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Sound Experiments: The Music of the AACM
A groundbreaking study of the trailblazing music of Chicago’s AACM, a leader in the world of jazz and experimental music.
Founded on Chicago’s South Side in 1965 and still thriving today, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) is the most influential collective organization in jazz and experimental music. In Sound Experiments , Paul Steinbeck offers an in-depth historical and musical investigation of the collective, analyzing individual performances and formal innovations in captivating detail. He pays particular attention to compositions by Muhal Richard Abrams and Roscoe Mitchell, the Association’s leading figures, as well as Anthony Braxton, George Lewis (and his famous computer-music experiment, Voyager ), Wadada Leo Smith, and Henry Threadgill, along with younger AACM members such as Mike Reed, Tomeka Reid, and Nicole Mitchell.
Sound Experiments represents a sonic history, spanning six decades, that affords insight not only into the individuals who created this music but also into an astonishing collective aesthetic. This aesthetic was uniquely grounded in nurturing communal ties across generations, as well as a commitment to experimentalism. The AACM’s compositions broke down the barriers between jazz and experimental music and made essential contributions to African American expression more broadly. Steinbeck shows how the creators of these extraordinary pieces pioneered novel approaches to instrumentation, notation, conducting, musical form, and technology, creating new soundscapes in contemporary music.
Founded on Chicago’s South Side in 1965 and still thriving today, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) is the most influential collective organization in jazz and experimental music. In Sound Experiments , Paul Steinbeck offers an in-depth historical and musical investigation of the collective, analyzing individual performances and formal innovations in captivating detail. He pays particular attention to compositions by Muhal Richard Abrams and Roscoe Mitchell, the Association’s leading figures, as well as Anthony Braxton, George Lewis (and his famous computer-music experiment, Voyager ), Wadada Leo Smith, and Henry Threadgill, along with younger AACM members such as Mike Reed, Tomeka Reid, and Nicole Mitchell.
Sound Experiments represents a sonic history, spanning six decades, that affords insight not only into the individuals who created this music but also into an astonishing collective aesthetic. This aesthetic was uniquely grounded in nurturing communal ties across generations, as well as a commitment to experimentalism. The AACM’s compositions broke down the barriers between jazz and experimental music and made essential contributions to African American expression more broadly. Steinbeck shows how the creators of these extraordinary pieces pioneered novel approaches to instrumentation, notation, conducting, musical form, and technology, creating new soundscapes in contemporary music.
- GenresMusicNonfictionHistory
304 pages, Hardcover
Published August 3, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 19, 2022
Reading books on music has always been a little fraught for me, perhaps because I haven’t read enough of them to know exactly what I am getting. I don’t like the books that simply celebrate and praise, because they lack critical reflection and thoughtfulness and are, ultimately, boring. Conversely, because my knowledge of music theory, concepts, and vocabulary is a little rusty, I have difficulties navigating books that are deeply analytical. George Lewis’s A Power Stronger Than Itself is a much praised history of the American Association of Creative Musicians (AACM). Besides being a member of the AACM, Lewis is an amazing composer, trombonist, electronic musician, and professor at Columbia, so he brings considerable knowledge and experience to that history, including some deep analyses of the music, which I just can’t follow (so I need to brush up on my music theory, obviously). I do like Graham Lock’s book Forces in Motion, which is about his experience touring with Anthony Braxton and his quartet. Lock is a journalist who doesn’t have a solid grasp of Braxton’s music, but he knows how to ask really good questions to get Braxton and his musicians to explain what, how, and why they play. As a reader, I identified with Lock’s position and appreciated his questions and the enlightening answers that came from them.
