VOTD Dec. 24 2022

 The Art Ensemble of Chicago: with Fontella Bass (Prestige) Don't recall where I bought this.

I have mixed feelings about the AECO. I recognize their importance, and sometimes I think their recordings are great. Unfortunately, sometimes they're not. Is that too much to expect of an artist or band? I think one of the indicators of a great artist is consistency. I wouldn't consider all of their records to be essential, but I'd be pressed to find recordings by Sonny Rollins or Stan Getz in which they didn't sound really good. The program might be weak, the backing band might be lesser, but they're likely to sound excellent.

Which brings me back to AECO, part of the jazz vanguard in the generation following the "new thing" of Coltrane, then Pharoah, Shepp, and Ayler. The AECO generally draws more directly on African sources for inspiration, though as a whole their interests are very broad. 

I of course know Fontella Bass' song "Rescue Me", but I wouldn't have known the name of the recording artist attached to it. I don't know how this collaboration came about. She sounds strong here, on the first side. The perhaps cliched word would be "soulful," but there it is. Her singing with/above the collective improvisations on the first side reminded me a bit of June Tyson with the Sun Ra Arkestra, but then that's just my orientation. June can be a bit of a shouter, but she always sells a song hard. Fontella is a bit lighter here. She mixes it up with the guys just fine, possibly bringing focus to what might have been a wandering or even rambling improvisation. Not that everything up to the end of the side is strictly improvised, but the side ends with a short burst of composed material, and boom they're done.

Side two is sans Fontella, playing on a work by Roscoe Mitchell. Each player is credited on no fewer than four instruments each, with Roscoe and Joseph getting an "etc" after a long list of things. AECO was known for the "two ton tour," traveling with huge array of instruments.

My opinion on this approach has probably shifted over the years. As a young improvisor, I often collected different sound sources This included toy instruments, but not of especially good quality, such as a nice toy piano. It could get silly. And silly isn't even necessarily bad, but I don't think it necessarily advanced the music.

The side opens a drum solo (a bit meh) followed by some composed material, which quickly opens up into freer territory. It stays free, shifting instrumental color frequently, until there's a brief coda at the end for bass and soprano sax. I find myself sometimes wanting the individual players to focus on one or two instruments they play will, rather than shifting from bass sax to bicycle horns to vibes, or whatever might have happened. 

There's also a, how can I put this? A procedural issue I have with this? I like the idea of "open field" improvisation. What I mean by that is, it's not specifically free improvisation because there is a composition to launch the performance. Play the piece and just let things open up. But if the improvisation doesn't somehow reflect on the composition, why have a composition at all?