Customer Reviews

A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music

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Wow.

Lewis has done a ton and a half of research. He writes like a dream (with the very occasional exception of some congealed jargon from the humanities). And his analysis is hugely intelligent: you can actually see how some of the most important musical innovations of the twentieth century emerged from a social network. (Yes, sure, the network was chock full of really talented musicians. But it doesn't look as though any one of them could have pulled off these musical breakthoughs alone.) And you see how race and racism have structured the production and reception of music -- not with handwaving slogans, but with the patient analysis of richly detailed history.

So many books about "jazz" -- and I guarantee that if you read this, you'll have to think hard about what counts as "jazz," what as "art music" or "serious music" or "new music" or just plain "music," and why -- are breathless and kinda dumb. This one is emphatically the opposite. It's a fat book, and still it's a delight to read. I put it down wanting more.

George Lewis is of course himself an AACM member and an astonishingly talented trombonist. He does a lovely job inserting himself into the text when he belongs there, with neither ritual self-deprecation nor arrogant boasting.

If you're curious about Lewis's music, I'd start with his work with Anthony Braxton (track down Dortmund '76, a quartet with Dave Holland and Barry Altschul: boy it would be nice to see a reunion of those guys, *not* to do retreads on their amazing work from the '70s, but to explore where they are now musically), John Lindberg's Give and Take, the Black Saint dates under his own name, and, also under his own name, Voyager, with Roscoe Mitchell and a computer Lewis programmed to interact with the musicians.

The guy is a superb author and a superb musician. Wow.

George Lewis has given us a monumental gift. His history of the AACM is a combination of scholarly work that runs to over 500 pages and 70 plus pages of notes with the best kind of historical narrative. Lewis has written a group biography with the framework of an institutional history. He situates the origin of the AACM within the biographical stories of how the founders and members tried to address issues of resources, education and performance opportunities. He is relating all this within a history of Chicago's black community, a history of creative improv, a history of the struggle to control the definition of what the artists were doing and a history of how the AACM addressed issues of gender, class and race within its own structure and within society at large. He writes as a participant, as a listener, a friend, a biographer, a historian, a sociologist. As a theoretician who is, again, trying to control the definition of what he, his friends and his community were doing. That last sentence is a point that is worth reflecting upon. Lewis' story, I believe is centered around his large theme of the struggle of the black experimental artist to control the definition of what they are doing- what tradition(s) their work came from, what it means and how it is to be presented. He largely explores this theme in a three-sided conversation between the musician's own reflections on their artistic practise, the history of the critical reception of music produced by AACM artists and a metareflection on that history of criticism wherein Lewis unleashes a considerable body of lit and critical theory. Sometimes this results in small brilliant essays like the section entitled, "Beyond a Binary: The AACM and the Crisis in Criticism" (pp353-369).

I also want to emphasize the humanity of the book. Lewis' history is reliant on interviews that he did with 65 members of the AACM. Some of them he interviewed multiple times (Muhal Richard Abrams spoke to Lewis on seven different occassions). These interviews are the basis for much of the historical narrative of the book. Lewis gives us brief biographies of dozens of artists- we learn about artists like Abrams, Lester Bowie, Anthony Braxton, Jodie Christian, Gene Dinwiddie, Chico Freeman, Julius Hemphill, Steve McCall, Roscoe Mitchell, Amina Claudine Myers, Henry Threadgill ad infinitum. I grew up with this music. For some reason, when I was about 16, I started buying the early AACM stuff as it became available in Portland. Probably because it was on Delmark which also put out a ton of great Chicago blues which I was, am, will always be crazy about. So for me, all these interviews are insightful, funny, painful and revelatory.

Their individual stories speak to what I see as two other major themes in this book. It is obvious from reading Lewis that certain individuals were essential to his story. One example is Walter Dyett who taught music at Phillips and then DuSable High. He was the teacher of a vast number of musicians of the caliber of Dinah Washington, Nat King Cole, Richard Davis, Gene Ammons, John Gilmore and many others( just go to Lewis' index and follow the citations). This history of Chicago music, heck, of American music changed because of Dyett's teaching. As for the AACM, without the central presence of Muhal Richard Abrams in the early parts of the book, it is impossible to imagine how the rest of the history would have unfolded. He comes across as a remarkable and inspiring teacher- demanding so much from those who worked with him. And much of what he demanded is that no one accept anyone else's limitations on who they were. As an example, when Abrams set up his Experimental Band, from the get-go Abrams wanted the members to bring their own compositions to be played. That composer would then lead the band in the practise of the composition. Abrams was trying to get people to explore all of their musical, personal and spiritual possibilities. Occassionally, throughout Lewis' book there are comparisons made between Sun Ra's Arkestra and the AACM. The difference always comes down to the fact that what Abrams and the other founding members created was a collective.

Which leads me to Lewis' other great theme- the story of how an institutional framework served to mold and support a diverse, opinionated, and occassionally competitive group of artists in all of their various projects. The AACM was always underfunded and was sometimes rift by internal controversy. Lewis has a detailed section on how they decided to only have black members which actually led to the expulsion of their one white member. He also talks about the struggles that the women members had to be accepted as equal artistic contributors. In spite of, or maybe because of these struggles, the organization survived and continued to further the education and projects of its members.

