The
Black Artists Group
(
BAG
) was a multidisciplinary arts collective from St. Louis, Missouri, between 1968 and 1973, and was a sibling organization to Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). Founding member
Joseph Bowie
was the brother of
Art Ensemble of Chicago
trumpeter
Lester Bowie
.
offered a seamless convergence of free jazz, global rhythms, and experimental theater.
Their creative umbrella merged explorations of Black and African art and thought with Europe's avant-garde. Their organizational goals and public performances drew from and ministered to all artistic and class genres; they sponsored and produced concerts, jam sessions, recitals, exhibits, plays, poetry readings, lectures, and pageants -- on sidewalks, in community buildings (including their own), churches, and classrooms. Among a cast of visual artists, poets, and playwrights, several renowned musicians emerged from
including saxophonists
Julius Hemphill
,
Hamiet Bluiett
Oliver Lake
J.D. Parran
, and
Luther Thomas
, trumpeters
Baikida Carroll
and
Floyd LeFlore
, trombonist
, and drummer
Charles "Bobo" Shaw
.
In 1972, members of
left Missouri and the U.S. for Paris, where, Black musicians were welcome and could get solid work. They recorded and self-released a lone album tilted
In Paris, Aries 1973
, showcasing five original compositions by this quintet --
Bowie
Lake
Shaw
Carroll
LeFlore
For Peace and Liberty: In Paris Dec. 1972
, by contrast, was recorded during a live performance on French radio. This music has remained unheard since that original radio broadcast. The 35-minute gig is divided into six ongoing, freely improvisational sections.
It opens with incantatory percussion from a drum kit, all manner of hand drums and small instruments -- including bells and whistles -- playing Senegalese polyrhythms. That continues in "Part Two" for three-and-a-half of its seven minutes, gathering in intensity until the saxophones bleat in, followed by trumpets and trombone. Here, the band is focused, moving toward the indefinable with ripping brass and reeds as drums get martial and funky. While "Part 3" is quiet, abstract, and in places overly noodly, it offers a foundation for the direct, kinetic style from the ensemble in "Part Four," where everyone plays their parts in rounds and in counterpoint. "Part Five" is the most "inside" section, and resembles something through-composed with strident rhythms, muted trombone, and soaring sax and trumpets. The final section finds the band deep in conversational interplay.
provides a circular vamp for the band to center on, then
solos -- flowing through blues, swing, hard bop, and modal sounds. He's accompanied by
and the log drums. The drummers provide a sense of closure, reprising the Senegalese polyrhythms that opened the set.
Given its source,
is a solid if not a revelatory document. It offers many creative ideas in harmony, rhythm, and modalities that are common today even when it's rough, raw, sometimes unfocused, and occasionally lags. These are not drawbacks:
's , and we're lucky to hear them. ~ Thom Jurek