AACM/Art Ensemble Question

[ep1str0phy]

Does anyone know at what point the AACM adopted the "Great Black Music" title for the entire organization? By all accounts, it was an Art Ensemble thing first (the Tribute to Lester liners suggest that it came out of a conversation between Lester Bowie and Malachi Favors)--but it seems to have slipped, over time, into the rhetoric of the organization as a whole.

Chuck? Anybody?

Edit--also... I'd be interested in knowin the origins of the "ancient to the future" suffix (it wasn't always there as a qualifying phrase, was it? Who came up with it?)

Edited December 8, 2006 by ep1str0phy

[John L]

I don't know the answer. But I always thought that the two phrases went together: Great black music: ancient to the future.

I always assumed that it had something to do with the AAC consciously embodying all that they consider to be "great black music," which is different and broader than just "jazz."

[alocispepraluger102]

I don't know the answer. But I always thought that the two phrases went together: Great black music: ancient to the future.

I always assumed that it had something to do with the AAC consciously embodying all that they consider to be "great black music," which is different and broader than just "jazz."

it's a beautiful accurate thought. have you heard lewis, abrams, mitchell's newest?

[ep1str0phy]

There's a confluence between the two phrases, for sure (and that's the eloquence of the "Great Black Music" thing--it's an encompassing phrase).