Art Ensemble Of Chicago
Live at Fabrik
July 14, 1987
Hamburg, Germany
FM Source @192
Assembling in 1968, the Art Ensemble of Chicago came out of the fertile Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM), a non-profit group that nurtured the avant garde roots of the Chicago jazz scene. Dedicated to fusing jazz with other musical traditions from America, Europe, Africa and Asia, the group's five members - saxophonists Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman, trumpeter Lester Bowie, bassist Malachi Favors and drummer Don Moye - have remained constant since 1971.
This particular live concert captures the period when the group signed with the Japanese label, Disk Union in the mid-‘80s. The concert coincided with the release of Ancient to the Future, Dreaming of the Masters Vol I (1987), a series of homages that the group made with their own influences. As Jarman noted: "It's meaningless to repeat what one of the masters has done, note for note. We are not as good as the master was, simply by repeating his notes. We need to play our own music and incorporate the master's ideas, but show they're an influence, not an affliction." Here, they perform a treatment of Albert Ayler's Ghosts but the raw desperate energy is rendered with a sweeter, fuller sense of melody without compromising Ayler's passion. They end with Bob Marley's No Woman No Cry where Lester Bowie's ethereal trumpet keeps understating the melody thus allowing your imagination to fill in the gaps. Sound quality is good. - Philip Cheah
The band are Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell, Malachi Favors & Don Moye.
Hamburg '87
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