The Art Ensemble of Chicago

Originally comprised of saxophonists Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman, trumpeter Lester Bowie, bassist Malachi Favors, and later, drummer Famoudou Don Moye, the Art Ensemble of Chicago remains a unique collective of composers and improvisers. Beginning inthe mid 1960s, they became one of the most influential avant-garde jazz ensembles of the 1970s and '80s. They blended jazz, European art music and indigenous African musics, in a modernist spirit of experimentation with elements of music history and theatrics. They issued dozens of recordings, and as members passed away, continued to record and perform on occasion with younger generations of musicians.