As if this batch couldn’t get any better, the Art Ensemble Of Chicago falls in our laps. Springing from the wonders of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians during the mid 1960’s, there are few bands of greater importance in the history of free jazz. Formed from some of the the most talented voices of their generation -  Famoudou Don Moye, Joseph Jarman, Lester Bowie, Malachi Favors, Phillip Wilson, and Roscoe Mitchell, there has never been a band like them. Innovators at the core, for decades they charted the future of advanced music - blending countless sonic traditions, with rigorous intellectual conceits and an energy entirely their own. During the late 1960’s, faced with thinning audiences and increasing racially motivated political and economically motivated persecution of urban America, like many of their peers, the collective relocated to the open arms of France - entering one of their most productive and creatively charged periods.  Between 1969 and 1972, their entire output of twelve stunning LPs emerged from the country’s labels. Like Miles Davis, Art Blakey, and a number of others before them, in 1970 they were asked to compose a film soundtrack for Moshé Mizrahi's Les Stances À Sophie, in which they also appeared. Released as an LP by Pathé ‎the same year, it is one of the great documents of the era - a brilliant work of organised sound, which also features Lester Bowie’s wife, the legendary soul singer Fontella Bass. Bande Sonore Originale Du Film "Les Stances À Sophie” stands out in in the Art Ensemble’s catalog - a display of their incredible versatility, crossing effortlessly between soul, funk, big band jazz, radical free improvisation, and African inspired percussion work. It has no equivalently - ecstatic, completely consuming, and a revelation - not only into the band itself, but into the remarkable possibilities and beauty achieved through sound. One of the most desired works by the band from this period - funky, challenging and accessible - the rising wave of black creative music, joined as an astounding force.