Lester Bowie: Oh, What a Night
Sunday is jazz day. Continuing my focus on artists I have seen live, I should start by saying that I do not live in an area that has given me many opportunities to see live jazz over the years. This is especially true for artists who aren’t either local or nationally touring legends. This makes the fact that I was able to see Lester Bowie perform live 30 years ago an incredible occurrence. Ever since I started to fall in love with jazz in the 1980s, I was immediately drawn toward artists on the outside of the mainstream. Everyone starts out by learning about Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Duke Ellington, and the other most well-known jazz legends, and rightfully so, but I quickly started to obsessively search out recordings by artists such as Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Lester Bowie, and others who stretched the boundaries of composition and performance.
Lester Bowie was born in Maryland and grew up in St. Louis. As a young trumpeter, he worked with several famous blues and soul artists before marrying soul singer Fontella Bass in 1965 and founding the St. Louis-based, free jazz collective Black Artists Group. However, his career truly began in 1966 when he moved to Chicago and joined the newly-founded Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Within two years, he formed the jazz combo Art Ensemble of Chicago with AACM founder Roscoe Mitchell, AACM member Joseph Jarman, and bassist Malachi Favors. The Art Ensemble of Chicago were one of the most unique, adventurous, and experimental jazz groups to ever exist. With Bowie standing at the center of the group in his iconic white lab coat and long goatee (and playing the trumpet like a combination of Miles Davis and someone talking through a straw), the AEC worked for decades in the expansion of jazz in all directions. Their live performances were experimental visually and musically. Their recordings were mind-expanding conceptual visions of jazz with no limits. Along with Bowie’s unique playing style, the bass was driving, the horns were free-flowing, and the percussion/drums were rhythmically expansive. They were never very well-known or popular, but that is true of any artists who refuse to pander to the mainstream. They were virtuosic players with a discography that defines the sound of avant-garde jazz for over 3 decades.
Amazingly, there is even more to Lester Bowie’s music than the AEC. He was also a member of other groups, especially New Directions (with percussionist Jack DeJohnette) and his own group (Lester Bowie’s Brass Fantasy). His Brass Fantasy pushed big band jazz to its experimental extremes and was always my favorite of his musical experiments. Their albums were a mix of experimental big band covers of old and new pop songs along with more experimental big band pieces. If you are interested in any of Lester Bowie’s music, I suggest searching out his solo double album All the Magic and the Brass Fantasy album I Only Have Eyes For You. If you like those, you will enjoy a lot of the rest as well.
Having said all of that, I haven’t even started to get to the time I saw him perform live. I will keep it simple. Outside of Chicago and New York, the music of the AACM was rarely recognized for its quality or importance. By the time I saw him perform in the late 1990s, there had been little national recognition of the group’s music over the previous 30 years. Amazingly, a local non-profit organization in my city decided to host a 3-day tribute to the group, concluding with a Lester Bowie performance. Even in the few hundred seat hall that held the performance, it was not sold out. But I was there, and I will never forget it. Performing along with his ex-wife Fontella Bass on organ, AEC drummer Famoudou Don Moye, Brass Fantasy trombonist Frank Lacy, and a bassist who I unfortunately can’t name, it was exactly what I expected – jazz at its finest, but with no limits, free expression, and pure joy. Lester Bowie was nothing if not joyful in his playing, and my memories of the performance are not about the tunes played or the solos performed. It is about his absolute gratitude for being able to play his music and his joyful presence as he led the band through the most enjoyable jazz expedition I have ever witnessed. Bowie died at the age of 58 only a few years after I saw him perform, which makes the fact that I was in the exact right place at the right time to see this concert even more astounding.
To listen to all of the songs of the day, check out the Radio Faux Show Song of the Day playlist.
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