CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY through our music.” Don’t get me wrong, though. This music isn’t spacy, dull or pretentious; it’s fun. The young crowd at Reed was still dancing and shouting even after the Art Ensemble left the stage at close to midnight. True, it was definitely an “ a rt” crowd, but one that likes its art loud. It was mostly white, of course, but that doesn’t worry the Art Ensemble, as Famodou Don Moye explains: “ We don’t pigeonhole our audiences or where they are coming from. I don’t worry about the composition of the audience as long as the seats are full.” And the seats and aisles at Reed were full of happy people, having fun. This universalizing character is an important part of the Art Ensemble’s music: the arena for their “ Great Black Music” is the whole world. The Art Ensemble of Chicago is one of the most important groups playing jazz today. What they’re doing is new and exciting, and to understand why this unusual and artful blend of black music is having the impact it is, it’s useful to talk about their approach within the context of other jazz music. Contrary to the impression I got from their early albums, this isn’t the crazy, full-blast (and often angry) free jazz introduced by Ornette Coleman, although it comes out of that tradition. . . . When groups began playing “ fusion” in the late 1960s, it usually meant an electric blend of jazz, funk and Afro-Cuban that was pioneered by Miles Davis and later became characteristic of Weather Report. But the Art Ensemble developed another style of fusion, an acoustic primarily improvised, multiinstrumental sound that ranges from shouts, gongs, bells and pantomime through funk and jazz to John Cage TRUE, IT WAS DEFINITELY AN 'ART" CROWD, BUT ONE THAT LIKES ITS ART LOUD. IT WAS MOSTLY WHITE, OF COURSE, BUT THAT DOESN'T WORRY THE ART ENSEMBLE. . , and other “ New Music.” In fact, they use all these elements at once, and what they create is not so much “ songs” or “ tunes,” but a smoothflowing journey of themes. As they wove their tapestry out of hundreds of instruments, 1was reminded of the Dali Lama I’d read about who could carry on ten conversations at once. In comparing their approach to other jazz forms, one of the most important differences lies in the relationships among the musicians. Competition has been an outstanding element of traditional jazz music. The stories of famous “ cutting sessions,” at which Lester Young out-played Ben Webster, or Charlie Parker outplayed Lester Young, etc., are legion, and that intense competitiveness is said to be a spur to creativity and excellence. Part of this lore is the story of Parker’s early humiliations on stage in Kansas City and the subsequent woodshedding which contributed to his fantastic technical facility. Not surprisingly, Parker’s later Be-Bop groups were known to play standards in strange keys and at breakneck tempo in order to show up those musicians who couldn’t “ cut i t .” This exclusive, almost secretive approach (due in part to a feeling among black jazz musicians that white players would steal their material) has contributed to a hierarchical and soloist-dominated style in contemporary jazz. The Art Ensemble, on the other hand, doesn’t work from a soloist/ rhythm section format. The Miles Davis who leaves the stage when he isn’t soloing (“ . . . because there’s nothing for me to do” ) has no place in the Art Ensemble’s style, in which any player may take a lead, lend voice to the collective dialogue, or provide percussive backdrop for the others. Their individual voices surge out of, then fade back into, the every- changing stream of sounds. Each member plays many instruments, not just one, and in performance they all subordinate themselves to the group’s musical ideas. You can see them working hard at their ensemble effort, watching each other, listening. Their drive to surprise, to lead each other, is the kind of competition through which a position, not just an ego, is advanced. At intervals during the performance, Lester Bowie, who wears a long white chef’s coat to let you know he’s interested in cookin’, sat on a chair amid his wailing colleagues and cocked his head appreciatively at their artistry, giving us in the audience a model of the perfect listener. “ We don’t want people to sleep,” says Bowie, “ we want them to wake up .” It was impressive to witness the pleasure Bowie took in the music around him, music the group tries to change for every performance in order to keep it fresh for themselves as well as their audiences. Bowie can take the time to appreciate as well as perform because there’s so much room to stretch out in these compositions, which are characterized by a free-wheeling yet judicious use of space. “ . . . my philosophy is, whenever you interrupt that space in a confident, secure manner, then music happens,” reedman Roscoe Mitchell says. Although