Ask a jazz fan about Herbie Nichols, and the reaction is likely to be either, "He's a genius," or "Who?" The pianist and composer is the paradigm of a genius neglected in his own time. Nichols's classic mid-'50s sides for Blue Note were all but forgotten when he passed at 44 in 1963. A.B. Spellman memorialized him with a chapter in 1966's Four Lives in the Be-Bop Business, but he didn't get much respect till… more »
Muhal Richard Abrams is likely best known as a driving force behind the hugely influential Chicago co-op the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), but he's also an underappreciated composer. Not unknown by any means — he won Denmark's first Jazzpar Prize in 1990, before the international jury got around to David Murray, Lee Konitz, Tommy Flanagan and Roy Haynes. But Abrams 'orchestra rarely got the attention it deserved in its '80s and… 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 »
Finally out, and worth the wait: George Lewis's sprawling book on the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians — the Chicago musicians'cooperative that spawned Lewis, Anthony Braxton, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Henry Threadgill and many more valued improvisers and composers. Power Stronger than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music is very dense but very readable, filled with fascinating stories, capsule bios and rewarding side trips. Lewis has a gift for explaining abstruse… more »
