{"id":5001,"date":"2015-04-23T17:52:23","date_gmt":"2015-04-23T17:52:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.artinfo.com\/blunotes\/?p=5001"},"modified":"2015-04-23T17:52:23","modified_gmt":"2015-04-23T17:52:23","slug":"at-50-the-aacm-keeps-collecting-individuals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2015\/04\/23\/at-50-the-aacm-keeps-collecting-individuals\/","title":{"rendered":"At 50, The AACM Keeps Collecting Individuals"},"content":{"rendered":"

 
\n

\"20150424_AbramsSextet\"<\/a>
The Muhal Richard Abrams Sextet, circa 1972\/ courtesy AACM<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n 
\nGreetings from New Orleans, where the annual Jazz & Heritage Festival begins tomorrow. And where, courtesy of something called the \u201cUnited States Postal Service’s Jazz Fest Postal Cache<\/a>,\u201d\u00a0those of us packed into the new (and quite nice) performance space at the George and Joyce Wein Jazz & Heritage Center got a three-song set from the original Meters\u2014keyboardist Art Neville, bass player George Porter, Jr., drummer Joseph “Zigaboo” Modeliste and guitarist Leo Nocentelli.
\nNew Orleans is in Louisiana, a state whose governor, Bobby Jindal, has an\u00a0Op-Ed. piece<\/a>\u00a0in today\u2019s New York Times\u00a0compelled by his apparent concern for \u201cthe musicians, caterers, photographers and others\u201d contracted for same-sex weddings,\u201d because, as he writes \u201ca great many Americans who are not members of the clergy feel just as called to live their faith through their businesses.\u201d
\nWell, Mr. Jindal, guys like Zigaboo appear to live faith through his business, but that business is about funkiness as a belief system, not bigotry masquerading as religiosity. (But I digress\u2026)
\nSpeaking of faith-based endeavors (faith placed in the power of music and art and education and social justice) below is my piece in yesterday\u2019s Wall Street Journal honoring the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), which turned 50 this year. If you\u2019re in Chicago, where the group was founded, head to Mandel Hall for a celebratory\u00a0concert on Sunday<\/a>.
\nIf you\u2019re in NY, where there\u2019s a notable chapter, try Manhattan\u2019s Bohemian Hall April 28&29 for some\u00a0notable concerts<\/a>, including a rare trio of George Lewis, Muhal Richard Abrams and Roscoe Mitchell).
\nHere’<\/a>s my Wall Street Journal piece marking the AACM’s 50th in The Wall Street Journal:
\nTHE WALL STREET JOURNAL<\/strong>
\nApril 21, 2015
\nAt 50, A Musicians\u2019 Group Keeps Growing<\/strong>
\nBy LARRY BLUMENFELD
\nChicago<\/em>
\nA portable oxygen tank, painted vivid colors and fashioned with a drumhead, sits near a wooden crutch adorned with bells, beads and wheels. These objects\u2014improvised instruments and freestanding sculptures\u2014were made by multi-instrumentalist Douglas Ewart from items found on the street. They make perfect sense among the 83 items in \u201cFree at First: The Audacious Journey of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians,\u201d an exhibition curated by Carol L. Adams and Janis Lane-Ewart at the DuSable Museum of African American History through Sept. 6, one of many events commemorating the 50th anniversary of an organization now best known by its abbreviation, AACM.
\nThe AACM has long offered sustenance and support to musicians steeped in jazz tradition yet unwilling to be confined by it. Through a half-century, the organization has grown from a collective of ambitious Chicago musicians to an engine of creative inspiration and practical outreach that has touched nearly all corners of modern music.
\nMr. Ewart, once the organization\u2019s president, was mentored as a teenager in the late 1960s at the AACM\u2019s music school, which is still in operation, free of charge, at Chicago State University. \u201cThe AACM was my birth mother for music, and in other ways,\u201d he said in an interview.
\nThe DuSable exhibition documents the AACM\u2019s founding fathers through artifacts from the organization\u2019s beginnings. Pianists Muhal Richard Abrams and Jodie Christian, drummer Steve McCall and trumpeter Phil Cohran had sent out postcards inviting leading Chicago musicians to meet on May 8, 1965, at Mr. Cohran\u2019s South Side home to set the AACM\u2019s course and credo.
