We Are on the Edge: A 50th Anniversary Celebration
| We Are on the Edge: A 50th Anniversary Celebration | ||||
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| Art Ensemble of Chicago studio album | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | Pi recordings | |||
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Format (s) |
2 LP / 2 CD |
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Title (number) |
19th |
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running time |
2:21:32 |
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Studio (s) |
Bethlehem Church of Christ in Ann Arbor |
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We Are on the Edge: A 50th Anniversary Celebration is a jazz album by the Art Ensemble of Chicago . The recordings were made in the Bethlehem Church of Christ in Ann Arbor from October 16-20 (CD 1 / Studio) and at the following Edge Fest on October 20, 2018 in Ann Arbor (CD2 / Live). The two last living members of the Art Ensemble took part in the cast of the group in the early 1970s, saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell and drummer Famoudou Don Moye . The recordings were released on April 26, 2019 on Pi Recordings .
background
The seventeen-piece orchestra includes well-known names such as flautist Nicole Mitchell and cellist Tomeka Reid . Bassist Jaribu Shahid joined the Art Ensemble on his last studio album, replacing Malachi Favors on Non-Cognitive Aspects of the City (Pi Recordings, 2006). Trumpeter Corey Wilkes , who replaced Lester Bowie on the same album, is replaced by Hugh Ragin and Fred Berry . The ensemble also included a small string group, four percussionists (including Don Moye ), live electronics, and several musicians who also contributed vocals.
Roscoe Mitchell, the final member of the founding cast of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, said he brought together a number of fellow musicians for the production, primarily to honor former members of this powerful avant-garde jazz collective who have since passed away. “ Dedicated to Lester Bowie, Shaku Joseph Jarman and Malachi Favors Maghostut,” it says on the cover. The double CD set contains 12 studio recordings and a live performance from Michigan 2018. During the studio recordings with a total of 18 performers, some older pieces by the Art Ensemble are reinterpreted in the midst of several new compositions. "Variations and Sketches from the Bamboo Terrace" is an orchestral work by Roscoe Mitchell from the late 1980s, here with the voice of Rodolfo Cordova-Lebron, an opera singer. On the other side of vocal art is Camae “Moor Mother” Ayewa, whose slam poetry texts enliven the title track and “I Greet You with Open Arms”, as well as the quieter flute and hand drum number “Mama Koko”.
"Chi-Congo 50" was originally a composition by Malachi Favors from 1970, here is a percussion-led performance in which Tito's Sompa and Enoch Williamson are presented, both of whom were in orbit of the group from the beginning, as well Famoudou Don Moye, the longest standing member after Mitchell. “Saturday Morning” and “Fanfare and Bell” highlight the rhythmic and classical tendencies of the Art Ensemble, with cellist Tomeka Reid being present on the latter. The piece “Oasis at Dusk”, which concludes the first CD, is the platform for Mitchell's saxophone. The version of "Oasis ..." that appears on the second (live) CD was recorded only a few days after the studio recording, but has a significantly different orientation, dominated by the flutes. This is followed by a 19-minute version of "Tutankhamun" (another title from Favors); Mitchell finally introduces the entire band during "Odwalla" (a 1973 track).
Track list
- The Art Ensemble of Chicago: We Are on the Edge: A 50th Anniversary Celebration (Pi Recordings PI80)
- Disc One [Studio]
- Variations And Sketches from the Bamboo Terrace 7:49
- Bell song 6:38
- We Are on the Edge 6:21
- I Greet Yoy With Open Arms 6:18
- Chi-Congo 50 9:42
- Jamaican Farewell Part I 1:26
- Villa Tiamo 1:24
- Saturday Morning 4:34
- Jamaican Farewell Part II 1:40
- Mama Koko 7:40
- Fanfare and Bell 6:48
- Oasis at Dusk 8:13
- Disc Two - Recorded Live at Edgefest, Ann Arbor, MI
- We Are on the Edge / Cards 15:30
- Oasis at Dusk 8:58
- Chi-Congo 50 2:38
- Tutankhamun 19:29
- Mama Koko 11:06
- Saturday Morning 5:16
- Odwalla / The Theme 8:02
reception
The album received consistently positive reviews; Giovanni Russonello ( The New York Times ) and Chris Barton ( Los Angeles Times ) counted it among the ten best jazz albums of 2019. According to Giovanni Russonello, purists would probably complain that the newly renovated Art Ensemble has so little to do with the classic five-piece outfit the 1970s and 1980s. After all, most of the members of this group would be dead. But, under the leadership of Roscoe Mitchell and Famoudou Don Moye, the new line-up will move to a different place: a place where woodwinds and strings can engage with the radical poetry of Moor Mother and where moments later a corps of drummers begins a 10-minute pseudo-Caribbean vamp . Here one of the leading light figures in creative music looks back on its dynamic history, supported by over a dozen like-minded employees, noted Chris Barton. You can experience how the musicians "celebrate a timeless, genre-defying legacy that has shaped many of the musicians involved here (and elsewhere) in order to keep this legacy alive".
