A new Art Ensemble of Chicago CD on the Pi label showed up a few days ago featuring the lineup of Roscoe Mitchell, Malachi Favors Maghostut, Don Moye and Joseph Jarman, the saxophonist who left the group in 1993 but who has returned in the wake of trumpeter and Art Ensemble co-founder Lester Bowie’s death in 1999. The album, titled The Meeting, is the band’s first studio recording since Bowie’s death. Or is it? The accompanying press release speaks of a disc the group recorded as a trio sometime after Bowie died. We don’t blame Pi for not mentioning this in its release, but that unreleased CD will be released by ECM a week after The Meeting hits store shelves. So, with Art Ensemble fans presumably licking their chops at this news, we present the details.
The Meeting, to be released August 19, was recorded in Wisconsin during sessions that took place on eight, non-consecutive days between February and April of this year. All seven tracks feature the Mitchell-Jarman-Maghostut-Moye lineup and includes an 18-minute track (“It’s the Sign of the Times”) of the band dinking around on pieces of Roscoe Mitchell’s collection of percussion instruments. A track list:
Art Ensemble to Release Two CDs in August
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