\n\u201cFirst of all, number one, there\u2019s original music, only,\u201d Mr. Abrams said at that gathering, according to \u201cA Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and Experimental Music,\u201d a 2008 book by trombonist and composer George Lewis, also an important force in the AACM ranks. Mr. Lewis\u2019s book framed the conditions that gave rise to this movement: A legendary South Side jazz and blues scene quickly evaporating; creative ferment demanding a broader jazz aesthetic; a transformation of African-American identity and its representations; and, above all, a dedication to wherever collective purpose and individualized composition might lead gifted musicians in a troubled yet genre-free world. (\u201cDon\u2019t give me a name,\u201d Mr. Abrams has said about \u201cjazz,\u201d which is notably absent from the association\u2019s name. \u201cI\u2019m not taking it.\u201d)
\nThe DuSable exhibition rightly places the AACM story within the long view of African-American history. Another museum exhibition, \u201cThe Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now,\u201d curated by Naomi Beckwith and Dieter Roelstraete and opening July 11 at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, will frame the AACM in terms of boundary-breaking links between musicians and visual artists. That connection gets literal\u2014the show will include paintings by Mr. Abrams and Roscoe Mitchell, a multireedist who was among the earliest AACM members.
\nWell beyond Chicago, the AACM (which includes a New York chapter, formed in the late 1970s by Mr. Abrams and pianist Amina Claudine Myers, among others) holds a singularly celebrated place. Its key members form a roll call of distinguished African-American musicians, with National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Fellowships, MacArthur Foundation grants and prestigious academic appointments: Mr. Abrams, still a formidable creative force at 84, whose early-1960s Experimental Band helped foster the organization; Mr. Lewis, now 62, the Edwin H. Case professor of American music at Columbia University; and, among others, multireedists Anthony Braxton, Joseph Jarman, Henry Threadgill and Mr. Mitchell, and trumpeters Wadada Leo Smith and the late Lester Bowie. These musicians\u2019 individual expressions sound nothing alike, yet their careers trace a shared ascendance.
\nThe AACM has in some ways been caricatured for contributions to jazz\u2019s avant-garde. The deeper truth is that jazz\u2019s mainstream is closer to the AACM\u2019s ideas now than it was a half-century ago largely through the influence of the association\u2019s musicians. The same can be said of the AACM\u2019s effect on contemporary classical and electronic music, and within academia.
\nWhitney Balliett once quoted an unidentified AACM member: \u201cIf you take all the sounds of all the AACM musicians and put them together, that\u2019s the AACM sound, but I don\u2019t think anyone\u2019s heard that yet.\u201d Even so, this 50th anniversary year may approximate that experience.
\nAmong the many Chicago events, an April 26 concert at the University of Chicago\u2019s Mandel Hall will gather 50 AACM members, bridging continents and generations. Mr. Abrams\u2019s Experimental Band will perform a rare reunion concert at this year\u2019s Chicago Jazz Festival (Sept. 3). The Great Black Music Ensemble, the closest thing to an AACM house band, will play original scores to three commissioned dance pieces (Aug. 3). And the Museum of Contemporary Art will host performances from July through November, including Mr. Mitchell in four different trio settings (Sept. 27).
\nIn New York next week, the new-music series \u201cInterpretations\u201d will present symphony and chamber works by AACM composers (April 28) and Messrs. Abrams, Lewis and Mitchell in trio (April 29). The AACM\u2019s New York chapter will stage a four-concert festival in October.
\nMeanwhile, Mr. Lewis has transformed his AACM book into an opera, scheduled as a work-in-progress at Brooklyn\u2019s Roulette (May 22-23) and the Contemporary Museum of Art Chicago (July 17): The museum will host its premiere in October.
\nIt\u2019s fitting that this anniversary celebration features so many personal takes on a shared legacy. As Mr. Abrams said in an interview, \u201cthe AACM is always expanding but in a specific way. It\u2019s collecting individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Greetings from New Orleans, where the annual Jazz & Heritage Festival begins tomorrow. And where, courtesy of something called the \u201cUnited States Postal Service’s Jazz Fest Postal Cache,\u201d\u00a0those of us packed into the new (and quite nice) performance space at the George and Joyce Wein Jazz & Heritage Center got a three-song set … <\/p>\n

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