AEC in New York - non-event?

[edpack]

I was surprised and somewhat dismayed to find that the recent visit of the AEC to Iridium was little noticed, both by the media and on this forum. Maybe I missed something, but the only reference I found in the NY Times was a desultory paragraph in the Weekend section which referred to Roscoe's "squonking funk" tunes and mentioned the fact that they are still going in spite of the loss of two original members. Saw no review the during their stand or afterwards. Nor did their visit seem to generate much interest on this board. did anyone here go to the shows, and if so, what did you think?
Could it be that most people don't take the AEC seriously? I brought a friend of mine to the Friday night set, a musician and usually open-minded. He didn't like them at all, thinking them "full of themselves". I loved the set. The following night I took my wife, daughter and her boyfriend. Granted the group sounded a lot hotter, and everyone in my party loved it. Got to speak to Roscoe afterwards, as always a very friendly and gracious guy.
Oh, and neither show seemed to be sold out!
I for one was elated that they were coming to New York and very much looked forward to it. I was not disappointed. Granted, I have been a big fan for years, and listen to their music frequently. I realize their music is not for everybody, i.e., an acquired taste, however I find it beautiful and mind-expanding. What does everyone else here think? I'd be interested to know. Discuss ammong yourselves.......

[yardbird]

I've been a AEC fan for decades. Today, with just 3/5 left, I feel that the magic ain't what it used to be. Maybe that started even before Lester Bowie left us.

Maybe it would be inspiring for the group if they found replacements for those gone? Of course it won't be the same, but maybe something unexpected and interesting would happen?

PS I'm excused for not attending any of the NY gigs - living on the other side of the ocean

[Frisco]

Ed, did they add Corey Wilkes on trumpet and Jaribu Shahid on bass? Was Joseph Jarman able to play? I'd have loved to have been there but was just in for Cecil Taylor's 75th birthday the week before. I used to see the AEC often from the mid 70's to early 80's but haven't seen them as a group in years. Roscoe is still going strong with his projects like the Note Factory.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by yardbird

Maybe it would be inspiring for the group if they found replacements for those gone? Of course it won't be the same, but maybe something unexpected and interesting would happen?

I didn't see it, but the NY gig was a quintet with Jaribu Shahid on bass & Corey Wilkes on trumpet.

[Other Steve]

I was at the first set on opening night, and was impressed as hell at how focused and untentative the band sounded, even with two new players. Jaribu was reportedly nervous as hell (according to a friend), since that set was his debut with the band. But he was strong and solid, the band's center of gravity throughout the evening. And Corey Wilkes is a trumpeter everyone will be hearing more from; he played excitingly, suggested and honored Lester without ever imitating him, and was clearly just thrilled to be there, taking part in this legendary band. Mitchell excited everyone with his circular breathing on "Tech Ritter and the Mega Bytes," Jarman sounds closer and closer to the power and imagination of his best years, and Don Moye played with fire, precision and sensitivity. My girlfriend and I loved the set; I swore I would go back later in the week, but fell prey to a hideous cold.

And yes, the small audiences and general lack of media response were appalling. But I wouldn't say that no one was paying attention. For instance, in the March 25 issue of Time Out New York (ahem)...

On with the show

The Art Ensemble of Chicago marks the passing of a founder with the continuation of its mission

By Steve Smith

It’s tempting to read portent into the photograph of bassist Malachi Favors that appears in the booklet to the Art Ensemble of Chicago disc The Meeting (Pi), issued last August. While bandmates Roscoe Mitchell, Don Moye and Joseph Jarman—the latter newly returned after a decade-long hiatus—peer intently into the camera, Favors’s gaze is abstracted by light playing across his eyeglasses. A shadow falls over half his face; the other half is striped by bands of sunlight, a ghostly suggestion of the tribal face paint he wore onstage. Dressed in a humble cardigan and cap rather than his usual flowing tunic and headdress, he looks frail, even distant.

