Primo stuff from the last (so far) of Chicago's great ancient-to-the-future midsize bands. Composer Edward Wilkerson's Souls soar over a deep cello, bass and tuba march beat, with kicking backgrounds to animate solos. Try "Brown Town" for starters.
This is another terrific band, more along the lines of Threadgill's late 80's and early 90's work. Also a little reminiscient of Braxton's piano-less quartets. Get it.
These guys are utterly amazing. Brown Town is a tune that plays often in my head, complex and rich and subtle and beautiful; it has everything I love about jazz in its eight minutes and forty seconds. I wish I could find words that would just make you buy it.
These guys are utterly amazing. Brown Town is a tune that plays often in my head, complex and rich and subtle and beautiful; it has everything I love about jazz in its eight minutes and forty seconds. I wish I could find words that would just make you buy it.
In 1965, pianist Muhal Richard Abrams, trumpeter Philip Cohran, drummer Steve McCall and other like-minded Chicagoans banded together to form the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians: the now famed co-operative that would go on to spawn the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, Henry Threadgill, Nicole Mitchell and dozens more. Over four decades later, the AACM still thrives, with branches in Chicago and New York. AACM's founders mostly came from jazz, but… more »
In A Power Stronger Than Itself, George Lewis's book on the AACM we were raving about last month, the original Chicago chapter of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians went through a rough patch after a mid-'70s exodus/brain drain saw many AACM principals moving to New York. They included heavy hitters like Muhal Richard Abrams, Amina Claudine Myers, the Art Ensemble of Chicago's Lester Bowie and Joseph Jarman, Leroy Jenkins, Chico Freeman and… more »
