The Art Ensemble of Chicago has been at the forefront of creative improvised music since 1969, and has long served as the flagship ensemble of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), the august Chicago-based organization that also fostered the careers of members such as Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill, and Wadada Leo Smith, among many others. The greatness of the Art Ensemble has always been the shared commitment of its original members – Roscoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman, Malachi Favors, and Famoudou Don Moye – to the total realm of African diasporic music: what they have long-termed “Great Black Music—Ancient to the Future.”
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…
In retrospect, violinist Leroy Jenkins, bassist Sirone, and drummer Jerome Cooper's free-jazz trio, the Revolutionary Ensemble, stands as a gentler cousin to those original free-jazz collectives, Art Ensemble of Chicago and AACM, the latter of which introduced Jenkins's string playing to the scene. On this live 1977 date, each of the members doubles or triples up on other instruments so there is a variety of textures and timbres to be heard here, including kalimba, flute, and piano. Mostly it's Jenkin's fluent, fugal violin improvisations that predominate, however. At their most successful, these jams sound like a loosely strung Bach "Chaconne" accompanied by bass and drums. Originally an Inner City LP with limited distribution, Enja has reissued Revolutionary Ensemble in 2008 with 24-bit remastered sound.
The Chicago Symphonies represents another magnificent four-disc collection of extended compositions by composer, musician, artist and educator Wadada Leo Smith leading his Great Lakes Quartet in a celebration of Chicago and the rich contributions of the Midwestern artistic, musical and political culture to the United States of America. The first three symphonies, “Gold,” “Diamond” and “Pearl” are performed by Smith with three other contemporary masters of creative music, saxophonist/flutist Henry Threadgill, bassist John Lindberg and drummer Jack DeJohnette. The fourth, “Sapphire Symphony – The Presidents and Their Vision for America,” features saxophonist Jonathon Haffner with Smith, Lindberg and DeJohnette.
Alto and tenor saxophonist Ernest Dawkins' New Horizons Ensemble is constantly full of surprises on Mean Ameen, a tribute to the late trumpeter Ameen Muhammad. While "3-D" is a bit reminiscent of the free bop of Ornette Coleman's Free Jazz, Dawkins' tenor sometimes hints at Archie Shepp, "Haiti" sounds like the "small instruments" explorations of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and "The Messenger" is an excellent tribute to Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers…