Lazaro Vega

While the question to the forum is for "Art Ensemble of Chicago" recommendations, there's no doubt that of all the band's recordings the "Art Ensemble" Nessa set is the most essential. If you're aware of that, sorry to be redundant, and thanks for the fresh look into that scene by Kart and especially Nessa. Pieces such as Quartet No. 1, Number 2 in all it's variations, and the solo pieces for Malachi Favors, Roscoe and most famously Lester Bowie ("Jazz Death") are signal moments in the evolution of jazz, announcing the music of Ornette, mid to late Coltrane, Eric Dolphy and the whole New York energy school sowed seeds for future creation. The Art Ensemble were first responders to the dramatic changes jazz was undergoing. Reading Larry Kart's first person accounts of how Elvin and Roscoe sounded together on what Brubeck would describe as "first blush" are vivid. These AE records are the first to validate, to signify the New Thing is not a fluke. The Art Ensemble is to the the New Wave what the Austin High Gang was to the New Orleans originals....that's inane..nevermind... , By laying in an emphasis on open, ethereal textures to counterbalance the weight of free blowing improvisations, these recordings find the music evolving to the next level, but not in a freakish sense, but with craft right out of Ellington and Mingus: disguising the written from the improvised. In some general ways what the Art Ensemble did by injecting light or roots driven percussion colors into "free jazz" is what Miles did to bop with Birth of the Cool: they air it out, open it up and find space where cement-like musical textures were becoming a norm. Staring down "Ascension" and finding Afro-centric impressionisim in response is not a move anyone was expecting. Moreover, finding a way to deal directly with "Ascension," what David Wild has called the single extended examination of a single theme, and the suite-like construction of "A Love Supreme" and "Meditations," not to mention "Free Jazz" by Ornette, the Art Ensemble are first responders to some of the biggest changes in orchestration and solo style since Ellington and Gillespie. You can't seriously talk of this band in quartet terms pre-Art Ensemble. Their instrumental scope..if the AE's colors and vocabulary weren't as vast as the oceans of Ellington's, their palette was large enough to fill the Great Lakes. On the Nessa set the bands are captured grappelling with the implications for large suites for extended instrumentation as no one since. Within their individual sounds, well, Larry, Chuck and some of the players around here might do a better job with that than I can. What I have for that is anecdotal. From September 11, 1998: Lester Bowie on the phone. The whole thing is at the Art Ensemble discography web page. Bowie: The music we (the Art Ensemble) play is kind of hard to explain. It's music that we really feel. It's like we take all sorts of elements, all sort of different reference points, and we have the freedom to be able to reference anything at any time. And at the same time to be able to listen and to be able to instantly create a situation. Many times you never know what's going to happen. You'll play songs that you never thought you were going to play. You play ensemble things that you had no idea you were going to play two minutes before. It's just about really being sensitive, and trying to play a music that is about music. It's about emotion, it's about traveling through these different emotions, and it's about showing the listener all these pictures. We expect the listener to have, like, a movie going on when they hear us. That's what it's all about for us. It's about being in tune with what music is -- without limitation of what is or what isn't, without necessarily regarding a certain rule. We have the freedom to either play a tempo or not to play a tempo; to play a note or not to play a note; or to play what some people would say is a sound. The way we look at it, everything is a sound. A chord is just the name of a sound. They say C is a pitch; it's the name of a sound. So is a cat's meow a sound, so is a motorcycle, so is anything. There are a lot of sounds. We try to incorporate any sounds into the music. Sounds of life. Sounds of everyday, and incorporate that as part of the music. It's just like an endless research into the music that the deeper you get into it, the deeper you get into it. And all of it you can't explain yourself, it's something you have to really do. Vega: That's why I like listening to you because it's what jazz is supposed to be, it's carefully considered listening, but at the same time spontaneous and freewheeling. Bowie: That's what I always thought it was supposed to be, like you say. These are the elements that really constitute the music. We have to understand that this is a very young music. We're just beginning to really develop this music. This is not a time to put in any narrow definitions or parameters on what this music is because we're only at the beginning of the possibilities of this music. We're just beginning to learn the importance of music in our society. What we as musicians and artists have to offer to the intellectual development of the people that live here. Music is very important. It's important as a tool for learning, it can be a tool for healing, it can be no telling what, as long as we remain free to be able to create the music, to be able to experiment and to really research, and to really get time to develop the music. (end). Last night as I was laying in bed listening to my two week old baby Eleanor weeze and fuss, gurgle and chirp (you've heard a newborn's breathing?) I thought to myself, sounds like Lester. In his being able to do that, imagine the sound of a baby breathing and bring it out the horn, he redefined what a jazz virtuoso could do, how far they could take their instruments into life's sound. Man, Wilbur Campbell had it right. Thanks for including that Mr. Kart.