A Power Stronger than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (review)

The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians has made one of the most important institutional contributions to American music of the twentieth century. Formed in 1965 and in continuous operation since, the AACM has provided an organizational framework that is always in process, always the product of multiple struggles, always connected to its neighborhood(s), and always the incubator of creative music. Always? That makes it all sound too easy. One of the great achievements of George Lewis's monumental genealogy (roll over, Foucault) of "The AACM and American Experimental Music" is that it avoids the temptation of a whiggish approach where the legacy of the institution and its movement was set in stone by a few early brilliant founders only to develop in its inevitability through the following years. Instead, Lewis gives us a much more complicated picture of the tensions, disruptions, and out- and-out fights that accompanied every step of its history. The AACM was never guaranteed of success, and, indeed, when one considers the institution's goals, both audacious and grounded, and established during its initial meetings, one must be amazed at the level of success the organization achieved. Each of the nine goals combines musical, philosophical and material concerns. Each displays the organization's philosophical dedication to the mutual generative responsibilities of individuality and collective commitment. Goals five, six, and nine demonstrate the complexity of the association's understanding of the lives of musicians: "To provide a source of employment for worthy creative musicians;" "To set an example of high moral standards for musicians to uplift the public image of creative musicians;" "To stimulate spiritual growth in creative artists through recitals, concerts, etc., through participation in programs." (118) Together those three goals articulate the interconnectedness of musicianship, artistry, public image, material success and personal integrity that characterized the highest aspirations of the organization. Much of Lewis's book is devoted to describing the efforts of the AACM to reach and sustain these goals.

Lewis's book is personal yet methodologically rigorous. He draws on his own history with an investment in the group supplemented by an academic's professional orientation to historical accuracy and ethnographic authority. Indeed, Lewis seems to have set out to correct many of the myths that have grown up around the AACM by a thorough interrogation of both documentary sources and extensive interviews. First, the Chicago originators did not draw their musical style directly and solely from Sun Ra. Like many post-WWII musicians, their sound derived from a wide variety of "Great Black Music"—from Louis Armstrong through Charlie Parker and Ornette Coleman but also including William Grant Still and James Reece Europe. Lewis points out, however, that the organization constantly battled the jazz tradition of linking current performers to great individual precursors and the corresponding tendency to write jazz history as a set of stories of great individuals. Instead, Lewis insists that the AACM wanted to emphasize current connections among individuals and their multiple communities and sought to include as wide a variety as possible of great sounds among their influences. Second, the AACM was not a black nationalist organization. They were committed to their own autonomy as artists and as entrepreneurs. They were committed to promoting great black music. Their roots in the black community and the Great Migration ran deep. Their knowledge of the history of white exploitation of black creative efforts was extensive. But their understanding of the keywords: "great;" "black;" and "music" were nuanced, complicated, and the result of years of disagreement, compromise, and actual real world practice. (Boy, did these folks practice.) In Lewis's analysis, the AACM developed a theory of black music that was not limited to the traditional genres of jazz, blues and r&b, and was not simply defined by the racial identity of the performers. Great black music could be performed by musicians with any racial identity, so long as the music could be recognized as such. (This requirement did...