At about the same time the greatest living member of the revolutionary Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) celebrates his sixth decade with the celebrated Art Ensemble of Chicago, Roscoe Mitchell stays grounded as ever in his underground jazz roots. Reconnecting with the uncompromising drummer Kikanju Baku in the U.K., the two follow up on the astonishing improvised music made with pianist Craig Taborn spread out over two albums.
A couple of subversives generations apart but telepathically on the same elevated plane, the collaboration continues. Mitchell caught up with Baku in the UK and the two were captured live at Acklam Village, London in June of 2022. Evolutionary Events is a capture of this four-piece performance, and even without the great Taborn’s piano, nothing feels missing with just the duo. If anything, the relative simplicity of only two guys bouncing ideas off of each other offers greater clarity and direct impact from this spontaneous music.
Starting with “Huanglong Fights Red Devil,” Mitchell is free as ever, even liberally crossing into microtonality and playing with the stamina of someone sixty years younger. Which is a good thing, because Baku isn’t slowing down for anybody. Per usual, Baku’s own intensity while utilizing the full range of his kit never sounds too dense; there’s a certain airiness that leaves plenty sonic maneuvering space for the saxophonist, and he senses when it’s best to drop out altogether to give his partner the full spotlight before jumping back in to recharge the proceedings.
Baku grabs the most attention for “Qalaat Dimashq,” splaying beats like a machine gun as Mitchell slowly draws out low notes to add small doses of color. The partnership works primarily because Baku is able to locate the rhythm implied by Mitchell, no matter how elusive that might seem. That intuition completes the picture suggested by Mitchell’s sketches for “Counter-Revolutionaries Posing As Art Aficionados.” For “Full Moon-Low Orbit-Empty Quarter,” Baku explores dispersed percussive subtleties underneath Mitchell’s anguished soprano sax attacks.
Evolutionary Events is available, but barely. Issued on Baku’s Ethnicity Against the Error label, it comes only in cassette format with only 187 copies made. A recording of a still-vital octogenarian avant-garde legend chopping it up with a singularly ace drummer who handily masters improvised music of any kind is an document well worth seeking out.
Also worth the attention of avant jazz fanatics is another limited cassette-only release from Baku, Congo River Basin of which Side A is another pair of Mitchell/Baku collisions and the flip side is from Machine Gun Explosion Ensemble, Baku’s five-piece band featuring multi-talented musicians playing a full arsenal of instruments both vintage and modern. This explosive mini-album Indignant Lamentation over the Evils of the Times is very much in the spirit of Mitchell’s original incarnation of the Art Ensemble of Chicago.
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