Message to Our Folks: The Art Ensemble of Chicago [Hardback]

This year marks the golden anniversary of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the flagship band of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Formed in 1966 and flourishing until 2010, the Art Ensemble distinguished itself by its unique performance practices—members played hundreds of instruments on stage, recited poetry, performed theatrical sketches, and wore face paint, masks, lab coats, and traditional African and Asian dress. The group, which built a global audience and toured across six continents, presented their work as experimental performance art, in opposition to the jazz industry’s traditionalist aesthetics.

In Message to Our Folks, Paul Steinbeck combines musical analysis and historical inquiry to give us the definitive study of the Art Ensemble. In the book, he proposes a new theory of group improvisation that explains how the band members were able to improvise together in so many different styles while also drawing on an extensive repertoire of notated compositions. Steinbeck examines the multimedia dimensions of the Art Ensemble’s performances and the ways in which their distinctive model of social relations kept the group performing together for four decades. Message to Our Folks is a striking and valuable contribution to our understanding of one of the world’s premier musical groups.

UCP is perhaps the leading publisher of foundational books on post-bop jazz and experimental music. Steinbeck’s superb new study consolidates our enviable record in this field, given his focus on the most prominent of the AACM bands, the Art Ensemble of Chicago. And 2015-16 is the year of AACM50th anniversary of the organization, and, in 2016, 50th anniversary of the Art Ensemble. The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians is an African American community organization based on Chicago’s South Side, dedicated not only to promoting experimental music but also fostering social transformation. The Art Ensemble of Chicago was formed in 1966 and flourished until 2010, marking their almost singular longevity as a group and allowing them to cultivate a global audience through concert tours on six continents. They were the flagship AACM band, distinguished from other bands by their performance practice (playing hundreds of instruments on stage, reciting poetry and performing theatrical sketches, all while wearing face paint and masks, lab coats, and traditional dress from Africa and Asia). They came to present their work as experimental performance art, in opposition to a jazz industry that increasingly valued traditionalist aesthetics. Steinbeck builds on two UCP books about the AACM, Ronald Radano’s New Musical Figurations and George Lewis’s A Power Stronger than Itself; Steinbeck extends their research by engaging in musical analysis and by demonstrating that the social philosophies of the AACM are actualizedand audiblein the Art Ensemble’s performance.