Art Ensemble of Chicago
The Art Ensemble of Chicago is an avant-garde jazz ensemble that grew out of Chicago's AACM in the late 1960s. The group continues to tour and record through 2006, despite the deaths of two of the founding members. The Art Ensemble is notable for its integration of musical styles spanning jazz's entire history and for their multi-instrumentalism, especially the use of what they termed "little instruments" in addition to the traditional jazz lineup; "little instruments" can include bicycle horns, bells, birthday party noisemakers, wind chimes, and a vast array of percussion instruments (including found objects).
The Art Ensemble of Chicago is an avant-garde jazz ensemble that grew out of Chicago's AACM in the late 1960s. The group continues to tour and record through 2006, despite the deaths of two of the founding members. The Art Ensemble is notable for its integration of musical styles spanning jazz's entire history and for their multi-instrumentalism, especially the use of what they termed "little instruments" in addition to the traditional jazz lineup; "little instruments" can include bicycle horns, bells, birthday party noisemakers, wind chimes, and a vast array of percussion instruments (including found objects).
The Sixth Decade - From Paris To Paris (Live At Sons D’Hiver)
The Art Ensemble Of Chicago, expanding to a chamber orchestra, marks its sixth decade as a vital force on the world music stage with an ear-opening live recording on two LPs. Recorded in France in 2020 at the Son D'Hiver Festival, this recording celebrates the legendary group's historic ties to Paris, where it was formed in 1968. When trumpet great Lester Bowie died in 1999, followers of the Art Ensemble of Chicago couldn't help but wonder whether the legendary quintet, which owed so much to his…
Message to Our Folks
** Deluxe 180gr. Marbled vinyl edition. Comes in a deluxe matte laminate gatefold sleeve. Original 1969 BYG album facsimile-edition. Mastered to vinyl from BYG tapes by Nick Robbins. Exclusive liner notes by author John Masouri **'A Jackson in Your House' is the first of the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s renowned trio of albums for BYG's Actuel series. This album is The Art Ensemble’s most celebrated release and finds the American avant-garde jazz collective at their most sensational, mocking and st…
A Jackson in Your House
** Deluxe 180gr. Marbled vinyl edition. Comes in a deluxe matte laminate gatefold sleeve. Original 1969 BYG album facsimile-edition. Mastered to vinyl from BYG tapes by Nick Robbins. Exclusive liner notes by author John Masouri ** 'A Jackson in Your House' is the first of the Art Ensemble of Chicago’s renowned trio of albums for BYG's Actuel series. This album is The Art Ensemble’s most celebrated release and finds the American avant-garde jazz collective at their most sensational, mocking and s…
Nice Guys
*2024 stock. Deluxe packaging* Nice Guys is an album by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, recorded in May 1978 and released on ECM the following year—their debut for the label. The quintet features trumpeter Lester Bowie, saxophinists Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell and rhythm section Malachi Favors Maghostut and Famoudou Don Moye.
Urban Bushmen
*2024 stock* Urban Bushmen is a live double album by the Art Ensemble of Chicago recorded at the Amerika Haus in Munich over two days in May 1980 and released on ECM in March 1982. The quintet comprises trumpeter Lester Bowie, saxophonists Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell and rhythm section Malachi Favors Maghostut and Don Moye.
Tutankhamun
2023 stock. Tutankhamun, the 1969 album by avant-garde jazz pioneers Art Ensemble of Chicago, features performances by Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell, and Malachi Favors Maghostut. As the AllMusic review states, 'This landmark album is one of the most influential free jazz recordings in the '60s avant-garde canon.' Previously out of print for over three decades, Tutankhamun has been remastered for vinyl at Infrasonic Mastering and pressed on audiophile-grade vinyl at Pallas in Germ…
The Spiritual
The Spiritual, a free jazz album recorded by the Art Ensemble of Chicago in 1974, finds the group of stellar musicians at their creative peak. With various types of percussion, though the absence of a traditional drummer, the ensemble is able to create vivid, freeing compositions without the confines of conventional structure. The quartet, consisting of Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie, and Malachi Favors, explore the depths of avant-garde jazz through a means that has yet to be touc…
Les Stances À Sophie
On May 28, 1969, four American musicians — reed/wind players Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman, bassist Malachi Favors, and (accompanied by his wife, singer Fontella Bass) trumpeter Lester Bowie — boarded the ocean liner S.S. United States, bound for Le Havre, France. After landing five days later, they moved on to Paris, where they got to work. On August 22, 1970, in the waning days of their stay overseas, the group, with Bass on vocals, would record their second release for EMI’s Pathé Marconi…
Full Force
The previous Art Ensemble of Chicago ECM album Nice Guys vaulted them to the top of improvised music groups in the U.S. and worldwide, paving the way for similar bands to be more accepted into the mainstream of modern music. Where "Full Force" generally lives up to the title, there's also a palpable diverse approach, producing more than enough potent music brimming from the sinews of these brilliant musicians to uphold their burgeoning cache. The crown jewel of this effort is "Charlie M," a blue…
Beautiful Young Generation
* Limited Edition 180-Gram white vinyl. Comes in a deluxe matte laminate gatefold sleeve * Newly mastered from original BYG tapes. BYG were a pioneering independant record compagny, one of the first labels to actively promote diversity and support black African-American musicians and multi-cultural artists worldwide during the 1960’s and 1970’s. Launched in the late ’60s in Paris, a city then in the throes of great social upheaval, BYG became the home of music that was uncompromisingly new. The…
Fundamental Destiny
Katalyst presents Fundamental Destiny by the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Live at the Frankfurt, Germany Jazz Festival with Don Pullen. Now, the production team at AECO has once more gone through the archives and come up with another gem, culminating in the recent release of Fundamental Destiny, a record of a live 1991 Art Ensemble concert given in early June of that year at the Frankfurt, Germany Jazz Festival. All the members of the ensemble are present: Lester Bowie on trumpet, Joseph Jarman on w…
Kabalaba
Katalyst Entertainment presents Kabalaba, a live album by the Art Ensemble of Chicago recorded at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1974 and originally released on their AECO label in 1978. It features performances by Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell, Malachi Favors Maghostut, and Don Moye along with Muhal Richard Abrams.
