When AEC trumpeter Lester Bowie died in November 1999 at the age of 58, the jazz world lost one of its great originals – a flamboyant sound-painter, a great soloist, a musical philosopher, and a charismatic performer. On this memorial album his friends and colleagues give a sense of his freewheeling, larger-than-life character. Powerful and uncompromising, “Tribute To Lester” is the first new Art Ensemble recording on ECM in almost 20 years, and one of their very finest discs.
Tribute to Lester
Art Ensemble of Chicago
- 1Sangaredi
07:42 - 2Suite for Lester
05:22 - 3Zero / Alternate Line
09:16 - 4Tutankhamun
08:10 - 5As Clear as the Sun
12:41 - 6He Speaks to Me Often in Dreams
13:52
Jazzmagazine, Disque d’émoi de l’année
Jazzmagazine, Disque d’émoi
Les Inrockuptibles, Ecouté et approuvé
This tribute disc dedicated to Lester Bowie is no cosy reprise of old Art Ensemble favourites, or of Bowie’s more popular incarnations. It offers an uncompromisingly powerful set, the centrepiece of which is a long, outer-limits soprano saxophone marathon from Mitchell. The saxophonist scythes his way through circular-breathed sections over Moye’s racing drumming in a virtuoso improve performance that gradually mesmerises you with its density and headlong inventiveness. But if this is a set of narrower dimensions than Art Ensemble listeners may be used to, it’s nevertheless a performance of considerable disguised power. The African-drumming effects of the long percussion opening, with the elephantine honk of the bass sax reverberating through a waterfall of percussion noise; the lyricism of the opening of Suite for Lester …; the spacey, moonscape finale – it all adds up to an audacious and heartfelt disc.
John Fordham, The Guardian
The majestic … Tribute to Lester is unlike anything else in the AEC catalog, beginning with a compact overview of the group’s first 30 years. Famoudou Don Moye’s “Sangaredi,” first recorded in abbreviated form in 1987, is treated to a definitive rendition, its African rhythms smartly bubbling from the start and soon weighted with bass, gongs, and bass saxophone. … An extended silence leads to Roscoe Mitchell’s “Suite for Lester”, a tripartite masterstroke of concision that opens with an allusive, poignant soprano saxophone melody reminiscent of his “For Lester B”. … This melody, backed by empathic drums and the bowed bass of Malachi Favors Moghostut, gives way to a serene and full-bodied flute invention in the manner of Bach, complete with variation, that is in turn supplanted by a partying swing number on bass sax – all in little more than five minutes.
“Zero/Alternate Line” is what it says – Mitchell’s revision of Bowie’s “Zero”, a … theme introduced by the group on The Third Decade. Mitchell announces the theme on alto in whole-note phrases at a dirge tempo, bringing out the melody’s belly-dancing provenance, then jaunts into tempo, working the changes that give the tune the feeling of infinite circularity – his long, freely sonorous phrases are pumped with connecting triplets. Favors’s “Tutakhamun” recalls the AEC’s genesis, having debuted as a bass solo on Congliptious, by Roscoe Mitchell’s Art Ensemble. …
The second half of the album comprises two payoff group improves that illuminate the AEC’s emotional extremes. “As Clear as the Sun” is a stunner. Mitchell’s soprano erupts after a bass and drums passage, and within about four minutes he enters a plane of intensity so profuse you have to laugh at the joy of it all.
Gary Giddins, The Village Voice
Als Lester Bowie starb, hinterließ er nicht nur im Art Ensemble of Chicago eine Lücke, die niemand zu schließen vermochte. Umso erstaunlicher, wie stark seine spirituelle Nachhaltigkeit auf dem ersten Album des Art Ensembles ohne ihn spürbar wird. Obwohl Roscoe Mitchell, Malachi Favors und Don Moye nur im Trio antreten, sind ihre Texturen so dicht, ihre Bewegungen so raumgreifend, dass man nichts vermisst. Und gerade diese spielerische Intensität schafft Raum für neue Imaginationen. Nie zuvor hat man Mitchell derart poetisch und versunken auf seinem gigantischen Arsenal von Saxophonen, Flöten und Pfeifen agieren gehört. Freie, oft atemberaubende Einzel- und Kollektivimprovisationen werden mit jenem leichten Gospel- und Reggae-Touch versehen, der Bowies Spezialität war. Wie früher wird die Musik zwischen Mitchells Konstruktivismus und Moyes Voodoo-Zauber aufgehängt.
