ecstatic ensemble: despont & nussbaum
“I don’t stand to benefit when musicians.” Their Chicago headquarters moved frequently, but the format remained constant: everybody is just trying to be like members paid dues to support rentals for everyone else. All of us are highly venues, shared maintenance and promotional duties, and professional musicians were individualized beings, different.” required to teach at the AACM School.
– Roscoe Mitchell At the time of the AACM's founding in May 1965, Chicago was heavily segregated and its black neighborhoods criminally underserved. There Ecstatic Ensemble: What makes music original? We often use were virtually no opportunities for black “original” to mean unique, but it also refers to composers, and it was rare for black musicians the first, the root, the pattern. For the past five to teach at high levels, join orchestras, or be Original Music decades the Association for the Advancement fairly compensated by local venues and record of Creative Musicians has sought to answer labels. High school teaching jobs were often the this question and produced music that resists only opportunities open to trained musicians, and the Birth of category. Reluctantly labeled jazz, avant-garde, and even those who had achieved widespread classical, electronic—the sonic universe of the success struggled to maintain creative freedom AACM is built on a philosophy of inclusiveness. and fair compensation. “We looked at the lives the AACM of great musicians that were just out there on Known for having produced some of Chicago’s their own, like Charlie Parker,” remembered most renowned musicians and composers such by Catherine Despont Roscoe Mitchell, an original member and widely as Roscoe Mitchell, George Lewis, Joseph and Jake Nussbaum acclaimed saxophonist. “Many musicians left Jarman, Anthony Braxton and Henry Threadgill, the States and had to go to Europe. It was not a the AACM has a reputation for innovation that good network.” As the 60s wore on, social move- exceeds any one particular sound. Its members ation ments like the Black Panthers and the Black Arts have created 50-piece operas, graphic scores, Movement found ways to improve the condition v i s alternative tunings, and software that responds of black Americans through community and cre- to improvisation. Costumes, body paint, ative action. The Association, though not directly incense, dancing, computers, and homemade affiliated with either, envisioned a similar model I mpro instruments have all turned up at their concerts. of success—a space that could exist outside of Performances have filled entire gymnasiums mainstream institutional ideology and allow and taken place among the crowd. Children have black artists to experiment without risking their paraded down the aisles performing alongside livelihood. “The thing we wanted with the AACM professionals. The AACM's quest for original was a place where we could all come together music has been for something unlimited and with a common interest,” said Mitchell. “We universal. wanted to have control over our destinies. The Association was an outgrowth of pianist and We didn't want to just be blown in the wind.” composer Muhal Richard Abrams's Experimental To that end, the AACM started a community Band—a rehearsal group of black musicians that school, open on Saturdays to students of all ages. met in Abrams's south-side Chicago basement Everyone learned composition and percussion, in the early 60s. Experimental Band meetings and were encouraged to try a variety of resembled a jam session only in format— in- instruments. Association founder Muhal Richard stead of encouraging virtuosic one-upmanship, Abrams emphasized original composition as a musicians presented compositions to the group way to ensure students had all the tools neces- and worked ideas out collectively. The focus sary to decipher or reproduce the sounds they was on creative development rather than clas- wanted. It was an implicit counter to the limited sical or technical ability. From the beginning, freedom black Americans faced at the time. the purposes outlined in the AACM's charter “Being a composer, you knew what that was; were as much social as musical: “to create an that was an old white guy,” explained member atmosphere conducive to artistic endeavors,” Roscoe Mitchell, Gymnasium George Lewis, who chronicled the AACM in his concert, University of “to stimulate spiritual growth in creative artists book, A Power Stronger Than Itself. “The basic Chicago, 1968. through participation in programs,” and “to pro- All photos courtesy of idea throughout the entire thing was that you Leonard E. Jones vide a source of employment for worthy creative
We wanted to have control over our destinies. We didn't want to just be blown in the wind 51 long form
Art Ensemble of Chicago, Paris, summer 1970.