Early Combinations
**2020 stock** As the title implies, this is the Art Ensemble in a formative stage. Three parts Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble and three parts Joseph Jarman quartet. A To Ericka was recorded for submission to a Jazz Festival in Poland and was not successful in landing them a ticket to Europe. Quintet was a dress rehearsal for a concert that was cancelled on the day of this recording. Luckily both performances survived on tape to reach a much larger audience than the concerts could have provided. B…
Je Suis Un Sauvage / Le Moral Necessaire
A single produced by the highly-revered Saravah label at the time, featuring the Art Ensemble of Chicago backing the poetry of the little-remembered Alfred Panou, is not as well-known as the label's other releases. Seen in the 1967 film Weekend by Jean-Luc Godard, Alfred Panou who is of mixed Benin-Togolese origin, already had a career as an actor in political theater when, pushed by producer Pierre Barouh, he recorded two of his texts concerning Black Power. Panou's prose is one of the first, i…
The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Associated Ensembles
The Art Ensemble of Chicago and Associated Ensembles is a 21-CD limited and numbered edition issued as the standard-bearers of Great Black Music prepare to celebrate their 50th anniversary. Both the Art Ensemble of Chicago and ECM Records were founded in 1969, and there have been many shared experiences. As Roscoe Mitchell says, “It has been amazing to have taken this journey together.”With their first ECM album, the widely-acclaimed Nice Guys, the Art Ensemble’s revolutionary and polystylistic …
Born Free
Outstanding!!! A huge document of this incredible year in jazz in Germany – a time when free styles were breaking out all over, alongside some of the groovier styles of the MPS scene as well! This beautiful box documents the 12th German Jazz Festival in three different concerts – amazing music that really shows the transformation that was taking place at the time – and which is still revolutionary all these many years later – making for a listening experience that makes us feel like we're hearin…
Certain Blacks
The Art Ensemble of Chicago is an avant-garde jazz ensemble that grew out of Chicago's AACM in the late 1960s. The Art Ensemble is notable for its integration of musical styles spanning jazz's entire history and for their multi-instrumentalism, especially the use of what they termed “little instruments” in addition to the traditional jazz lineup; “little instruments” can include bicycle horns, bells, birthday party noisemakers, wind chimes, and a vast array of percussion instruments (including f…
Fanfare For The Warriors
Fans of the A.E.C. and cutting-edge-music rejoice! Long unavailable in this country, the Art Ensemble of Chicago's landmark album recorded in 1974 for the Atlantic label is back in print. Though not "easy listening" to be sure, the A.E.C. present challenging music that's worth the effort. Witness the relentless, Louis Jordan/Louis Prima-rooted swing of "Barnyard Scuffel Shuffel" and the sublime African/Japanese/Javanese-influenced rhythmic soundscape of "What's To Say." The eerie, pensive, breat…
Les Stances a Sophie
Soul Jazz Records are releasing for the first time-ever a long lost cult classic of French New Wave cinema on DVD. Les Stances a Sophie has been out of print for over 30 years and this is its first release ever outside of France. Filmed in Paris in 1970, this fully-subtitled film features killer music, groovy clothes and post-1968 revolutionary ideals. This super-rare film is now perhaps best known for its soundtrack from the legendary Art Ensemble of Chicago (who also feature in the film). The …
In concert
This outstanding DVD includes a memorable live performance by the most influential avant-garde jazz band of the 70s and 80s, the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The primary innovators in the fusion of traditional African and African American music with European performance art, the AEC are legendary for their inimitable stage shows.Dressed up in African costumes, odd masks and colorful face paint, the group transports its audience through time and space on eight brilliantly improvised tunes. With a wea…