Wolf Kampmann, Jazzthing
In diesem verhaltenen Tribut an Bowie, welcher der Gruppe als unermüdliche Energiequelle diente, sind zwar all die typischen Ingredienzien des Art Ensemble auszumachen: geheimnisvolle afrikanische Perkussionsklänge, freies Spiel, Bebop-Elemente, lyrische Passagen mit vorgegebenen Harmonien, Blues-Anklänge. Deutlich spürbar ist aber die Trauerarbeit, die gedämpfte Radikalität. Entstanden ist eines der stimmungsvollsten, aber auch zugänglichsten Programme der nach wie vor inspirierten Vertreterin der „Great Black Music“.
Nick Liebmann, Neue Zürcher Zeitung
Man kann von einer Sensation sprechen: Nach zwanzig Jahren ist das Art Ensemble of Chicago zur Firma ECM zurückgekehrt, für die es Ende der Siebziger, Anfang der Achtziger seine wohl unbestritten besten Platten aufgenommen hat. Nun ist der Trompeter Lester Bowie, die prominenteste und populärste Figur des AEC, mittlerweile verstorben - die verbliebenen drei Mitglieder gedenken seiner anhand dieser Tribute-CD. Das machen sie, indem sie Uralt-Titel ihrer history wieder ausgraben ..., einen Bowie-Titel neu interpretieren, eine ... "Suite für Lester" spielen, vor allem aber toben sich die drei in den beiden abschließenden, jeweils über zehn Minuten langen Kollektivimprovisationen aus - einer Disziplin, für die das AEC wie kaum eine andere Band steht, und bei der es Manfred Eicher wie niemanden sonst gelungen ist, das Beste aus dem AEC herauszuholen und die ausgefuchsten Improvisationen in all ihrem klanglichen Detailreichtum auf Tonträger zu bugsieren. ... Den Humor hat eindeutig Lester Bowie in die Band gebracht, aber traurig klingt Tribute to Lester deshalb keineswegs. Vielmehr präsentiert sich das AEC auf der Höhe seiner Kunst - as good as it gets, wie der Amerikaner sagt.
Rolf Thomas, Jazzthetik
Almost 20 years after their last studio album for ECM, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, one of the most influential collectives in jazz history, return with “Tribute to Lester”, paying homage to the memory of their good friend and colleague, Lester Bowie, who died in 1999.
The original alliance of the Art Ensemble and ECM resulted in the now-classic albums “Nice Guys”, “Full Force”, “Urban Bushmen” and “The Third Decade” – all recorded between 1978 and 1984. In these discs (as the press and the group members themselves concurred) the AEC’s cutting-edge improvisations benefitted enormously from Manfred Eicher’s input as producer. At last the listener could hear all the rich and complex detail of the Art Ensemble’s sonic world and follow all aspects of the musical argument, whether they were playing lyrically, dreaming up visions of Africa in spontaneous drum choirs, or locking horns in full force blasts of untrammelled sound-energy.
After a momentous Art Ensemble Munich concert in 1995 with a quartet line up of Bowie, Mitchell, Favors and Moye, plans for a new round of collaborations with ECM were drawn up. (For most of the previous decade, contractual obligations with a Japanese label had prevented the group from recording elsewhere.) The first outcome of the renewed alliance was Roscoe Mitchell’s award-winning “Nine To Get Ready” album, recorded in 1997.
With the death of Lester Bowie two years later, the Art Ensemble lost a flamboyant frontman, a charismatic performer and the participation of one of the most creative trumpeters in the music’s history. His trademark smears and slurs and growls, his half-valve effects, his wide vibrato and his anarchic humour brought new colours and ideas to jazz. Bowie, not given to false modesty, saw himself as a link in a tradition that extended from Louis Armstrong through Dizzy Gillespie to Miles Davis and Don Cherry and was outspokenly impatient of musicians who settled merely for historically correct re-creation of jazz styles. The Art Ensemble’s very motto and rallying cry “Ancient to the Future” implied that study was meant to bring a musician forward, not mire him in the past, a point that is still worth emphasizing.
Correspondingly, “Tribute to Lester” touches on the spirit of the blues that was Bowie’s first inspiration – he came up playing with the bands of Albert King and Little Milton among others – and also reflects upon the AEC’s own history. Mitchell ably carries the “frontline” role by himself, a reminder that the AEC was originally his group (in the early years it was the Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble). The juxtaposing of space with high intensity playing recalls the era of Roscoe’s landmark album “Sound” (1966), which also marked the first collaborative recordings with Bowie and Malachi Favors.
Malchi Favors’ tune “Tutankhamun”, meanwhile, was a staple of the band’s set in their formative Paris years, when the AEC’s famously theatrical performances – as well as their musicianship – made a profound impact on European players.