52 long form ecstatic ensemble: despont & nussbaum
had agency for what you were going to do with ‘this is middle C and this was a quarter note,’ but Like Jackson, much of the AACM's music at the “It's not just about improvisational music,” your own life, and that you could do what you there were no connections. So I make sure that time provided a context for members to affirm explains Lewis, “but about improvisation as a wanted to do. You were living an alternative things connect. When I teach theory, we’re just their legacy as black musicians, reclaiming general condition of being in the world that you model, counter to what people were saying you looking at what symbols can mean. Symbols are idioms and instruments that had previously have to articulate and that you can learn from could be doing, or the kind of possibilities you simply a shortcut, which you can apply to sound. been appropriated by white audiences or la- and make connections through—a sort of micro- could have.” If I give you a wiggly line and I give you a point beled as “primitive.” African and Asian melodies cosm.” Such collective creative action enabled to start, you figure out what to do. That’s and instruments played a large role in composi- the AACM to transcend what was perceived Students were given pencil and paper and how we got the students to read our notation. tions and performances, as did black-American as possible at the time for black artists and pro- shown the basics of major scales and diatonic The AACM notation was as far-flung as the musical traditions like the blues, jazz, ragtime, vided a flexibility that was key to its longevity. modules. Those with previous knowledge shared sounds we made. We taught them traditional funk, and R + B. Equally rooted in this tradition the same class under the assumption they would notation too of course, but we did it through was the way the AACM pursued improvisation, An absence of hierarchy between young and old, eventually come to something they didn’t under- patterns and logic.” an approach which traces its roots back through amateur and professional, meant everyone was stand. At the end of their very first three-hour jazz to field songs, and further still to African both learner and teacher. New members could class, students were expected to go home and The original composition “A Jackson in Your music carried over during the slave trade. learn directly from founders while also placing compose. “That was it,” recalled Lewis, “you House,” recorded by the Art Ensemble of value on their own contributions. Concerts from were a composer immediately.” This approach Chicago (with members Lester Bowie, Malachi Many of the first AACM members began impro- AACM professionals often included moments left little separation between learning and Favors, Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman) in 1969, vising in more conventional settings—marching for the students to perform or join, establishing creating. captures the diverse and encompassing style bands, churches, jazz combos—where improvisa- a generational throughline that naturally grew of professional AACM musicians at the time. tion was limited to solos over chord changes and the AACM’s audience to include families and There was no preliminary The piece opens with a whimsical theme stated evaluated by technical skill. But within the AACM friends of the students. Small percussive instru- in heraldic fanfare, then quickly disintegrates improvisation increasingly became a group act. ments such as shakers, rattles and bells allowed exercise. With basic knowledge to a squawking bike horn, and eventually silence. The band Air, with members Henry Threadgill, children from an early age to play along with
and tools, students could engage A soft vibraphone fills the space, accentuated I nt e rco u r se 3 Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall, might start a adult musicians. Ann Ward described the feeling by clinks and chimes, as though drifting in off piece with a standard jazz theme, but it was of reverence between students and teachers: directly with the creative practice. the street through an open window. The quiet often only a jumping-off point for extended sonic “Joseph Jarman would be brought to tears listen-
Abrams envisioned this learning atmosphere builds back into the theme, which is ation explorations of melody and rhythm. Tunes from ing because these children could play just as well again interrupted by clanging, drums, shouting, church, marching bands, etc., would resurface in with the masters. The true percussionists would space as a meeting between and exaggerated laughing. A slurry voice chants, v i s new and unpredictable ways, and improvisation play the “other side” of the rhythm, and we’d “so-called teachers and so-called “1, 2, 3, there's Jacksons in your house,” before became an access point to musical heritage as say, ‘go ahead, because we got this side!’ Even if blurring nonsensically. A clearer voice responds, well as its unknown future. they didn’t keep the beat we’d call those ‘funny students,” where learning I mpro “Jackson, that cat is somethin!” Suddenly a notes,’ and they were acceptable. They might and doing happened together. trumpet and clarinet launch into old-style bebop For Mitchell, “improvisation is a speeded up create a little diversion for someone to move on solos, and a vocal argument breaks out between form of composition.” In this sense, it is always to something else.” “I think the assumption was that everyone was old men. “You gotta play the blues, man,” one original music, born of the moment. But it's wiser than you,” Lewis recalled. “If you were a shouts, and the instruments become slow and more than high-speed composition; it is also a person in some sort of pedagogical authority or American models of success lazy as the men banter on. The soloists state context in which musicians are free to accesses prominence, and you went in with the attitude a completely new theme, and the piece fades out all their creative knowledge in service of an have traditionally favored that you had a worm and were going to bring after just five and a half minutes. instant without adhering to a specific composi- the individual over the group. it to a bunch of open beaks, that’s not it. Your tional framework. In short, it is liberating, and beak should be just as open as everybody else’s. By turns playful, silly, and as biting as a when undertaken collectively it fosters mutual Participation in groups is often So that way everybody was sort of feeding each Shakespearean fool, the patchwork nature of the support perhaps more than any other model. seen as adherence to convention, other.” song seems to mock the restraint of past musical traditions, while pointedly evoking the com- or interference to individual Ann Ward, who directed the school from 1983 to Without a script to follow, plicated legacy of black minstrelsy. The Art 2008, described an environment in which music impetus, as though the benefits Ensemble covers a wide range of sound with musicians must rely on each was explored openly, with accessible language. their unique instrumentation (toys, sound of belonging, i.e. patronage and “I insisted that my children learn the qualities of other for creative direction, effects, little instruments) and performance protection, come only at a cost each sound in the musical alphabet. Each letter style (it's never quite clear who's playing what), transcending the boundaries could be flat or sharp, obtuse or narrow, which to freedom, i.e. limited resources, but also in their investigation of entire musical of what they know and think to me means augmented or diminished. We’d idioms (secondline from New Orleans, early conformity. say, ‘Is it tight? Is it wide? Is it thick? Is it thin? Is bebop, “the blues”). Black musical traditions— is possible, creating something it low and deep?’” The descriptions encouraged even stereotypical ones—are re-purposed freely, that exists outside the But this description fails to acknowledge the a personal connection to the sound that carried seen not as limiting forms but doors to some- potential for reciprocity between the group through in the way Ward taught musical nota- imagination of any one person. thing original. and the individual, in which support is not just tion. “When I was taught piano, I was taught, material or emotional, but also creative and de-
54 If I give you a wiggly line, and I give you a point to start, you figure out what to do improvisation is a speeded up form of composition 55 long form ecstatic ensemble: despont & nussbaum
Related reading velopmental. By connecting creative and social through interaction in an artistic environment;
Drop Kick to the Head development, the AACM offered the advantages what kinds of literature you’re driven to read, or Pg.106 of collectivity—education, opportunity, creative the languages you learn or the kinds of people community—without neglecting the needs of the you meet, or the sorts of awareness or enlighten- Send Blank Tape Pg.90 individual creator. ment that music has to offer you.”
The AACM envisions music’s impact far beyond When we talk about art’s relevance to society performance or the lives of professional the discussion inevitably seems to center on in- musicians. “I say it all the time: I’m not turning dividual experience, or final products. The AACM out musicians, I’m turning out well-rounded suggests an alternative—one where the creative people,” explained Ward. “When you come out context is in direct relationship with society, of here knowing that you can do this, what else where the act of imagination itself is one that can’t you do?” As a creative discipline, the music creates opportunities that didn’t previously exist. fostered self-discipline and confidence alongside The AACM brought their music to the world, first a communal awareness of heritage, community, through exchanges with similar collectives in and collaboration. In its capacity as a collective Detroit and St. Louis like the Black Artists' Group, project, music and music-making provide ongo- then through a long stint overseas in Paris and ing direction and metaphor for social renewal. Europe, and then finally to New York, where a “It is the total experience,” as Lewis says, “not second chapter was established in 1983. Both just the playing part, or the composing part. It’s the Chicago and New York chapters are active what music brings you in contact with; what and thriving still. kind of social worlds become revealed to you ation v i s I mpro
Clockwise from top Malachi Favors Maghostut, bassist of extraordinary talents, Art Ensemble of Chicago Concert, 1968. Danny Riperton, actually a pianist and brother of Minnie Riperton, the singer, AACM summer concert at the 63rd Street Beachhouse, Chicago, August 1968. Others in photo John Stubblefield, John Jackson, trp., and Wadada Leo Smith, right of Jackson Henry Threadgill in the studio of Q Jan Telting, Surinamese painter Amsterdam, Holland, 1971.
56 It’s what music brings you in contact with 57