Favors succumbed to pancreatic cancer on January 30 at the age of 76, mere weeks after the Iridium Jazz Club had announced a weeklong booking for the band—a relatively unprecedented move for the mainstream-oriented club. Ever since its founding by Mitchell, Favors and trumpeter Lester Bowie in 1966, the Art Ensemble had stood at the forefront of avant-garde jazz. Its emphasis on space, timbre and theatricality, as well as its claim to an expansive African-American creative continuum it labeled “Great Black Music,” helped to foment a lasting revolution in jazz and beyond. Still, although the band had weathered Jarman’s departure in 1993 and Bowie’s death in 1999, Favors’s passing seemed to cast its future into doubt.

Even for a group that had endured more than its share of grief in recent years, it came as a surprise when the Art Ensemble announced that the Iridium shows would open as scheduled on Tuesday 30, now dedicated to Favors’s memory. Bassist Jaribu Shahid and trumpeter Corey Wilkes—both members of the Note Factory, another Mitchell band—were drafted for the engagement. According to Mitchell, 63, honoring the booking reflects the band’s “unwritten policy” toward its work.

“When we started out years ago, we also decided that we would go on,” Mitchell explained during a recent phone conversation from his home in Madison, Wisconsin. “Throughout the years, there have been occasions where someone has gotten ill and couldn’t play. But it’s always been our goal to go on with the music; I know both Lester and Malachi felt that way.”

Not even Favors’s closest friends know whether the bassist was aware of his final illness during the early 2003 sessions that produced both The Meeting and Sirius Calling, which is due later this year on Pi. “Malachi was a private person,” Mitchell says. “I think he didn’t tell people a lot of things, because he didn’t want to worry them.” Still, one associate has suggested that in naming the title track of Sirius Calling, Favors was feeling intimations from beyond.

“Yeah, well, no one knows until they…,” Mitchell begins, then breaks off to reflect. (His warm baritone voice, easy laugh and professorial demeanor seldom mask the sense of roiling intensity in his thinking.) “I would like to believe that we go on, you know?” he continues. “Seems to me the universe is so vast; I would certainly like to explore more of it.”

Before then, however, Mitchell still has much he wants to learn and accomplish in this world. He has lived in Madison for more than a decade, largely to avoid losing precious time in urban gridlock. A prolific performer outside the Art Ensemble, he has just issued Solo [3] (Mutable), a sprawling three-CD set of improvisations and multi-tracked pieces for winds and percussion. “As I get older, there’s an endless flow of music that I’m hearing in my head,” Mitchell explains. “And I know we’re only here for a little while.”

The tempo has picked up for the Art Ensemble, as well. By the end of 2004, the band will have released four CDs in a year (including last September’s Tribute to Lester on ECM and Homage: Live in Rome, a January 2003 concert just out on Italian label Il Manifesto). Since future studio plans will likely include Shahid and Wilkes, it’s hard not to envision a succession being established. “None of us is going to live forever!” Mitchell says with a laugh. “But we always made the commitment: As long as there’s one person left, we’ll keep the tradition going.”

The Art Ensemble of Chicago plays Iridium Tuesday 30–April 4.

[Tom Storer]

I look forward to seeing them in Paris on May 12--they'll have Corey Wilkes on trumpet and Reggie Workman on bass! At the New Morning, a club with a capacity of 300 when they pack 'em in like sardines, which I believe will be the case. They played a festival here last year, the original line-up minus Lester, but gave a sort of lackluster, melancholy concert that had me worried about them. Here's hoping they'll have that edge back.

[Al in NYC]

I would have loved to have seen the AEC again, even in their current diminished state. Seeing the original (well, early Moye period) AEC was one of the major musical turning points in my life, I've worked for Roscoe Mitchell, and Jaribu Shahid is an old acquaintance from Detroit days. But like many others I really dislike the management at Iridium, where I've been treated so rudely in the past, and subjected to their jive rules and regs just to see some music, that I've sworn to their faces never to set foot in their echoing overpriced sinkhole of a club ever again.

[yardbird]

I did'nt know they had new people on trumpet and bass - that's great to hear (they really have done what I said they should do in my first post . Any chance this will be a permanent quintet personell for some time? I mean, the original AEC developed their music through decades, and there are not too many permanent groups in jazz today.