Karl Ackermann ( All About Jazz ) noted that “this is not a project that bears a clear resemblance to the music of the past of the AEoC. While Mitchell and Moye are still deeply rooted in the avant-garde, they now act as the figureheads of an eclectic big band. " We Are on the Edge will probably not be welcomed by all AEoC fans, the author says, although it has many of its cerebral and temperamental qualities of the original group. The emphasis on vocalization on the album has not been a dominant feature of the Art Ensemble since 1970, when Bowie's late wife Fontella Bass recorded two albums with the group.
Also in All About Jazz, Mark Corroto wrote that with this expanded ensemble size, Moye and Mitchell were in their element, and the live CD, which repeats five compositions from the studio recordings, took things to another level. You can understand why the early Art Ensemble recordings were live; “There has been a concerted effort to capture the essence of the band and that is that this music is a living being. In fact, the set from the Bethlehem Church of Christ in Ann Arbor is as alive as the music the Art Ensemble has released over the past 50 years. Long live the Art Ensemble of Chicago. "
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Thom Jurek awarded the album four (out of 5) stars in Allmusic and praised the fact that the teamwork between the musicians was intuitive, economical and at the same time happy and inspired by the founders of the Art Ensemble. Individual traces of the past would be as good as erased when a noticeable, spontaneous whole emerged in the studio. The interpretations of some earlier and older works would refer to different living organisms; For example, the title track of the album is not delivered as a solemn exploration of sound and poetry, but as a long chamber piece with terrain for free improvisation. “Oasis at Dusk” combines African folk rhythms and die-hard, avant-garde soul jazz with a flute solo by Nicole Mitchell. There is also a performance of Favors' "Tutankhamun", which bridges the gap between post-bop , funk and aggressive improvisation, while the live piece "Mama Koko" unfolds like a folk song before turning into jazz. The live piece “Saturday Morning” is a percussive study in harmony and dynamics, in which swirling brass, reed and woodwind improvisations add sharpness to the beat-driven backdrop, while urgent, solemn vowels are otherwise anything but hidden melodic Expressly emphasize the statement. The range of statements made by the ensemble in We Are on the Edge is overwhelming, sums up Jurek. "Mitchell and Moye make a strong statement that they will carry the AEC's powerful, limitless creative ethos into its sixth decade."
What may be missing from these performances, said Will Layman (Pop Matters), is the kind of free swing that the old Art Ensemble was so delightful with. “They didn't swing like a straight-ahead band , but they had a heavy swing, even though it was just an incredible arrow in the band's huge quiver. The last song on the live set, the band's old 'Odwalla / The Theme' has a bit of that feeling, but there's nothing here that really shakes the old story, the understanding that this great black music is also in One of the roots of Jimmy Blanton and Sam Woodyard is that these guys loved Basie and Bechet , Mingus and Monk as much as they came from a school that got rid of it all. “But that's okay, the author sums up. We Are on the Edge doesn't have to be everything that the Art Ensemble has experienced in more than three decades of diverse music. It is better that the new recording, with so many new musicians, dare to be new, as the Art Ensemble has always felt. And it shows a new direction from Roscoe Mitchell, new reflections on compositions by Lester Bowie and Malachi Favors, fresh grooves from Don Moye and a clear sense of how this tradition, Ancient to the Future , is connected with the most vital creative music of today .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Stylistic classification according to discogs
- ^ A b Karl Ackermann: The Art Ensemble of Chicago: We Are On The Edge: A 50th Anniversary Celebration. May 8, 2019, accessed January 7, 2020 .
- ^ A b Paul Gardner: The Art Ensemble Of Chicago: We Are on the Edge (A 50th Anniversary Celebration) . The Quietus, May 6, 2019, accessed January 7, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Giovanni Russonello: Best Jazz of 2019: Brilliance accommodates any form - and, as these albums show, sometimes lightning lands in a bottle. The New York Times, December 5, 2019, accessed January 7, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Chris barton =: Best jazz albums of 2019: A year rife with invention and resistance. Los Angeles Times, May 6, 2019, accessed January 7, 2020 .
- ↑ Mark Corroto: The Art Ensemble of Chicago: We Are On The Edge: A 50th Anniversary Celebration. All About Jazz, April 25, 2019, accessed January 7, 2020 .
- ^ Review of the album at Allmusic (English). Retrieved January 7, 2020.
- ^ Will Layman: The Art Ensemble of Chicago: We Are on the Edge: A 50th Anniversary Celebration. Pop Matters, May 6, 2019, accessed January 7, 2020 .