I'm just finishing the book A Power Stronger Than Itself - The AACM and American Experimental Music, a fascinating history of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the Chicago-born collective that has produced and inspired a huge chunk of the best modern Jazz and Jazz-derived music of the last thirty years. One compaint about this music is how supposedly inaccessible it is. Yeah right.
In contrast to that idea here's a clip of the AACM's most legendary product, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, giving up the funk at an unidentified live bass with Malachi Favors playing electric (!) bass, Roscoe Mitchell getting down on baritone sax and Lester Bowie energetically pounding a bass drum! Their music can be complex but it's not that much work to get into it.
1 comment:
Hi there,
I added this clip to my YouTube favorites today, and wanted to see what more was posted on blogs about probably the best live band ever, and here I am .... :-)
I actually saw AEoC perform this live in a small club once upon a time. It was a riot, really! People got totally crazy when the set was over and banged their beer glasses in the table, screaming for more. "sorry guys, we don't want to play more than this, since we lost all our instruments on our way here." Borrowed instrument and blowing off the roof. Amazing. (I love to tell this story :-) )
Check out my other stuff at
http://www.youtube.com/kanjihanzi
and the blog if you care.
TAKE care, though
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