Playlist for the Unpopular Music Webcast for November 4, 2017

On this week's episode we devote the second hour to remembering (or even perhaps to some of you introducing) the jazz legend Muhal Richard Abrams, who died last Sunday at the age of 87. A fine pianist and composer, he is best (and perhaps most importantly) known as one of the founders of the the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, the Chicago based organization which organized concerts, and provided rehearsal space, promotion and educational resources to hundreds if not thousands of up and coming musicians from the mid-1960's to today. The AACM provided a home base for musicians who were looking to expand the jazz tradition, taking on influences from traditional African and contemporary European music, theater, dance, and poetry. The trumpeter Taylor Ho Bynum has a fine memorial/introduction in the New Yorker. Here's an excellent appreciation from Adam Shatz in the London Review of Books' blog. The trombonist George Lewis wrote a definitive history of the AACM called A Power Stronger than Itself, which is well worth digging into.

Photo by Brian McMillen / www.brianmcmillenphotography.com

Muhal is a relatively recent interest of mine. I always knew he was out there, but I sort of worked my backwards from my interests in his protégés Henry Threadgill, the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Anthony Braxton. (One use of Lewis' book is discovering where the good stuff lies in the mountain of AACM recordings.) What we present is rather arbitrary presentation from his mighty catalog.

See the playlist after the break...