I could easily go on with things I liked or learned from this book but I have gone on too long as it is. Other reviewers will emphasize the learnings that I did not write about. Get the book, get thru the long (and interesting) first chapter of methodological reflections. Get out your AACM CDs and LPs and listen to the music as Lewis discusses it. I was finishing up my copy last night while listening to Braxton's For Alto. Those early days in Lewis' history were interesting. The journey for the members of the AACM from the 60s to the 21rst century is an inspiring one. My thanks to George Lewis for the education.

George E Lewis has written a very readable account of this organisation and its history. Its a long story 40+ years, many contributions, Includes biographies of key figures, and social history. a few more musical examples or analysis of actual works could have made it even better. Overall recommended to anyone into AACM or any fan of progressive jazz.

Fred Anderson has died. The Chicago tenor saxophonist was a stalwart of the AACM from its earliest days, performing at the organization's first concert on August 15, 1965. I heard Fred many times in Chicago in the 1980s at the Underground Fest and other events. He will be missed.

George Lewis -- trombonist, AACM member, composer and scholar, now Professor of American Music and Director of the Center for Jazz Studies at Columbia University -- has written the definitive history of the AACM, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, founded in early 1965 in Chicago by Richard Abrams (piano), Jodie Christian (piano), Phil Cohran (trumpet), and Steve McCall (percussion). It is altogether appropriate that the 500-plus page book is published by the University of Chicago Press, one of the finest academic publishers in the country, as the campus is on the South Side near the beginning of the events chronicled. Though Lewis joined the AACM in 1971, and headed the organization briefly, he does not rely only on his personal experience for the book. Instead, he uses primary sources and extensive interviews. This is a rigorous, thorough work of history.

In addition to the central founding member Muhal Richard Abrams, some of the best-known of the AACM musicians include:

*organist Amina Claudine Meyers, *saxophonist Fred Anderson,

*the Art Ensemble of Chicago (originally Roscoe Mitchell's Art Ensemble), with trumpeter Lester Bowie, saxophonists Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman, Malachi Favors Maghostut on bass and Famoudou Don Moye on percussion,

*saxophonist Anthony Braxton, *violinist Leroy Jenkins, *trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith,

*saxophonist Henry Threadgill and Air, a trio with drummer Steve McCall and Fred Hopkins on bass, and

*vocalist Rita Warford.

AACM musician/composers, especially Abrams, Braxton and Mitchell and the Art Ensemble, were on the cutting edge of innovation in the late 1960s in the wake of Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor, John Coltrane and Albert Ayler. (Roscoe Mitchell's Sound, recorded in 1966, is one of the most important AACM recordings -- see my review.) But most of these best-known AACM musicians were of the 1960s first-generation, and many of them relocated to NYC in the 1970s. Lewis focuses on the collective rather than on individuals, and so as these individuals and groups move out centrifugally from the center, Lewis does not follow their solo careers, but rather picks up the story with the succeeding generations of Chicago AACM musicians. I would have liked to hear more about the post-Chicago careers of some of my favorite musicians and composers, but the book is quite voluminous as it is.

One major story that I did not realize was going on at the time was that the NYC-based first generation was fighting for control of the organization later in the 1980s as percussionist Kahil El'Zabar and younger musicians still in Chicago began taking initiatives and raising money without the elders' approval, specifically organizing the annual Underground Fest. I was also unaware that when the AACM relocated en masse to NYC it caused significant resentment on the part of local NYC jazz musicians who saw them as encroaching on their turf and taking gigs from a zero-sum game. Lewis includes it all, the working together, the factions, the real-life behind-the-scenes story that does diminish from the heroic nature of the musician-composers one bit. And it turns out that Abrams especially played a key role in representing the music on the board of the NEA!

In addition to Fred Anderson, I saw the Art Ensemble, Roscoe Mitchell and the Note Factory, Henry Threadgill's Sextett, and the 8 Bold Souls, among other AACM units live in Chicago in the 1980s, along with Ornette Coleman and Cecil Taylor.

I left Chicago myself in the early 1990s. I don't know to what extent the AACM persists or in what form today. What I do know is that we are fortunate to have this superb history of the organization -- its ideals and practices remain relevant as we move into the uncertain 21st century.

I am happy to see that A POWER STRONGER THAN ITSELF is now available in paperback!

Peace, shalom, salam, namasthe.

(verified gift, purchased at a location unknown to the recipient)

George E. Lewis has written a superlative history of avant-garde jazz and The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. I am truly amazed with his research, depth of understanding and what he is teaching me. I get the value of being one of his students just by reading and learning from his authoritative text. George E. Lewis is the subject matter authority on jazz.

I have long wanted to study jazz with a historical timeline view. George E. Lewis helps me achieves this goal admirably.

George thank you for the book my jazz soul has been yearning to know for decades.

Live Your Light,
Ed Jennings

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