Word: aec
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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What emerged from the latest testimony and the hundreds of pages of declassified documents released by Kennedy is a disheartening story. Almost every time the old Atomic Energy Commission was asked by the military to permit troops closer to ground zero or increase their radiation exposure, the AEC ignored its own safety standards and acquiesced. Items...
...AEC's experimentation with sonic textures is further developed through their use of what exasperated liner note editors have dubbed "little instruments." All kinds of bells gongs, whistles, shakers, bicycle horns, bongo drums, zithers, woodblocks, and assorted simple percussion instruments are used by Art Ensemble members to richen the fabric of their music. Usually regarded as gimmicks or novelty items, these little instruments have become an essential feature of the AEC's musical language. When the group travelled to Europe, they packed literally hundreds of these odd tools of their trade. The little instruments provide memorable visual images--Jarman serenely...
...that seeks to use every available means of expression. Just as in the music, the Art Ensemble attains their visual goal through the highly personal contributions of the individual members; Mitchell, in the standard dungarees and open-collar shirt of the jazzman, is as much a part of the AEC tableau as is Moye in his coolie hat and war paint...
...most consciously animated. During a drum solo he may turn his back and raise his arms as if in supplication or approach a microphone as if to sing but content himself with making faces at the levice. It is appropriate that the most memorable moments from an AEC concert combine musical and extra-musical elements--Bowie wheeling around to release an arresting snarl, Mitchell picking up his clarinet to play a single note, Jarman filling out the harmony of an ornate fanfare by putting two saxophones to his lips at once. Great Black Music has room for all this...
WITH COVER STORIES in both Downbeat and Musician and a new album (NiceGuys) on ECM--the label that has successfully promoted the likes of Keith Jarrett and Pat Methaney--the AEC is riding a new crest of public interest and acceptance. But as Lester Bowie comments, there has always been a receptive audience for the group's work, and the size of that audience is of no great consequence. The music which so excites critics today is essentially unchanged since the days when the Art Ensemble played for groups of ten or fifteen devotees back in Chicago. Through years...