Bowie’s “Zero” a “freebop” tune which first surfaced on “The Third Decade” is interwoven here with Mitchell’s composition “Alternate Line”. A centrepiece of the album is Mitchell’s concise yet wide-roving “Suite for Lester” which works a range of moods and colours which are as unpredictable as its subject. Roscoe moves between plangent soprano sax, pretty neo-baroque and a booting blues-blasting bass saxophone line that recalls the AEC’s signature tune “Odwalla”. Here and elsewhere Malachi Favors and Don Moye offer the empathetic, near-telepathic support honed through so many years of playing together.
“Sangaredi”, which opens the disc, is a jungle of interlocking tribal beats, in the tradition of earlier AEC percussion workouts like “Bush Magic”. This “Tribute to Lester” concludes with two collective improvisations – “Clear As The Sun”, with superb circular-breathing-powered soprano saxophone from Mitchell, and “He Speaks To Me Often In Dreams”, a beautifully detailed developmental percussion piece with bells chiming magically and “little instruments” (the use of toys, whistles, bike horns and co was another AACM innovation) providing indeterminate asides, like a window open onto the street…
Lester Bowie’s message, and the Art Ensemble’s, will continue to speak to improvisers everywhere for generations to come.
The original alliance of the Art Ensemble and ECM resulted in the now-classic albums “Nice Guys”, “Full Force”, “Urban Bushmen” and “The Third Decade” – all recorded between 1978 and 1984. In these discs (as the press and the group members themselves concurred) the AEC’s cutting-edge improvisations benefitted enormously from Manfred Eicher’s input as producer. At last the listener could hear all the rich and complex detail of the Art Ensemble’s sonic world and follow all aspects of the musical argument, whether they were playing lyrically, dreaming up visions of Africa in spontaneous drum choirs, or locking horns in full force blasts of untrammelled sound-energy.
After a momentous Art Ensemble Munich concert in 1995 with a quartet line up of Bowie, Mitchell, Favors and Moye, plans for a new round of collaborations with ECM were drawn up. (For most of the previous decade, contractual obligations with a Japanese label had prevented the group from recording elsewhere.) The first outcome of the renewed alliance was Roscoe Mitchell’s award-winning “Nine To Get Ready” album, recorded in 1997.
With the death of Lester Bowie two years later, the Art Ensemble lost a flamboyant frontman, a charismatic performer and the participation of one of the most creative trumpeters in the music’s history. His trademark smears and slurs and growls, his half-valve effects, his wide vibrato and his anarchic humour brought new colours and ideas to jazz. Bowie, not given to false modesty, saw himself as a link in a tradition that extended from Louis Armstrong through Dizzy Gillespie to Miles Davis and Don Cherry and was outspokenly impatient of musicians who settled merely for historically correct re-creation of jazz styles. The Art Ensemble’s very motto and rallying cry “Ancient to the Future” implied that study was meant to bring a musician forward, not mire him in the past, a point that is still worth emphasizing.
Correspondingly, “Tribute to Lester” touches on the spirit of the blues that was Bowie’s first inspiration – he came up playing with the bands of Albert King and Little Milton among others – and also reflects upon the AEC’s own history. Mitchell ably carries the “frontline” role by himself, a reminder that the AEC was originally his group (in the early years it was the Roscoe Mitchell Art Ensemble). The juxtaposing of space with high intensity playing recalls the era of Roscoe’s landmark album “Sound” (1966), which also marked the first collaborative recordings with Bowie and Malachi Favors.
Malchi Favors’ tune “Tutankhamun”, meanwhile, was a staple of the band’s set in their formative Paris years, when the AEC’s famously theatrical performances – as well as their musicianship – made a profound impact on European players.
Bowie’s “Zero” a “freebop” tune which first surfaced on “The Third Decade” is interwoven here with Mitchell’s composition “Alternate Line”. A centrepiece of the album is Mitchell’s concise yet wide-roving “Suite for Lester” which works a range of moods and colours which are as unpredictable as its subject. Roscoe moves between plangent soprano sax, pretty neo-baroque and a booting blues-blasting bass saxophone line that recalls the AEC’s signature tune “Odwalla”. Here and elsewhere Malachi Favors and Don Moye offer the empathetic, near-telepathic support honed through so many years of playing together.
“Sangaredi”, which opens the disc, is a jungle of interlocking tribal beats, in the tradition of earlier AEC percussion workouts like “Bush Magic”. This “Tribute to Lester” concludes with two collective improvisations – “Clear As The Sun”, with superb circular-breathing-powered soprano saxophone from Mitchell, and “He Speaks To Me Often In Dreams”, a beautifully detailed developmental percussion piece with bells chiming magically and “little instruments” (the use of toys, whistles, bike horns and co was another AACM innovation) providing indeterminate asides, like a window open onto the street…
Lester Bowie’s message, and the Art Ensemble’s, will continue to speak to improvisers everywhere for generations to come.
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