Composer’s influence cuts across many genres
Blending jazz improvisation, post-John Cage modernism, funk and the occasional touch of rock, the Art Ensemble of Chicago and its co-founder, Roscoe Mitchell, made good on the ambition of its motto: “Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future.”
Mitchell formed the group in the wake of his involvement in the 1965 founding of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a path-breaking collective of black artists.
In 2015, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago presented “The Freedom Principle,” a 50th-anniversary exhibition devoted to the association and its influence. The museum also hosted concerts of Mitchell’s music, which were recorded for “Bells for the South Side,” a two-disc set released on Friday by ECM Records.
Although Mitchell has been a leader in experimental music for more than 50 years, the new album finds him still pushing his art to new extremes of slashing intensity and melancholic beauty.
He has also long worked as an educator, most recently at Mills College in Oakland, California — where budget cuts have recently threatened his position and those of other faculty members. The school’s impending cuts have prompted an outpouring on social media and an online petition signed by hundreds of people.
“I think it’s a mistake for the administration to take these steps,” he said by phone recently. “Not only
me, but there are 11 people who got targeted with this. Mills is having some financial problems, although I don’t think this was the best way to try to resolve it.”
Mitchell, 76, spoke recently about jazz and his career.
Q: You’re known as a major figure in contemporary jazz, in part because of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. But at Mills, you hold the Darius Milhaud chair in composition. Do you think that’s still difficult for some people to process — that you’re an improviser but also a composer of “classical” music?
A: Well, let’s say I’m trying to change that. I’ve always believed in studying music across the board. I’ve never been fascinated with putting myself in certain categories. Especially now that there are a lot of folks out there who want to know how this improvisational thing works. And the way that I would describe that, of course, is like composition in real time.
Q: Years ago, you told me you once had a rule against writing orchestral pieces — because you thought those wouldn’t get played. But now we’re hearing a lot of new orchestral music from you.
A: I’m amazed by all the offers I’m getting to do concerts with different orchestras around the world. And it allows me the chance to come into the orchestra under my own terms. It reminds me of how things were moving along in the ‘60s.
I just got back from Bologna, Italy, with the orchestra there, with Tonino Battista conducting. When some instrumentalists came in at first, they didn’t know what was going on, a little bit. But by the time the performance went down, I could see that people had really made a transition there and were really open to improvisation.
Q: “Bells for the South Side” has some vibrant chamber pieces that also include improvisation. “Six Gongs and Two Woodblocks” features you on soprano saxophone, William Winant on percussion and James Fei on electronics. How does a composition such as that take shape live?
A: One thing I learned from Muhal Richard Abrams (a co-founder of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) and the Experimental Band: He’d write these compositions, and then he’d ask people to improvise. And people would take off doing whatever they wanted to do. You can’t just
that. Experienced improvisers will look at the materials, and then they will develop those materials in the same way you would do if you were writing the composition. I gave James certain pitch elements for the electronics. And, of course, William Winant and I had real notes. I look at the composition and see what elements are there.
Q: The album closes with a performance of one of your most famous tunes for the Art Ensemble, “Odwalla.” So this covers a lot of ground.
A: I have such great memories of that piece. One of the main versions I remember is from being in Paris in those early days. We created that piece for a performance at the American Center there, with the bass saxophones. Later, Eminem sampled me doing that.
Q: Which Eminem song is that?
A: It’s called “Don’t Front”! It didn’t make his main record, but it’s online.
Q: Bringing up hiphop reminds me that you rapped on one of your solo albums, back in the early 1980s, on the track “You Wastin’ My Tyme.”
A: Well, that was inspired mostly by the Last Poets and stuff. Because rapping wasn’t totally “in” at that time. It was starting. And now it’s just, like, full blown.