Artist: Art Ensemble of Chicago
Album: The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris (Live at Sons d'hiver)
Genre: Avant-Garde Jazz, Free Improvisation
Label: RogueArt
Released: 2023
Quality: FLAC (tracks+.cue)
Tracklist:
- CD 1:
- Leola (9:59)
- Introduction to Cards (7:34)
- Cards (2:02)
- Improvisation One (3:56)
- Ritual "Great Black Music" (3:01)
- Kumpa (2:40)
- Stormy Weather (3:10)
- New Coming (5:51)
- Jigiba (1:38)
- I Feel Like Dancing (2:39)
- Bulawayo Korokokoko (3:09)
- CD 2:
- We Are on the Edge (7:46)
- Variations and Sketches from the Bamboo Terrace (9:21)
- I Greet You with Open Arms (7:32)
- Funky AECO (7:18)
- Odwalla (10:31)
- Improvisation Two (12:56)
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- Personnel:
- Roscoe Mitchell - sopranino saxophone, alto saxophone
- Famoudou Don Moye - drums, percussion
- Moor Mother - spoken word
- Roco Cordova - vocals (bass)
- Erina Newkirk - vocals (soprano)
- Nicole Mitchell - flutes, piccolo
- Hugh Ragin - trumpet, flugelhorn, Thai bells
- Simon Sieger - trombone, tuba
- Jean Cook - violin
- Eddy Kwon - viola
- Tomeka Reid - cello
- Brett Carson - piano
- Silvia Bolognesi, Junius Paul - double bass
- Jaribu Shahid - double bass, bass
- Dudu Kouate, Enoch Williamson, Babu Atiba, Doussou Toure - percussion
- Steed Cowart - direction
The Sixth Decade: From Paris to Paris was recorded at the Sons d'hiver Festival in February 2020 to celebrate the anniversary of Art Ensemble of Chicago's arrival in Paris in 1968. It changed their lives, and ultimately jazz history. AEC has dedicated itself to African diasporic music. Their long tenure also reflects an exploratory collective persona and the rich variety of its individual members across jazz, advanced composition, performance, poetry, humor, and Pan-African musical traditions. Famoudou Don Moye and Roscoe Mitchell are the only remaining members of the original quintet: trumpeter Lester Bowie died in 1999, bassist Malachi Favors in 2014, and reed and wind master Joseph Jarman in 2019. Moye and Mitchell have continued the AEC tradition by expanding the lineup (this version includes 21 musicians from several generations) and reshaping their sound. Half of the musicians, including cellist Tomeka Reid, flutist Nicole Mitchell, trumpeter Hugh Ragin, bassist Jaribu Shahid, violinist Jean Cook, and percussionists Enoch Williamson and Kouate have worked with AEC before. The remainder include spoken word queen Moor Mother, singers Erina Newkirk and Roco Cordova, bassist Junius Paul, pianist Brett Carson, violist Eddie Kwon, and a small army of percussionists.
This is a two-hour-plus example of AECs 21st century aesthetic with African-American musical forms -- jazz, blues, R&B, gospel -- that coexist alongside art song, chorales, and chamber music. Opener "Leola" offers trilling strings, droning brass, and shimmering gongs before Ragin's horn and Carson's piano introduce Moor Mother, appended by Newkirk's soprano and Cordova's bass singing. While "Introduction to Cards" and "Cards" are both wonderfully abstract improvisations offering striated harmony, adventurous tonalities, and interactive dissonance, they are also seamless, warm, and inviting. They're followed by two more group improvisations before the medley of the West African-inspired "Kumpa" (complete with a bass melody evoking a guimbri) and "Stormy Weather," with poignant and at times transcendent poetry by Moor Mother, with double basses, bells, drums, and strings weaving a tapestry behind her. Both "New Coming" and "Jigba"/"Feel Like Dancing" are celebratory, driven by roiling layers of Afro-Latin percussion.
"We Are on the Edge" co-exists at the edge of art song, Cuban son, Latin funk, and spiritual soul-jazz behind Moor Mother's strident lyric. "I Welcome You with Open Arms" is classic AEC. It begins as a spoken word and percussion exercise as Moor Mother and Moye lead the other percussionists in a circular musical chant. Mitchell's saxophones slowly introduce the band, who engage in driving West African-inspired chants and modal Afro-funk, punctuated by Nicole Mitchell's transcendent flute. It's followed by the wonderful "Funky AECO," featuring several bassists in a kind of go-go-cum-hip-hop encounter with the percussion section. Carson's two-handed vamps and Simon Sieger's grooving tuba support Moor Mother, who in turn, beckons the full ensemble to join in. "Odwalla," the official closer, is a ten-minute groover. An intricate vocal chorale eventually shapeshifts and transforms into swinging, stomping, group interplay. In sum, The Sixth Decade is wondrous. It's chock-full of AEC's trademark musicality, variety, stewardship, and indomitable creative spirit.