Get In Line
ATR | 03/31/2008
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I forget how I found out about this extraordinary document, but the blurb you can read from Jon Pareles in the photograph clinched it for me. I simply had to have it.
Now that I do, I recommend that regardless of whether you are a fan of this band or not, snap this one up before it's gone.
The Art Ensemble of Chicago was one of the greatest small jazz groups of the last half of the XXth Century. Comprised of trumpeter Lester Bowie, wind players Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman, bassist Malachi Favors Maghostus, and percussionist Famoudou Don Moye, this band absolutely tore the roof off the sucker from the late 60's on.
This film, made in '81, captures them at the peak of their artistic majesty. Visually, they are something to behold as they dress and paint their faces like African deities (although Bowie prefers a doctor's lab coat) and move about the stage in ritualistic, theatrical fashion. Nothing I can say about the sounds they produce from a forest of instruments can possibly do it justice.
Now that Bowie and Favors are no longer with us, a film like this is the only way to see the band as it was in all its glory. Do not hesitate, or you are lost."