During the 1965 founding of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, members agreed on an ambitious goal for their concert presentations: original compositions, every time out. Nor were those all-original gigs meant to stick to one genre. Jazz-influenced forms could collide with pop rhythms and avant-garde textures from the classical sphere. This concept had staying power. In the decades since, work by the association’s members has made a profound and lasting contribution to American music.
Saxophonist and composer Roscoe Mitchell was an original member of the AACM, and he has never abandoned the organization’s principles. Fifty years after starting the pathbreaking group that came to be known as the Art Ensemble of Chicago, he is still developing new approaches to writing and improvisation. When responding to a recent wave of invitations to collaborate with European symphonic groups, Mitchell hit on a new idea for generating material. Because he has long considered the art of improvisation to be “composition in real time,” he says it made sense to take some of his favorite spontaneous licks and put them down on paper.
Mitchell selected tracks from two improv albums, released back in 2014, and commissioned notated transcriptions and re-orchestrations from trusted collaborators, including several of his students from Mills College. Four of these new orchestral arrangements of past improvisations show up on Discussions, in takes that involve 19 different instrumentalists (plus conductor Steed Cowart). The arrangers’ various transformations are significant and imaginative, though aspects of the underlying improvisations are usually recognizable.
The doleful opening that Mitchell and pianist Craig Taborn improvised in their earlier duo performance of “I’ll See You Out There” is given to woodwinds and strings on this new orchestral version. The motifs are familiar, but the new range of instrumental color in Christopher Stover’s arrangement gives the music a wider variety of moods to cycle through. A passage of cautious, vulnerable melody can open quickly into a harmony that suggests hope and eagerness. The gradual addition of percussion even guarantees that—in a surprising twist—the orchestral version has a more propulsive middle section than the earlier take, recorded in a free-jazz context.
The remaining four tracks on Discussions are new, collective improvisations. Two are duo cuts, in which Mitchell’s sopranino saxophone weaves wild harmonics and piping high notes around riffs from Wilfrido Terrazas’ flute. The two other improvisations—“Discussions I” and “Discussions II”—reveal the album’s vision of free-orchestra playing. These selections include some of the most exciting moments on the album. They often sound dizzyingly active without feeling cluttered. It seems as though this new orchestra, having learned from the transcriptions of Mitchell’s past improvisations, has acquired an intuitive ability to create new music together. You can hear Mitchell’s own excitement over this development as he contributes ferocious soloing on both performances.
Still, the album doesn’t rise or fall on the strength of Mitchell’s iconic instrumental voice. Throughout, he frequently exercises the option to sit back and supervise, as strings, woodwinds, brass, and multiple percussionists realize new versions of his past improvisations. (There are even some electronics thrown into the bargain, during the lengthy finale “Who Dat,” thanks to frequent Mitchell colleague James Fei.)
Over its 66 minutes, the set manages to succinctly channel several of the concepts that have fascinated this artist for half a century. You can hear his compositional risk-taking and his instrumental prowess, as well as his pedagogical interest in helping other musicians reach new heights. The album feels like a legitimate event in Mitchell’s career, since it is one of the relatively rare releases devoted to his large ensemble music. Coming hot on the heels of this summer’s masterful live album, Discussions manages to throw light on yet another side of this visionary’s output.
