Art Ensemble Of Chicago Expands Ranks With Moor Mother, Nicole Mitchell, and More  ​   

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 special and outlandish gifts, would - or should - go on. That it did, in his memory, with no loss of spirit. But the subsequent passing of two other founding members Malachi Favors Maghostut in 2004 and Joseph Jarman in 2019, made it even more difficult to envision a future for the band.

Leave it to the Art Ensemble's proud surviving members, saxophonist/composer Roscoe Mitchell and drummer/percussionist Famoudou Don Moye to keep its flame glowing. In typically bold fashion, they not only extended the life of this beloved band, they redefined it in glorious and unexpected ways. Talk about your re-branding: With the addition of brilliant young players including poet and spoken word artist Moor Mother, cellist Tomeka Reid and violinist Jean Cook, and esteemed elders including trumpeter Hugh Ragin, flutist Nicole Mitchell, and bassist Jaribu Shahid, the Art Ensemble became a full-fledged chamber orchestra.

Critics were abuzz after the Art Ensemble, marking its 50th anniversary, introduced its expanded lineup at the 2019 Big Ears Festival. Jon Pareles of the New York Times praised its unlikely mix of "improvisational orchestral squall, dissonant chamber-jazz, a kind of parlor song and a musical jungle full of birdcalls," plus its swinging vamps, political poetry and Roscoe Mitchell's "perpetual-motion tour-de-force." The newly configured Art Ensemble added to that buzz a few months later with its acclaimed double album, We Are On the Edge.

Now, offering further evidence of the Art Ensemble's evolutionary brilliance, comes The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris, a live two-disc album that pushes even further into uncharted territory with its string quartets, art songs, chorales, operatic voices and spoken word declamations. "Come rejoice in a higher place!" urges the magnetic Moor Mother. In both honoring the band's illustrious history and soaring to new creative heights as a 17-member aggregation, Mitchell and Moye and company do just that.

Recorded at the 2020 Sons d'hiver festival in the Paris suburb of Créteil for the highly regarded, Paris-based Rogue Art label, The Sixth Decade boasts signature outpourings of African percussion, tonal structures and spatial experimentation while reflecting Roscoe Mitchell's newfound prominence as a composer for string ensembles. The songs range from the deeply textured, movingly sung "Leola" to the stately "Variations and Sketches" to the Art Enemble favorite, "Funky AECO."

"The shows are never the same from one night to the next," say the prolific Tomeka Reid, who in addition to leading her own quartet is a member of groups including Myra Melford's all-female Fire and Water Quintet and the Artifacts Trio. "Roscoe is always pushing us to be curious and open and explore our spatial surroundings."

Who would have guessed back in 1968, when the Art Ensemble accepted an invitation to live and perform in Paris as emissaries from Chicago's vaunted Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, that they would still be furthering the cause of Great Black Music there, and in the rest of the world, six decades later?

"The timing was so correct," says the 82-year-old Mitchell. "The city was on fire with concerts and recording sessions and musicians coming to Paris from Africa. People still talk about it." The Art Ensemble quickly left their imprint on the scene with early gems including Tutankhamun and People in Sorrow and had gained an international following by the time they moved back to Chicago.

Mitchell is not one to plan for the future - for him, it's what's happening in the moment that matters most - but he and other band members did discuss possible new directions for the band. Lester Bowie, he says, still talks to him in dreams. As distinguished elders of the AACM, one of their prime aims was to pave the way for younger artists. Boasting powerful performances by relative newcomers including free-style pianist Brett Carson, French trombonist Simon Sieger and Puerto Rican vocalist Rodolfo Cordova, The Sixth Decade happily attains that goal.

"Having us carry the music forward is really important to Roscoe," says Reid. "During rehearsals, he shared all these stories with us about the band and there were lots of discussions about improvisation, about learning how to respond in the moment, about becoming better listeners and communicators."

Would the Art Ensemble of Chicago have become the creative force it is had it not gotten the opportunity to find itself in Paris all those years ago? More importantly, having planted a flag in their sixth decade, will the Art Ensemble of Chicago return to celebrate their seventh? "We can't control the clock, everything takes place in its own time," says Mitchell. Don't be surprised if the time continues to be right for the AEC for years to come.

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