Some AACM on Record (Part 1)

By Gary Chapin

The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) was one of the most fertile creative organizations … ever … (yes, I said “ever”), serving as apprenticeship for swarms of indispensable players. Anthony Braxton, Muhal Richard Abrahms, Lester Bowie, Wadada Leo Smith, and a ton others formed and emerged from the AACM. In any discussion of post-Coltrane jazz, improvisation, avant garde, experimentation, and black identity in music, you will hear of the members of the AACM. They created the standards and then exceeded them.

Sixty years later, the organization continues apace, perhaps a more conventional non-profit, but still the hotbed of iconically iconoclastic innovation that it has always been. Bandcamp recently ran a piece featuring the AACM artists featured on that site , and it was indeed great! Every disc on there was worthy of the attention, but they were almost all re-releases or resurrections of work by the masters back in the day.

We decided to look at some current releases either by AACM members or featuring them. Like the recently reviewed dance! skip! hop! by AACMer Tomeka Reid (reviewed here), these are filled with life, worthy of attention, and driven by AACM values.

Yowzers - Ben Lamar Gay (International Anthem, 2025)

Yowzers opens with an old old feeling church-ish song (reminded me of “I got a Bible I can read”), laying in some solid ground and then going into a creatively abundant set of compositions that lean into small percussion, chants and songs, electronics, and the post-bop jazz fractured rhythms that I love so much.

The main band is Ben LaMar Gay - cornet, voice, synth, bells, diddley bow, percussion, programming, manipulations; Tommaso Moretti - drums, percussion, voice; Davis - tuba, piano, bells, voice; Will Faber - guitar, ngoni, bells, voice. With a few “also featured” joining with their voices and Rob Frye on flute and bass clarinet. It’s an unusual ensemble but feels entirely organic — one section leads to the next with the inevitability of a great story.  

Emma Dayhuff, Kahil El’Zabar, Dee Alexander, Isaiah Collier - Innovations and Lineage: The Chicago Project (Division 81 Records, 2025)  

Innovations and Lineage: The Chicago Project (featuring Emma Dayhuff, Kahil El’Zabar, Dee Alexander, and Isaiah Collier) plumbs similar depths but spends much more time in the dirty, mumbling groove that immediately brings to mind Kahil El’Zabar. This project builds more on traditional percussion (tambourines, gourds, thumb piano) than on Art Ensemblish “small instruments” and its reliance on a careening 6/8 feel for so much of the time is addictive. You can feel the after-rhythm when the song ends. Alexander and El’Zabar sing and vocalize their bluesy moans and shouts. Emma Duff’s bass is relentless — the MVP of the record. Isaiah Collier’s tenor is bar sax and post-Monk — I hear some Charlie Rouse.

In the end it’s meditatively rhythmic, driving and energetic. So in the pocket and joyful that you become the journey.