we Are The Morning

The Art Ensemble of Chicago - We Are On The Edge: A 50th Anniversary Celebration (2019) {Pi Recordings}
FLAC (tracks) - 16bit/44.1kHz - Official Digital Download (bandcamp.com) -> 1.05 Gb | MP3 @320 -> 339 Mb | Cover | 5% repair rar
© 2019 Pi Recordings
Jazz / Avant-Garde Jazz / Modern Composition

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.”

We are on the Edge: A 50th Anniversary Celebration is a commemoration of a half-century of magical music making from The Art Ensemble of Chicago, a band that has been at the forefront of creative improvised music since forming in 1969. It has also 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. Now led by the surviving members Roscoe Mitchell and drummer Famoudou Don Moye, the album is also a loving tribute to the band’s three original members who have passed: Lester Bowie, Malachi Favors, and most recently, Joseph Jarman.

Some composers really deserve their reputation as artists whose fame rests on a single work, but with Holst the popularity of The Planets really has obscured the large quantity of good music he wrote in other forms. Part of the problem also stemmed from his daughter, Imogene, who was severely critical of her father's work and whose baleful influence persists to this day. These three choral ballets contain a large measure of delightful and wholly characteristic music. It's crime that we have had to wait until now for a complete recording of them, and fortunately these performances make a strong case for many more.