S/D: Art Ensemble of Chicago

But yes, Congliptious featuring Bowie's "Jazz Death" - requires URGENT AND KEY CD reissue.

agreed that People in Sorrow is the best example of their particular collective improv ... and hence, best album

Of later recs, I really like Live in Berlin and Live in Japan ... the latter was my introduction to them

Haven't yet heard any of the new stuff with Corey Wilkes, but Corey is a bad-ass ... one of the absolute best musicians working in Chicago

Speaking of Roscoe Mitchell (and yes whenever someone asks me about AEoC, I suggest Sound, a crucial record)... anyone heard that Muhal Richard Abrams/George Lewis/Roscoe Mitchell album on Pi? I was fortunate enough to hear a track from it, George Lewis doing his electronics thing (which usually makes me miss the trombone! even though I like the electronics, too). Was wondering if the album is strong all the way through.

Les Stances A Sophie is getting a DVD release! http://www.souljazzrecords.co.uk/releases/?id=13465

!

that's an amazing album.

S: Bap-tizum, Message to Our Folks, A Jackson in Your House, Reese and the Smooth Ones, Urban Bushmen

just got the 2 CD reissue of Roscoe Mitchell's 'Nonaah'. Minimal and intense, opens with a 32 minute solo concert from 1976, also has Henry Threadgill / Abrams / George Lewis / Braxton, great:

http://www.dustedmagazine.com/reviews/4557

Now someone needs to reissue that Brigitte Fontaine album that they appear on.

happy birthday roscoe!

has anybody checked this out yet?

https://www.amazon.com/Message-Our-Folks-Ensemble-Chicago/dp/022637596X/

Yeah, I read it and reviewed it for The Wire. It starts off really, really strong, with a ton of biographical info about each of the core members, and the chapters on their time in Paris and the years immediately after are fantastic. There's also some in-depth musical analysis of individual performances, intended to shine a light on their compositional and collective improvisational methodology, which are great if you're a musician but not all that appealing to the lay reader. And once they sign to ECM, he kinda fast-forwards to the point where members start dying off, which is unfortunate. Some serious analysis of the ECM and DIW albums would have been great.

interesting. sort of mirrors my interest in art ensemble, because while i have quite a few art ensemble albums, the only one after "bap-tizum" i have is "urban bushmen". which i like quite a lot. which of the ECM and DIW albums would you recommend i check out?

Nice Guys is great
― deej.. (deej..), Monday, February 5, 2007 9:33 AM (ten years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I know almost nothing about their latter-day catalog myself, which is why I was hoping the book would serve as a guide! The only one of the ECMs I've heard is Urban Bushmen, which is great, and the only one of the DIWs I've heard is the one with Cecil Taylor, which...isn't. (They don't speak the same language.)

weird why is Urban Bushmen the only ECM one any of us know (including me?)

I think because it's a Double Live Album it got more attention than the others, maybe?

The Third Decade is good!

i think i have Full Force at home too which came out after Nice Guys but i don't really remember much about it. I don't play Nice Guys much.

i never see the DIW albums for sale. i would probably buy them if i saw them.

I kind of prefer the ECM era! I dig "Full Force" & love "Third Decade"

I also have a weird soft spot for "Non-Cognitive Aspects of the City" from 2006

I have Non-Cognitive Aspects of the City because I was at that show (the only time I ever got to see the AEOC) but I never listen to it. It was thrilling to be there at the time, though.

I will admit a fondness for Coming Home Jamaica- the only DIW I know- although it's quite a trifle by comparison to what came before.

Also post-Lester, Tribute to Lester, which I think was their last on ECM is outstanding IMO, the best they possibly could have done under the circumstances.

'dreaming of the master' off nice guys is v replayable imo

Really enjoying the new Roscoe Mitchell album, Bells for the South Side.

some related records i like to play:

Joseph Jarman, Famoudou Don Moye ‎– Egwu-Anwu (Sun Song)

Don Pullen, Joseph Jarman, Don Moye ‎– The Magic Triangle

Joseph Jarman - Don Moye ‎– Earth Passage - Density

Joseph Jarman ‎– Song For

Lester Bowie ‎– Fast Last!

Lester Bowie ‎– Rope-A-Dope

Kahil El'Zabar Featuring Lester Bowie, Malachi Favors ‎– The Ritual

and too many roscoe mitchell things to mention. he's on a lot of/made a lot of cool records.

i'll buy any related black saint 80s record i've never heard. and i'm always looking for nessa stuff i don't have. i need this:

https://www.discogs.com/Roscoe-Mitchell-L-R-G-The-Maze-S-II-Examples/release/797330

Talking of the ECM era, this is out next month (mentioned briefly on the Rolling Reissues thread already):

https://jazzdesk.wordpress.com/2018/09/21/the-art-ensemble-of-chicago-in-a-box/

Tribute to Lester is about as powerful a record as you could imagine after losing such a key member of the band.

Douglas R. Ewart of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) shares this sad news about saxophonist Joseph Jarman. pic.twitter.com/qxEYmS7dk5

— Ted Gioia (@tedgioia) January 11, 2019

rip. as a group they hold a lot of personal significance to me. seems like a life well lived.

RIP will jam some bap-tizum tonight

RIP

"Song For" was in my 30 CD travel pack for 20 years.

I have 10-12 AACM related CDs, but I want that box set so bad. I feel like such a consumer.

I guess I could give away the CDs I have to some friends, but I don't think any of them deserve to have or would appreciate them.

i just got the ECM AEC set for christmas — haven't made it all the way through yet, but obviously a ton of great music.

this looks cool

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1427/6532/products/joseph-jarman-black-case-volume-i-and-ii-return-from-exile-book_1024x1024.jpg?v=1573075200

In 1977, Art Ensemble of Chicago Publishing Co. published Jarman's Black Case Volume I and II: Return From Exile, a collection of writing conceived across America and Europe between 1960 and 1975. Comprised largely of Jarman's flowing, fiery free verse – influenced by Amus Mor, Henry Dumas, Thulani Davis, and Amiri Baraka – the book also features a manifesto for "GREAT BLACK MUSIC," notated songs, concert program notes, Jarman's photos, and impressions of a play by Muhal Richard Abrams, the founder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians of which Jarman was also an original member. Jarman writes poetry of personal revolutionary intent, aimed at routing his audience's consciousness towards growth and communication. He speaks with compassionate urgency of the struggles of growing up on Chicago's South Side, of racist police brutality and profound urban alienation, and of the responsibility he feels as a creative artist to nurture beauty and community through the heliocentric music that he considers the healing force of the universe. A practicing Buddhist and proponent of Aikido since a 1958 awakening saved him from the traumatic mental isolation of his time dropped by the US army into southeast Asia, Jarman sings praise for the self-awareness realization possible through the martial arts. With cosmic breath as its leitmotif, his poetry both encourages and embodies a complete relinquishing of ego. While some of the poems contained within Black Case have already been immortalized via performances on classic records by Jarman and Art Ensemble of Chicago, its republication in print form breathes new life into a forgotten document of the Black Arts Movement.

https://www.strandedrecords.com/collections/blank-forms/products/joseph-jarman-black-case-volume-i-and-ii-return-from-exile-book

Anyone know if they're worth seeing nowadays? This is happening in London soon:
https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2019/event/art-ensemble-of-chicago

Yes, absolutely go. They’re great live now.