Area by area the machine unfolds: The improvisational performance practice of the art ensemble of Chicago

Since their emergence from the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) in the 1960s, the members of the Art Ensemble of Chicago have created a distinctive multi-disciplinary performance practice centered on collective improvisation. In this article, I conceptualize Art Ensemble improvisations as networks of group interactions, and I analyze an excerpt from a 1972 Art Ensemble concert recording using a phenomenological perspective informed by my conversations with the group about the performance and by my own experience as an improvised-music practitioner. The analysis focuses on the integration of composed material into the improvisatory process, the functions of stylistic diversity and multi-instrumentalism in Art Ensemble performance practice, and the interactive roles played by Lester Bowie, Roscoe Mitchell, Joseph Jarman, Malachi Favors, and Don Moye.