MON., JUNE 09, 2008
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George Lewis & the AACM’s Staying Power, Part 2
by Kevin Whitehead
For music across the spectrum, take pianist Muhal and Art Ensemble multi-reedist Roscoe Mitchell. Some of their output naturally reflects the jazz they came up in. (Muhal’s big band records on Black Saint — not on site, alas — are among the richest of our time: colorful, surging, pan-stylistic.) Some music by each is obviously indebted to 20th-century classical composing, and some moves between camps, making attempts to pigeonhole them pointless and futile. On Abrams’s “classical” album The Visibility of Thought, you can hear how a scored, multi-layered piece for two pianos comes from the same place as his own piano improvisation.
Contrast the jazziest pieces on Mitchell’s Hey Donald and In Walked Buckner, both with mega-swinger Tootie Heath on drums, with music by his New Chamber Ensemble which includes stentorian classical baritone (and frequent ally) Thomas Buckner himself. Then try to place Mitchell’s squawky, microtonal, create-their-own-world solo improvisations and pieces for reeds and small percussion on Sound Songs. (It’s not jazz, it’s not classical: it’s Roscoe — parallels to certain works by Evan Parker and Julius Hemphill aside.) Over the years such polyglot approaches have led to foolish denunciations of various AACM composers as being ‘not black enough’ — as if there’s only one way to be black in a pluralistic society (a point Lewis stresses).
Free play isn’t tennis without a net, it’s trapeze work without a net.
The publication of his book is an occasion to note the longevity not just of the organization but of the working relationships it’s engendered. The trombonist debuted on record as part of a 1975 Roscoe Mitchell quartet with Muhal on piano. Thirty years later Abrams, Mitchell and Lewis had one of their occasional reunions at a New York studio, to record the collectively improvised Streaming.
Those albums are strikingly different, but then the first was the composer’s date. Mitchell and many other first-generation AACMers valued the power of silence and quietude; the opening “Tnoona” is eerily stark, the players tightly corseted. It’s as if Chicago’s quakers wanted to begin afresh, after all that frantic New York free jazz, where volume and freneticism equaled intensity. AACM bands (like this one) might even dispense with drums.
Streaming from 2005 is more of a romp for three old friends enjoying each other’s company, and a reaffirmation of the power and utility of free improvisation. (Free play isn’t tennis without a net, it’s trapeze work without a net.) The title track’s rambunctious enough for any free jazz expressionist, but the peppy rhythms and syncopations that launch “Dramaturns” hark back to pre-jazz ragtime and marches (which inform Braxton’s rhythms and Threadgill’s forms, too: these vanguardists pan for gold in any stream). On “Bound,” Lewis’s high ghost-drone electronics provide a discreet layer and gently suggest a tonal center, not unlike Muhal’s telegraph-key piano back on “Tnoona.”
One thing that’s assured the AACM’s longevity as a musical force: the quirks of its many leading players, their many and seemingly contradictory interests, gave rise to a collective language, highly versatile and idiosyncratic, more than a house style.
Take talented individuals with their own voices, put them all together, you get a power stronger than itself. No surprise that would work for genre-transcending African American composers. It worked for ‘beyond category’ Duke Ellington.
To go back to the beginning of Kevin Whitehead's feature on George Lewis & the AACM’s Staying Power, click here.
Contrast the jazziest pieces on Mitchell’s Hey Donald and In Walked Buckner, both with mega-swinger Tootie Heath on drums, with music by his New Chamber Ensemble which includes stentorian classical baritone (and frequent ally) Thomas Buckner himself. Then try to place Mitchell’s squawky, microtonal, create-their-own-world solo improvisations and pieces for reeds and small percussion on Sound Songs. (It’s not jazz, it’s not classical: it’s Roscoe — parallels to certain works by Evan Parker and Julius Hemphill aside.) Over the years such polyglot approaches have led to foolish denunciations of various AACM composers as being ‘not black enough’ — as if there’s only one way to be black in a pluralistic society (a point Lewis stresses).
The publication of his book is an occasion to note the longevity not just of the organization but of the working relationships it’s engendered. The trombonist debuted on record as part of a 1975 Roscoe Mitchell quartet with Muhal on piano. Thirty years later Abrams, Mitchell and Lewis had one of their occasional reunions at a New York studio, to record the collectively improvised Streaming.
Those albums are strikingly different, but then the first was the composer’s date. Mitchell and many other first-generation AACMers valued the power of silence and quietude; the opening “Tnoona” is eerily stark, the players tightly corseted. It’s as if Chicago’s quakers wanted to begin afresh, after all that frantic New York free jazz, where volume and freneticism equaled intensity. AACM bands (like this one) might even dispense with drums.
Streaming from 2005 is more of a romp for three old friends enjoying each other’s company, and a reaffirmation of the power and utility of free improvisation. (Free play isn’t tennis without a net, it’s trapeze work without a net.) The title track’s rambunctious enough for any free jazz expressionist, but the peppy rhythms and syncopations that launch “Dramaturns” hark back to pre-jazz ragtime and marches (which inform Braxton’s rhythms and Threadgill’s forms, too: these vanguardists pan for gold in any stream). On “Bound,” Lewis’s high ghost-drone electronics provide a discreet layer and gently suggest a tonal center, not unlike Muhal’s telegraph-key piano back on “Tnoona.”
One thing that’s assured the AACM’s longevity as a musical force: the quirks of its many leading players, their many and seemingly contradictory interests, gave rise to a collective language, highly versatile and idiosyncratic, more than a house style.
Take talented individuals with their own voices, put them all together, you get a power stronger than itself. No surprise that would work for genre-transcending African American composers. It worked for ‘beyond category’ Duke Ellington.
To go back to the beginning of Kevin Whitehead's feature on George Lewis & the AACM’s Staying Power, click here.
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