Art Ensemble of Chicago

[Hardbopjazz]

When this band was formed, it went under a different name at first. I'm sure someone here would know that answer.

[Leeway]

Chuck will probably have more insight, but I think the group initially performed under Roscoe Mitchell Sextet and Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble, under various personnel formations.

I'm not sure, but when they recorded for Nessa, they became known as the Art Ensemble of Chicago. It would be interesting if that was the first use of the name. But as I said, Chuck will have the low-down.

Edited September 11, 2011 by Leeway

[clifford_thornton]

IIRC, the (Of Chicago) was put on flyers for an early gig in France and the name stuck. The Nessas were licensed from Pathe - there's a thread about this somewhere around here.

[GregK]

The history behind the shift from Art Ensemble to "- of Chicago" is on the front of the Nessa box set. Roscoe called it Art Ensemble; a promoter in France added the Chicago descriptor in 1969.

[Hardbopjazz]

The history behind the shift from Art Ensemble to "- of Chicago" is on the front of the Nessa box set. Roscoe called it Art Ensemble; a promoter in France added the Chicago descriptor in 1969.

Thanks. So it was just called Art Ensemble at first.

[Chuck Nessa]

It evolved from RM quartet, to sextet to quintet and eventually the Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble (to cover the changing size of the group). At some point Roscoe made the group a cooperative and after Jarman joined permanently they became the Art Ensemble, without Roscoe's name in front.

Edited September 11, 2011 by Chuck Nessa

[johnlitweiler]

The first appearance of Mitchell-Bowie-Favors-Jarman was on Nessa 1, Lester's "Numbers," 1967. Later that year or in 1968 Roscoe invited Joseph to make his trio into a quartet. Joseph did, and The Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble Featuring Lester Bowie and Malachi Favors became The Art Ensemble - and on at least one occasion, the Joseph Jarman Quartet. There were various one-time additions to this unit in the 1960s before the four went to Paris. The Roscoe Mitchell groups of 1966-67 had different personnel at virtually every concert, and Lester Bowie was always with Roscoe's groups from IIRC March, 1966. BTW the name Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble showed up in about August 1966.

Larry, Chuck, others, corrections welcome.

[Chuck Nessa]

Sounds about right John. Jarman joined in late 1968.

Edited September 11, 2011 by Chuck Nessa

[Utevsky]

In Chicago in 1968-1969, before the group went to Europe, I believe some gigs were simply advertised as "Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell."

[Leeway]

An essay worth reading by Bill Shoemaker on the Art Ensemble of Chicago in the current issue of "Point of Departure"--

http://www.pointofdeparture.org/PoD46/PoD46PageOne.html

[Chuck Nessa]

Interesting piece. I have some issues with it but.... Nice to see some attention paid. FWIW, I provided the scan of the ECM promo shot at the front of the piece. Seems darker than my print. ECM didn't have it anymore. It is and alternate of the cover shot by the great photographer Roberto Masotti.

[Leeway]

I don't quite accept Shoemaker's use of Albert Murray's critical writing as a framing device for the AEC's musical significance, but I did get a lot from his examination of the AEC's development, and acceptance (such as it was), as reflected through its key albums. Any other issues?

[paul secor]

One issue I have is that the article ended in the early 1980s. The AEC continued (continues?) on.

[JSngry]

Too many words, too small a type, and what's with the sub-plot of Jazz Critics Are Weird People and/or the irony of a Jazz Critic Himself saying that.

I bought the records, I listened to the records, I paid attention as much as I could when it was happening, so where's my article? There won't be one, thank you. Just let's hang out for a while, the article will be in that.

[Larry Kart]

Too many words, too small a type, and what's with the sub-plot of Jazz Critics Are Weird People and/or the irony of a Jazz Critic Himself saying that.

I bought the records, I listened to the records, I paid attention as much as I could when it was happening, so where's my article? There won't be one, thank you. Just let's hang out for a while, the article will be in that.

To hell with jazz criticism; I want to be one of those "cultural workers."

Viz: "...the embrace of the AEC as trickster revolutionaries by French critics, intellectuals and cultural workers..."

Looks like you got a broken culture there, lady. Come back tomorrow and I'll try to fix it.

[JSngry]

Like some folks, I was listening to them intently before I had ever even knew who Albert Murray was, so what kind of category do I lay my bed in for not just this night but all remaindering ones, huh? Was this an accident of birth, or a reward for some stray act of random goodness performed in some previous life or a punishment for something we might all do at some point?

