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Receiving little recognition at home, the band went to Paris in 1969 where they recorded enough material for about 14 albums within two years, including a couple that featured Bowie’s wife, singer Fontella Bass. The title track of one of their French recordings, ‘The Spiritual’, not only charts the development of black music from early slavery to the 60s but, symbolizes the progress of black people in the USA. This consciousness of social and political issues was typical of the AACM circle, and the AEC added to it considerable theatre. Jarman once appeared on stage wearing only his saxophone sling. Bowie, whether with the ensemble or his own group, Brass Fantasy, habitually affected a doctor’s white coat, while the others painted their faces and bodies and wore African styles. This dramatizing of the spirit of a culture was no less serious because of the strong element of puckish parody in their playing, which the AEC opted to term Great Black Music rather than jazz. The Paris sessions showed the ensemble defining and setting the agenda for their music, an agenda which became well settled and was documented on a variety of record labels, including Atlantic Records, ECM Records, DIW and the group’s own AECO company. In later years they continued to surprise and delight, recording with other musicians and ensembles (including Brass Fantasy, Cecil Taylor and a South African choir) in an apparent attempt to find a fresh menu. Jarman left the band in 1993, but the remaining members continued as a quartet until Bowie’s death from liver cancer in November 1999. Saxophonist Ari Brown stood in for subsequent dates, but by the new millennium the band was only appearing infrequently, although they did reunite to record the studio album, Tribute To Lester. Favors succumbed to pancreatic cancer in January 2004. Few units stayed together for so long, and it is a fine testament to the Art Ensemble Of Chicago’s talent that they remained a vital force in jazz for so long. Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze. |
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Founded in 1968 by trumpeter Lester Bowie (11 October 1941, Frederick, Maryland, USA, d. 9 November 1999, New York, USA), saxophonists Roscoe Mitchell (b. 3 August 1940, Chicago, Illinois, USA) and Joseph Jarman (b. 14 September 1937, Pine Bluff, Arkansas, USA) and bass player Malachi Favors (b. 22 August 1927, Chicago, Illinois, USA, d. 30 January 2004, Chicago, Illinois, USA), the AEC grew out of a number of projects connected with the AACM. Most directly it evolved from the Roscoe Mitchell Quartet. Mitchell has said: ‘It was my band, but I couldn’t afford to pay those guys what they deserved, so everybody was shouldering an equal amount of responsibility. We became a co-operative unit in order to remain committed to one another and in order to survive.’ In the early days there was no regular drummer, and each member of the AEC would double on percussion. In 1969, after trying out various candidates, including William Howell and Phillip Wilson, the band met Famoudou Don Moye (b. 23 May 1946, Rochester, New York, USA) in Paris and he became the permanent drummer from Chi-Congo onwards, but all the members continued to use an array of ‘little instruments’ such as whistles, bells, cooking utensils or indeed any object that could be shaken, blown, strummed or beaten rhythmically. Mitchell and Jarman between them played the full range of saxophones as well as clarinets, flutes and the oboe, representing the two poles of the ensemble’s craft: Jarman brought the bulk of the theatrical impulse, Mitchell the musical structure. The Art Ensemble’s music proved to be as all embracing as the instrumentation: basically free-form jazz. A performance regularly alluded to New Orleans, blues, Africa, rock ‘n’ roll, vaudeville or anything that took the players’ fancy, and the ensemble was as capable of playing bop as hard as any.