Art+ensemble+of+chicago

Recorded in 1969, this deluxe 2CD set comprises 3 albums by the critically acclaimed free jazz exponets.
Includes a photo-laden booklet with informative notes.
Originally comprised of saxophonists Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman, trumpeter Lester Bowie, bassist Malachi Favors, and later, drummer Famoudou Don Moye, the Art Ensemble of Chicago enjoy a critical reputation as the most influential avant-garde jazz ensemble of the 1970s and '80s. During the late '60s and early '70s, the Art Ensemble helped pioneer the fusion of jazz with European art music and indigenous African folk styles. They also combined music from sanctified church services, minstrel shows, and bawdy houses of late 19th and early 20th century America - with a modernist spirit and lively stage show that involved face paint and costumes as well as hundreds of musical instruments…

A classic, with spicy and frenetic solos one moment, comic overtones and clever melodies and rhythms the next. The Art Ensemble at this point were becoming stars overseas, and finding the going increasingly tougher in America. It's outside or avant-garde jazz with soul, heart, and funk.

Reunion is a live album recorded at Centro Rai di Produzione Radiofonica in Rome in January 2003 by the Art Ensemble of Chicago and released on the Italian Around Jazz label. It marked the return of Joseph Jarman to the group and features performances by Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell, Malachi Favors Maghostut and Don Moye with Baba Sissoko…

Of all the strange records this French vanguard pop chanteuse ever recorded, this 1971 collaboration between the teams of Brigitte Fontaine and her songwriting partner Areski and the Art Ensemble of Chicago - who were beginning to think about returning to the United States after a two-year stay - is the strangest and easily most satisfying. While Fontaine's records could be beguiling with their innovation, they occasionally faltered by erring on the side of gimmickry and cuteness. Here, the Art Ensemble provide the perfect mysterious and ethereal backdrop for her vocal explorations. Featuring the entire Art Ensemble of that time period and including fellow Chicago AACM member Leo Smith on second trumpet, Fontaine and Areski stretched the very notion of what pop had been and could be…