Word: aec
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...SPECTRE of the 60s raised by that hackneyed term is not inappropriate, for the AEC's unique concept of American music has its origins in the artistic and cultural ferment of that era. Our popular culture has conditioned us for the epehmeral, but the emergence of the Art Ensemble as a tangible force in jazz is in fact as much a culmination as beginning. The AEC has worked together for over fifteen years, and during that time they have released over 20 albums, as well as an equal number of records under individual Art Ensemble members' names. Great Black Music...
...original name was the Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble, but the group's musical philosophy was deeply influenced by the collective ideal of the AACM, and when they went to Europe in 1969 they adopted a name that more accurately suggests the active role each member takes in the AEC's music. With the addition of percussionist Don Moye in 1970, the AEC was complete. The music had reached a high level of development, and the European cultural community, traditionally more receptive to jazz and black artists than the U.S., greeted the band as something of a popular sensation. Then...
...other influences side-by-side with the visionary innovations of a Coltrane or an Ayler. It's not simply a case of an eclectic repertoire; these diverse styles emerge organically from the Art Ensemble's musical conception and are knit into a fabric that clearly belongs to the AEC alone...
Group improvisation is not a new idea in music, but the AEC has advanced the idea to a new technical and artistic plane. The Art Ensemble sound is a fusion of five highly individual and even idiosyncratic stylists; their special achievement is in learning, through years of experimentation, to combine these styles into a coherent music that retains the originality and vitality of each. Lester Bowie is especially startling in his instrumental technique. He finds within his trumpet an astonishing variety of blasts, blares, bleats, and buzzes it was never meant to produce. He exploits the lower ranges...
...flute or clarinet, but Joseph Jarman works beside a rack of no fewer than eleven woodwind instruments, ranging from a wooden flute and tiny sopranino saxophone to a bass clarinet. One hallmark of AACM artists is a fascination with interesting and unusual juxtapositions of instruments, and in the AEC this interest is taken to an extreme. What is even more striking than the sheer multiplicity of instruments is the sensitivity and virtuosity of their use. An artistic peak of last Friday evening's performance was duet between Jarman on flute and Mitchell on the bulky bass saxophone. Surprisingly, the pairing...