Announcing eyeJAZZ.tv & Happy 45th b’day AACM

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AACM stands for Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, an artists-organized, directed and mostly self-supported aesthetic movement founded in 1965 by Chicagoans including Muhal Richard Abrams, Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell (with Lester Bowie and Malachi Favors, the original Art Ensemble of Chicago). Since then three generations of musicians including Fred Anderson, Anthony Braxton, Jack DeJohnette, Leroy Jenkins, George E. Lewis, Amina Claudine Myers, Wadada Leo Smith, Henry Threadgill,  Pete Cosey, Thurman Barker  Famadou Don Moyé, Steve and Iqua Colson, Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, Douglas Ewart, Chico Freeman, Warren Smith, Reggie Nicholson, John Stubblefield, Hamid Drake, Harrison Bankhead, Ed Wilkerson, Ernest Dawkins, Mwata Bowden, Matana Roberts and Mike Reed have emerged as original and influential makers and teachers of new music derived from jazz but unlimited by generic or conceptual boundaries. 

The same night the Chicago AACM held its 45th anniversary concert, the New York chapter featured Wadada’s 22-piece “Silver Orchestra” and a duo of keyboardist/singer Myers with drummer Nicholson. Also in Chicago, Renee Baker conducted a 27-piece ensemble with strings and dancers in “Brass Epiphany” — and I got some cool video of that. I hope to post some of that as a second eyeJAZZ video clip — provided I get permission from Ms. Baker.

Meanwhile, Chicago-based filmmaker and eyeJAZZ instructor Floyd Web has posted some of his clips from a rehearsal for the AACM’s 40th anniversary concert, and also (from the Jazz Institute of Chicago’s jazz-in-the-schools “Jazz Links’ program) great evidence of fresh talent  getting into the jazz groove . .