I really like what Paul Steinbeck does in Sound Experiments. His writing is clear and engaging, and when he dives into the music he doesn’t dive quite so deep, and the dives are well mapped, giving my rusty musical knowledge the aid that it needs. While offering a broader discussion of the AACM, Steinbeck focuses his attention on a set of exemplary albums from each decade of the AACM’s existence. Moreover, the book includes a link to a page on Steinbeck’s website that has album tracks streaming, so I can listen to tracks while reading his analysis. I can also listen to the albums, most of them, either from my collection or on Spotify. Being able to listen and read really helps me process his analysis. Reminds me of a book of Borges scholarship I recently read–Nora Benedict’s Borges and the Literary Marketplace: How Editorial Practices Shaped Cosmopolitan Readings–which includes an interactive map of Borges’s Buenos Aires. The most interesting conjunction of analysis and track streaming is of Roscoe Mitchell solo alto performance of “Nonaah” at the Willisau jazz festival in 1976, when he stood in as a last minute replacement for Anthony Braxton. The audience was so disappointed that they booed Roscoe. In response, he repeated the same short beginning phrase for 7 minutes. The audience shifted from disgruntled grumbling to appreciative applause, after which Roscoe improvised off that phrase for another 16 minutes. Powerful music making, and Steinbeck’s analysis helped me understand the trajectory of the piece over the full 23 minutes, which I could not have grasped on my own.
Through the combination of clear writing, concise explanations (particularly of alternative forms of scoring and notations), diagrams, score excerpts, and the online tracks, Steinbeck has produced a book that allows me to see, hear, and read. The multiple approaches gives me different ways in to process the material. Besides reinforcing my love of old favorites like The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Roscoe Mitchell, and Anthony Braxton, the book introduced me to an old guard member of the AACM, Fred Anderson, whom I’ve never paid much attention to and should have, as well as the more recent Great Black Music Ensemble, as big band that is intensely experimental. In the end Paul Steinbeck successfully explains how this music bridges and transcends both of the limited categories of jazz and experimental music to become something else.
I really like what Paul Steinbeck does in Sound Experiments. His writing is clear and engaging, and when he dives into the music he doesn’t dive quite so deep, and the dives are well mapped, giving my rusty musical knowledge the aid that it needs. While offering a broader discussion of the AACM, Steinbeck focuses his attention on a set of exemplary albums from each decade of the AACM’s existence. Moreover, the book includes a link to a page on Steinbeck’s website that has album tracks streaming, so I can listen to tracks while reading his analysis. I can also listen to the albums, most of them, either from my collection or on Spotify. Being able to listen and read really helps me process his analysis. Reminds me of a book of Borges scholarship I recently read–Nora Benedict’s Borges and the Literary Marketplace: How Editorial Practices Shaped Cosmopolitan Readings–which includes an interactive map of Borges’s Buenos Aires. The most interesting conjunction of analysis and track streaming is of Roscoe Mitchell solo alto performance of “Nonaah” at the Willisau jazz festival in 1976, when he stood in as a last minute replacement for Anthony Braxton. The audience was so disappointed that they booed Roscoe. In response, he repeated the same short beginning phrase for 7 minutes. The audience shifted from disgruntled grumbling to appreciative applause, after which Roscoe improvised off that phrase for another 16 minutes. Powerful music making, and Steinbeck’s analysis helped me understand the trajectory of the piece over the full 23 minutes, which I could not have grasped on my own.
Through the combination of clear writing, concise explanations (particularly of alternative forms of scoring and notations), diagrams, score excerpts, and the online tracks, Steinbeck has produced a book that allows me to see, hear, and read. The multiple approaches gives me different ways in to process the material. Besides reinforcing my love of old favorites like The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Roscoe Mitchell, and Anthony Braxton, the book introduced me to an old guard member of the AACM, Fred Anderson, whom I’ve never paid much attention to and should have, as well as the more recent Great Black Music Ensemble, as big band that is intensely experimental. In the end Paul Steinbeck successfully explains how this music bridges and transcends both of the limited categories of jazz and experimental music to become something else.
September 20, 2022
Read my review in the September issue of the NYC Jazz Record.
http://nycjazzrecord.com/
http://nycjazzrecord.com/
December 8, 2023
Essential reading for anyone interested in jazz or experimental music. Would highly recommend listening to the pieces while you read about them.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews