Art Ensemble of Chicago

The Art Ensemble of Chicago is an avant-garde jazz group that grew out of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in the late 1960s. The ensemble integrates many jazz styles and plays many instruments, including "little instruments": bells, bicycle horns, birthday party noisemakers, wind chimes, and various forms of percussion. The musicians would wear costumes and face paint while performing. These characteristics combined to make the ensemble's performances both aural and visual. While playing in Europe in 1969, five hundred instruments were used.

History

Members of what was to become the Art Ensemble performed together under various band names in the mid-sixties, as members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). They performed on the 1966 album Sound, as the Roscoe Mitchell Sextet. The Sextet included saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell, trumpeter Lester Bowie, and bassist Malachi Favors. For the next year, they played as the Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble. In 1967, they were joined by fellow AACM members Joseph Jarman (saxophone) and Phillip Wilson (drums) and recorded for Nessa Records.

All of the musicians were multi-instrumentalists. Jarman and Mitchell's primary instruments were alto and tenor saxophone, respectively. Additionally, they both played other saxophones ranging from the small sopranino to the large bass saxophone, as well as the flute and clarinet. In addition to trumpet, Bowie played flugelhorn, cornet, shofar, and conch shells. Favors added touches of banjo and bass guitar. Most of them dabbled in piano, synthesizer, and other keyboards, and they all played percussion instruments.

They were known for wearing costumes and makeup on stage. Member Joseph Jarman described part of their style:

In 1967, Wilson left the group to join Paul Butterfield's band, and for a period the group was a quartet without a full-time drummer. Jarman and Mitchell served as artistic directors at the cooperative summer camp Circle Pines Center in Delton, Michigan, in August 1968, during the same week that the Democratic Convention was in Chicago. After a farewell concert at the Unitarian Church in Evanston, Illinois, in fall, 1968, the remaining group traveled to Paris. In Paris, the ensemble was based at the Théâtre du Vieux Colombier.

Malachi Favors died in 2004 of pancreatic cancer. Joseph Jarman died on January 9, 2019, of respiratory failure.

As of 2017-2019 Mitchell and Moye remained active, with new and previous collaborators as guest under the name Art Ensemble of Chicago - 50th Anniversary Large Ensemble. They released an album in 2019: – viola/violin

William Lang - trombone
Nicole Mitchell – flutes
Moor Mother – spoken word
Erina Newkirk – soprano vocals
– double bass and objects
Hugh Ragin – trumpet, flugelhorn and piccolo trumpet
Tomeka Reid – cello
Stephen Rush - conductor
Jaribu Shahid – double bass
Abel Selaocoe – cello
– trombone
Baba Sissoko – African percussion
– vocals, congas, mbira, bells
Christina Wheeler – voice, array mbira, autoharp, q-chord, theremin, sampler, electronics
Enoch Williamson – congas, djembe and percussion

and another in 2023 with a smaller ensemble of 20 musicians – The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris.

Discography

{| class="wikitable sortable"

|- style="background:#ffdead;"

! align="left" style="border-bottom:1px solid grey; border-top:1px solid grey;" | Title

! align="left" style="border-bottom:1px solid grey; border-top:1px solid grey;" | Year

! align="left" style="border-bottom:1px solid grey; border-top:1px solid grey;" | Label

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Sound - Roscoe Mitchell Sextet

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1966

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Delmark

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Old/Quartet - Roscoe Mitchell

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1967

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Nessa

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Numbers 1 & 2 - Lester Bowie

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1967

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Nessa

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Early Combinations - Art Ensemble

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1967

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Nessa

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Congliptious - Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1968

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Nessa

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | A Jackson in Your House

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1969

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | BYG Actuel

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Tutankhamun

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1969

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Freedom

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | The Spiritual

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1969

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Freedom

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | People in Sorrow

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1969

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Nessa

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Message to Our Folks

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1969

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | BYG-Actuel

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Reese and the Smooth Ones

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1969

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | BYG-Actuel

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Eda Wobu

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1969

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | JMY

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Comme à la radio

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1970

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Saravah

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Certain Blacks

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1970

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | America

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Go Home

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1970

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Galloway

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Chi-Congo

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1970

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Paula

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Les Stances a Sophie

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1970

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Nessa

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Live in Paris

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1970

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Freedom

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Art Ensemble of Chicago with Fontella Bass

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1970

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | America

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Phase One

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1971

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | America

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Live at Mandel Hall

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1972

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Delmark

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Bap-Tizum

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1972

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Atlantic

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Fanfare for the Warriors

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1973

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Atlantic

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Kabalaba

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1974

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | AECO

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Nice Guys

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1978

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | ECM

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Live in Berlin

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1979

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | West Wind

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Full Force

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1980

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | ECM

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Urban Bushmen

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1980

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | ECM

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Among the People

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1980

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | Praxis

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | The Third Decade

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1984

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | ECM

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | The Complete Live in Japan recorded 1984

| style="border-bottom:1px solid grey;" | 1985, expanded 1988