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Art Ensemble of Chicago

Musical Group

Avant-garde jazz ensemble formed in Chicago and associated with the AACM. Core historic lineup mentioned in the reviews: Lester Bowie, Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, Malachi Favors, and Don Moye. Known for experimental, theatrical live performances and a long influential career.

Associated with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM); the group has described their output under the rubric 'Great Black Music'. Reviews highlight their eclectic mix of free improvisation, folklore elements, theatricality, and extended career of roughly forty years (as noted in contemporary accounts).

Two DeBaser reviews highlight the Art Ensemble of Chicago's importance in free and avant-garde jazz and their connection to the AACM. Shò's review reads Fanfare For The Warriors as an eclectic, theatrical album; antonio62 reviews the Italian edition of John Steinbeck's biography (Great Black Music). Both underline the group's long influence and performative, cross-cultural approach.

For:Fans of free and avant-garde jazz; readers interested in AACM and Great Black Music; students of 20th-century jazz history.

 "Wrapped in the penetrating cloak of evening, the night of "Tnoona", whose notes sound ancestral, you think of the mysteries of becoming, of what was, of what is... of what will be. This very white Moon caresses you as you lie along the banks of the mighty river, intent on stripping a tender stalk of wheat. Your contemplation grows stronger when the scent of that stalk mixes with the everlasting freshness of the air, carrying away the wonder. Then, by chance, your entire being shifts towards something abstract, perhaps magical and distant in time...."

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 "Great Black Music is the category in which the Art Ensemble themselves have philosophically and explicitly inserted their work."

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