[Frisco]

Originally Posted by Al in NYC

I would have loved to have seen the AEC again, even in their current diminished state. Seeing the original (well, early Moye period) AEC was one of the major musical turning points in my life, I've worked for Roscoe Mitchell, and Jaribu Shahid is an old acquaintance from Detroit days. But like many others I really dislike the management at Iridium, where I've been treated so rudely in the past, and subjected to their jive rules and regs just to see some music, that I've sworn to their faces never to set foot in their echoing overpriced sinkhole of a club ever again.

Al, you probably witnessed many of the concerts with AEC in Ann Arbor and Spencer Barefield's CAC series in Detroit where he often had Roscoe in. I'm sure we crossed paths there. Regarding the Iridium, I had two evenings of stark contrast there a few weeks back for Cecil Taylor's 75th birthday gigs. The first night I was treated with the utmost repect and courtesy. I asked to sit close to the piano and was accommodated, was not disturbed during the music, and was not charged an additional cover charge for the second set.

The next night was totally different. An older host seated us. Despite getting there 45 minutes early, to a 3/4 empty room, we were taken to the back. I protested, stating that i wanted to sit up close. I was told that if I wasn't having dinner, I couldn't sit in the front. I reminded him of the $30 cover and drink minumum but he insisted. My friend asked "well what if we have dessert?" He reluctantly said Ok, but wouldn't let us sit beside each other in a row where we could see the piano. He insisted that we had to sit across from one another. I never did order that dessert although the $8 slice of key lime pie sounded good. But it was all worth the hassle for some wonderful performances. Sometimes you have to suffer a bit, like driving 640 miles from Detroit to NYC.

[Other Steve]

Originally Posted by yardbird

Any chance this will be a permanent quintet personell for some time? I mean, the original AEC developed their music through decades, and there are not too many permanent groups in jazz today.

I tend to doubt it. The Art Ensemble is more of a special event than a working band at this point; its members only get together once or twice a year for work-related activities, according to Roscoe. Add to that the fact that he's in Madison, Don and Corey are in Chicago, Joseph's in Brooklyn and Jaribu is (I believe I read) now based in New York, and it doesn't seem possible for the band to really achieve the kind of "permanent" status I think you're suggesting. But that doesn't mean they're any less dedicated to excellence on the occasions that find them together, apparently -- and Roscoe did say in the interview that they would likely be recording as a quintet in the next year or so.

[hearsay]

Hey Steve- what happenned to that big press party on the first night? How come more of those people didn't write about it?

Anyway, I was there on a few nights (and days- because I work there) and I was suprised at the weak turnout over all, I thought for sure they'd do really well since they haven't played in NYC in quite a while. The set I saw on Thursday night was spectacular, they really played their asses off. And those guys were at the club rehearsing almost everyday too(which let me tell you is not a bad day gig listening to them), I think they may have done a live recording.

As far as the Iridium goes I can tell you that their #1 concern is the almighty dollar and nothing else, which is a shame.

[james harrigan]

Originally Posted by hearsay

As far as the Iridium goes I can tell you that their #1 concern is the almighty dollar and nothing else, which is a shame.

the irony is that their rude and contemptuous treatment of their customers is costing them money. Despite the great bookings they get, I think long and hard before going there and putting up with that b.s. There's plenty of great music in NY, and I'd far rather spend my cash and listening time on a place that treats me with at least minimal respect.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Frisco

the $8 slice of key lime pie sounded good.

It's not very good.

[Other Steve]

Originally Posted by hearsay

Hey Steve- what happenned to that big press party on the first night? How come more of those people didn't write about it?

Most of them actually left immediately after the party to hit the Beacons in Jazz awards at the New School, or didn't come to the press party in the first place because of the other event. A lot of people said they were coming back for the late set or on another evening -- and I'm sure that most of them probably did.

But the fact of the matter is that practically none of those folks have daily or even weekly writing gigs. Ben Ratliff from the Times and Will Friedwald from the Sun were the only "working" journalists there; I assume Will might still write something at some point, and that other people might report in dribs and drabs over the weeks and months to come. But overall, with regard to local press this run was the proverbial tree falling in the forest.

So Brett, I go to the Iridium on a Tuesday night three weeks in a row and have yet to cross paths with you. Is it safe to assume you just don't work on Tuesdays?

[hearsay]

I'm off at 6 on Tuesdays, although I did stick around to here Jason, Sam and Reggie last week, were you there?