CD ECM Records Art Ensemble Of Chicago: Tribute To Lester

2003

Roscoe Mitchell - saxofoane, flaut, percutie
Malachi Favors Maghostut - contrabas, clopote, fluier, congas
Famoudou Don Moye - tobe, gonguri, congas, bongos, fluiere

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” 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.