Ancient to the Future

The Art Ensemble of Chicago  conjurin'!

From the 1970 film Les Stances a Sophie.

Also from the film,Theme de Yoyo featuring the awesome voice of Fontella Bass. 

Hear it!

The following is from a 1999 interview with the Art Ensemble's Joseph Jarman found on the website Perfect Sound Forever.

Q: Another interesting part of the AEC was the ritualistic aspect, where face paint was used, African drums, I read once you were naked to the waist with just your saxophone...
JJ: I wasn't naked to the waist, I was naked completely! (laughs) Actually, that aspect was explained once as an expression of the various elements of man. For example, Lester would wear a doctor's coat, the scientist, the experimenter. Roscoe was the businessman, the gentleman. I was sort of the shamanistic image coming from various cultures, so was Malachi and [AEC drummer Don] Moye. You know, face painting in non-Western cultures is a sign of collectivism, is a sign of one representing the community, it's not unique at all. But in our society, it's something unique. So what we were doing with that face painting was representing everyone throughout the universe, and that was expressed in the music as well. That's why the music was so interesting. It wasn't limited to Western instruments, African instruments, or Asian instruments, or South American instruments, or anybody's instruments. If we needed a sound [scratches his chair] we'd put a leather chair on stage and scratch it, if that was the only way to get the sound.

 

Fred Jung of the the website All About Jazz interviewed the AEC four years after the passing of founding member Lester Bowie.