A Musical Trip Through Time and Space
Diving Into The Art Ensemble of Chicago's new double record The Sixth Decade
The Sixth Decade is the new Art Ensemble of Chicago record and it’s an interesting one. Recorded live in Paris, it shows the long-running group in its latest form: as a sort of chamber orchestra, one that adeptly mixes group improvisation, spoken word, and hard-swinging jazz into a collective whole. It’s an interesting listen, and at times the music is amazing. But it seems further and further away from what made this group so compelling back a good fifty years ago - or less.
The Art Ensemble of Chicago has its origin in the legendary AACM, a group of like-minded Chicago musicians. The AACM’s ranks included Muhal Richard Abrams, Anthony Braxton, and Roscoe Mitchell. And one of Mitchell’s groups formed the basis for what became the AEOC: Mitchell and Joseph Jarman on reeds, Lester Bowie on trumpet, Malachi Favors on bass, and Famoudou Don Moye on drums. Their first record came out in 1969 on BYG Records, a French label.
Throughout the 1970s, this group built a reputation as a compelling live act: they wore costumes (Bowie wore a lab coat, while Favors wore face paint) and would perform long sections of free improvisation on stage. One guy who used to follow them around and tape their shows says he saw them almost 30 times and it was never the same show twice. This was a group that lived on the exchange of ideas onstage.
Most jazz groups last for a few years before everyone moves on. When Miles Davis had a group with John Coltrane, it lasted about five years. Weather Report lasted about 16, but the only constants were Joe Zawinul and Wayne Shorter. Maybe the best example of a long-running group is the Modern Jazz Quartet, which lasted from the early 1950s until the late 90s, although they only recorded a handful of times after 1974.
The Art Ensemble’s different. The lineup remained stable until 1999 when Bowie died of cancer. The group continued, however. They kept going through Favors death in 2004, and Jarman’s death in 2019. With both Mitchell and Moye getting up there in years (Mitchell is 82, Moye is 76), one might expect a group that’s been playing together for over 50 years to be running out of steam. The Sixth Decade shows a band that’s actually as interesting as ever.
Perhaps band is the wrong word here. There’s 20 musicians credited on this record and it’s got a string section like you’d see in an orchestra: three bassists, five percussionists. Indeed, the Art Ensemble has become exactly that: a small ensemble, or maybe a chamber orchestra. Its ranks include cellist Tomeka Reid, flutist Nicole Mitchell, and poet Moor Mother, among others. In early 2020, this lineup went on the road; this record was recorded live on stage in France.
The Sixth Decade opens with “Leola,” a theme that’s reworked here into almost a drone, with little bursts of percussion and flute. Moor Mother joins in, reciting her poetry. “Come rejoice in a higher place,” she says, repeating the phrase a few times. The music builds, the string section swelling, until it feels like a hymn. It does a good job of setting the night’s mood: this isn’t going to be a group that trades fours over “Caravan.”
“Intro to Cards” starts with low rumbles on the piano - that’s Brett Carson on keys - while a horn blasts long tones that become a buzz as they build in intensity. To my ears, it sounds like Simon Sieger on trombone, but I’m not completely sure. Soon a horn enters, and if I’m not mistaken, the thin, reedy sound is Roscoe Mitchell’s sax. It sounds like he’s trying to squeeze the sound from his instrument, with playing that’s intense. The whole group joins in when “Cards” starts in earnest, the strings playing slow, almost woozy lines. The music sways and squiggles like something out of a Boulez score.
This segues deftly into the first group improvisation. Opening with minimal backing, soon the strings start to mingle with Nicole Mitchell’s flute and Carson’s piano. It’s slow, with the players feeling each other out, and somewhat reflective, but it builds into a swirl of sound before it fades into percussion and another segue into “Ritual - Great Black Music.” This one’s all about Moye’s percussion: one can hear bells, shakers, and other pieces of hand percussion. It builds on indigenous percussion and rhythms into “Kumpa” where a stringed instrument backs Erina Newkirk’s chanting.
It’s hard not to think about this suite of music in terms of history, going from simple percussion and chants all the way up to “Stormy Weather,” where Moor Mother’s poetry invokes jazz traditions - she name-checks Sun Ra, for example - against music that rolls back and forth. As the suite rolls into “New Coming,” the strings take on an interesting sound: some are bowed, others plucked to create a rhythmic backing. As the drums build up behind her, Moor Mother’s voice rises in intensity: “The heat, the fire, the flame,” she says, repeating it like a mantra. Subtly, the rhythm takes on new dimensions, slowly becoming a rhumba for “I Feel Like Dancing” and then resembles fife-and-drum bands on “Bulawayo Korokokoko,” with Nicole Mitchell’s piccolo minging among pounding drums and a driving bassline. Indeed, before you know it, the Art Ensemble’s taken you on a crash course of Black music, moving from the roots into Caribbean and Southern styles, a sort of musical journey up into the present day.
The second disc - or Side Three, for those listening on vinyl - starts with a trumpet solo on “We Are On the Edge.” Strings enter and it sounds like a moody piece of classical music. But then then the mood abruptly shifts into a slow, almost shuffling Latin groove, and Moor Mother steps back up to the mic. “We are on the edge of victory,” she repeats. Her lines are bitter, dripping with irony: college students returning to the projects, people dripping in blood from “the rat race,” the history of oppression and institutional racism.
“We are on the edge of an open fire,” she says, and everything starts to come together: the swaggering, confident music, the harsh truths of Moor Mother’s poetry, the way everything has built up over the evening. One hears traces of The Last Poets, Gil-Scott Heron, Saul Williams, but it holds its own against them, too. By the time the music goes into “Variations and Sketches,” it’s taken on a more somber tone: the strings and horns move like classical music.
The most interesting bit is when Carson steps up for a solo: his playing is staccato, little darting phrases punctuated by silences. It’s fractured, like a Monk composition run through a blender, or a chopped up Don Pullen solo. It’s a nice bit of playing, the only place where Carson’s playing really gets a chance to stand alone.
“I Greet You With Open Arms” goes back to hand percussion and Moor Mother, slowly building as the ensemble enters in bits and pieces. It goes into “Funky AEOC,” and a slick electric bassline, and when the band enters, they take on a hard-swinging mid-tempo groove. If this performance is a journey, then we’ve arrived at the modern day.
Indeed, a journey is probably the best way to view this record. Not of the Art Ensemble, though. Even though the title is a nod to one of their earlier records and a few of the pieces here are older AEOC compositions, The Sixth Decade doesn’t seem especially about the band’s history. It’s not even close to one of those old “Greatest Hits Live” records one used to see bands put out near the end of their lifespan.
Instead, this expanded group goes back in time and space to where the music began, then takes listeners up through the roots. Latin grooves, funky slap bass, even string quartets. There’s a large sonic palette on The Sixth Decade and both Moye and Roscoe Mitchell use the players to great effect. While the music is a little free sometimes, it also feels like there’s a steady hand on the wheel. I mean, hell. “Odwalla” feels like the end credits of a documentary: a slow groove, all the musicians introduced to the crowd.
If this is indeed the end of the Art Ensemble, it’s a fitting one. It’s less a series of themes and compositions, and more like the summation of where both Mitchell and Moye have been and what inspires them. It has the feeling of a special performance, and one that doesn’t compromise. It’s an interesting listen and one that’s frequently fun to listen to. Take your time with The Sixth Decade: this is one that’s meant to sit down with and take in all at once.
Photos by Michel Robert, via RogueArt/Fully Altered Media