parts of their compositions are written, much of what they play each night is improvised (variations on themes rather than simply running the changes). This demands intense concentration. Often Bowie plays long, hot passages by actually sounding only a few notes out of the hundreds he fingers and blows without releasing the air, carrying the audience through a breathlessly punctuated silence and leaving the impression of great strength in reserve. In fact, the music affected the whole crowd dramatically. It made them moan and keen along with the strange African flutes, and when the band rolled out of a wild dissonance — stretching harmony and rhythm as far as they could go — into a get- down funk beat, the crowd was comTHERE'S SOMETHING IN THEIR WORK FOR THE TOTAL PERSON: MIND, HEART AND BODY. pelled to shake ass by drummer Don Moye slamming the essence of funk into their spines. There’s something in their work for the total person: mind, heart and body. The Art Ensemble has a liberating effect on its audiences because this group isn’t afraid to play anything, whether it be straight-ahead bop, vaudeville-like waltzes, or rhythm and blues. Their strength gives them the expressive freedom possible when an idiom is mastered for the purpose of making a new meaning available to the world. The Art Ensemble is indeed changing the shape of jazz in many ways. Isometimes speculate that I quit playing music because I never learned to improvise well; I just couldn’t soar, and playing got to be technical drudgery. Improvisation is the definitive characteristic of jazz, and it’s improvisation that makes jazz-the sound of surprise. That’s the kind of music I always wanted to make, the kind I hear in my head anyway, those free-flying variations on the sound around you and the rhythms of your body. But I didn’t find the means to make it myself, and when I quit the people around me were into words and ideas instead, so I was led into learning the means for another kind of flight. That’s why a community of interest, support and belief is so crucial to the development of new art forms. The Art Ensemble of Chicago found its inspiration in, and was nurtured by, just such a group of like-minded, dedicated musicians. In Chicago in 1961, Joseph Jarman, Rosecoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie and Malachi Favors got together in a group organized by Muhal Richard Abrams, a big ensemble called the Experimental Band. They spent their time writing and playing new music, trying out ideas and influencing each other. From this group emerged the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, whose aim was to set up a place to exchange ideas and play experimental compositions in concert. This was a serious venture, and each participating musician was required to give one solo recital each year and to present original compositions for group performance. They even started a school for younger musicians. Out of this supportive environment the Art Ensemble’s cooperative approach to performance developed. This is yet another reason why theirs is serious music: they not only compose and perform in order to communicate a sense of collective history as well as personal creativity, but they are dedicated to teaching and sharing their knowledge besides. The Art Ensemble has had a good deal o f ‘success in Europe, where the band solidified its direction and personnel and found its first major audience and recording successes. This has often been the case for black jazz musicians. Since its return from Europe in the early 1970s, the Art Ensemble has amassed impressive critical ratings: No. 1 Jazz Group, 1980 Downbeat Critics Poll; No. 1 Jazz Artist Influencing the ’80s, Musician magazine Musicians Poll; and Best Jazz Artists, 1979 Rolling Stone Critics Poll. Robert Palmer calls them “ the most important jazz ensemble of the Seventies.” But it has taken them many years of dedication and integrity to hold to their vision while other jazz artists were cashing in on more lucrative forms. The Art Ensemble has built up its audience, not capitalized on one created by industry hype. Today you might say that they have arrived. Is this the reason they came back to the USA, then? No, as Joseph Jarman says; they came back “ because we are African Americans. This is where we get our sources.” be an American when nothing much else does. Maybe only in America can white people feel so close to and share so much with this primarily black- inspired music. Like all great art, this “ Great Black Music” has much to teach us. Even with Reagan’s dance of the dying white men cued up on the next turntable, the Art Ensemble can still say with confidence, “ It may have taken years for us to develop the following we have now, but we’ve got a whole lot of years ahead for us to f in ish sp read ing a sense o f creativity. ” Q 38
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