois at Chicago). Filmed at Joe Segal's Jazz Showcase in Chicago, November 1, 1981.
References
External links – official website, but not updated since before 2004, retrieved May 21, 2019 The Art Ensemble of Chicago - current webpage as of 2019, maintained by Art Ensemble's European booking agency, retrieved May 21, 2019 Art Ensemble of Chicago - Discography at Discogs Art Ensemble of Chicago discography (archive), retrieved January 11, 2005 Art Ensemble of Chicago biography on the AACM site, retrieved January 11, 2005 Art Ensemble of Chicago return to Mandel Hall after 32 years – report by Seth Sanders in the University of Chicago Chronicle, April 29, 2004, retrieved January 11, 2005 Joseph Jarman interview at Furious, retrieved January 11, 2005 Art Ensemble of Chicago photos, live in Salzburg/Austria 2006 Art Ensemble of Chicago portraits by Dominik Huber at dominikphoto.com