I read this guy using Albert Murray to lead off an article about the AEC, and I'm already on the phone to the bullpen, ya' know? Rightly or wrongly, that phone's already ringing.

Ya' know?

[David Ayers]

Haven't got time to read the piece, but regardless of vocabulary if he is relating the European reception of AEC to '68 he is surely correct.

[David Ayers]

Oh. i have skim read it now. That is a very good piece. The question of reception is very important. The word he is looking for is 'surrealism.'

[Leeway]

Good points David.

I'm all for subjective, impressionistic responses to the work, but it is important, I think, to have more formal studies that set the music in larger terms and contexts. I've always thought that the AEC developed an aesthetic that warranted such approaches, which is what I think Shoemaker is doing. I do think Murray is the wrong "point of departure" though.

[David Ayers]

I took it Shoemaker was not endorsing Murray in general but using him to highlight the jazz-as-high-art-music model which took over commentary on the avant-garde.

[Larry Kart]

Also, FWIW, Shoemaker's '“Old” (performed by the quartet of the saxophonist, trumpeter Lester Bowie, bassist Malachi Favors and drummer Philip Wilson) ... inspired Chicago critic Larry Kart’s image of Mitchell picking the lock to a museum and “jitterbugging with the artifacts" is not quite what I said.

First, I was referring to all the music made to that point by the AEC and pre-AEC versions of the group, not just to "Old." Second, what I said was: "The function of irony in music can be difficult to describe [and then I quoted a longish passage from Pierre Boulez about Stravinsky's use of irony, which he sad led Stravinsky "to use parody openly ... to introduce 'found objects' into a stylistic complex where they function by distortion' etc.]" And then I said: "To put it another way, Mitchell has picked the lock of the imaginary museum and begun jitterbugging with the artifacts." Maybe I'm being too picky, so to speak, about "a museum" versus "the imaginary museum," but the latter phrase (not coined by me, though I'm not sure who came up with it) refers to the non-existent museum in which all the cultural artifacts of humankind can be found.

P.S. I see now that "The Imaginary Museum" was a phrase and a concept conjured up by Andre Malraux:

http://neatlyart.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/andre-malraux-chez-lui-maurice-jarnoux-over-the-last/

Those darn frogs and their "cultural workers"!

[JSngry]

Correct em if I'm wrong, but there is no mention of Bowie already being a "known quantity" among ECM-ers through his albums with Jack De Johnette. If we want contextualizing and or cultrural workers compensation, trust me when I tell that a good segment of young-white-music-student-geeks who were TOTALLY enthralled by DeJohnette & Abercrombie got exposed to Lester Bowie through those records, "heard about" the AEC as a result, but never bought any records (mainly because outside of imports and a random acts of cutouts and Major Metropolitan Jazz Cities, good luck on that, then) until Nice Guys, and then, hey, this is Lester Bowie's other group, eh? NICE STUFF!!! Lester Bowie essentially being Paul McCartney w/Wings and oh, whose these Beatles guys, not quite, but close enough, in that sense.

So, if we're going to direct memories into History because That's How Things Work, well, here one is to add to the peristalsis of documentational time. Somebody write an article now!

[Chuck Nessa]

Don't remember the release dates but the first DeJohnette session was recorded a month after Nice Guys. History is a bitch.

edit to add the catalog numbers: New Directions ECM 1128, Nice Guys ECM 1126.

Edited March 20, 2014 by Chuck Nessa

[JSngry]

Release dates? DeJohnette Summer 1978, AEC Spring 1979, correct?

I do distinctly remember the New Directions group touring in support of that album. They played a good-enough sized venue in Dallas (a theater w/balcony, iirc) and filled it up. People who would otherwise never even venture near Lester Bowie heard him and dug the shit out of him. In the segment of the audience I'm talking about, it was damn near a "crossover" success for Bowie, because that bag was all about ECM, & Dejohnette, and to a slightly lesser extent, Abercrombie. Bowie, AEC, AACM, those things did not exist in their world.

Now, if you tell me that Nice Guys had its release delayed by ECM to move things along with the Bowie/Abercrombie exposure, to raise profile, I would be neither surprised nor disgusted, one way or the other. I'm just saying that if that is what happened, it worked as hoped for.

[Chuck Nessa]

New Directions was recorded in June of '78. Don't see it being released in the Summer.