Black Artist Group - 2024 - For Peace and Liberty - In Paris, Dec 1972

Black Artist Group 

2024 

For Peace and Liberty - In Paris, Dec 1972

01. Part 1 3:35

02. Part 2 7:03

03. Part 3 7:06

04. Part 4 4:57

05. Part 5 4:45

06. Part 6 8:32

Drums, Percussion, Voice, Stylophone – Charles W. Shaw, Jr. (Bobo)

Saxophone, Marimba, Drums, Voice – Oliver Lake

Trombone, Congas, Voice – Joseph Bowie

Trumpet, Flugelhorn, Bass, Drum, Voice – Baikida E.J. Carroll

Trumpet, Voice – Floyd Le Flore

Recorded live at studio 104, Maison de la radio (O.R.T.F), Paris, 3 Dec. 1972

Founded in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1968, the Black Artist Group (BAG) can be viewed as a sibling organization to Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM)—quite literally in the case of co-founder Joseph Bowie, the younger brother of AACM charter member Lester Bowie. Both were innovative cooperatives dedicated to evolving creative music, bringing together the threads of jazz, the European avant-garde, and a wide-ranging, Afrocentric view of musical tradition.

Where the two differed most prominently was in scope. The AACM is approaching its 60th anniversary, with an estimable and ever-expanding roster of musicians guided by its “Ancient to the Future” philosophy. BAG existed for only four years, from 1968 to 1972, before reconfiguring from a larger organization to a single ensemble. Only one album was issued under the Black Artist Group name, the live recording In Paris, Aries 1973. By contrast, the AACM’s flagship group, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, released 19 albums in the same timespan, alongside numerous titles by individual AACM members.

The St. Louis contingent’s documented output is now doubled thanks to the release of For Peace and Liberty. Recorded in December 1972, two months after BAG had followed its Art Ensemble brethren to Paris, the music has remained unheard since its original French radio broadcast. It’s a wildly different outing from its predecessor, recorded the following year. Aries 1973 trades in opposing dynamics, shifting constantly between the minimal and the raucous. For Peace and Liberty is more diverse yet urgent, guided by the drumming of Charles “Bobo” Shaw, who shifts from propulsive grooves to simmering tension, agitated clamor to pointillistic provocations.

Where the AACM musicians occasionally intersected with artists from other mediums, multidisciplinary collaboration was central to the BAG, which included dancers, theater artists, poets, and visual artists in its original form. That sense of the theatrical remains in the way that this 35-minute performance (divided into six sections on the WeWantSounds release) unfolds like a narrative with moments of bold theatricality, leaving one pining for a visual accompaniment.

“Part 1” begins the proceedings ceremonially, with all five members playing a Senegalese “welcome rhythm” on percussion instruments. Horns blare a discordant fanfare as Bobo Shaw moves to the drum kit with explosive intensity before shifting into a gentler, almost tidal interplay with Joseph Bowie’s congas and Baikida Carroll’s cowbell. Midway through “Part 2,” Oliver Lake’s alto sax weaves serpentine lines over the procession, goaded by blasts from a whistle.

“Part 3” dissolves into sounds and textures, unison horn lines punctuating guttural blasts from Bowie’s trombone, strangled vocalizations, shimmering percussion, and meandering trumpet explorations from Carroll and Floyd LeFlore. These snowball into a free improv avalanche on “Part 4,” which unravels into a cartoon-like burlesque of a military march, one of several points where the band’s impish sense of humor comes to the fore.

The finale locks into a taut funk that transforms seamlessly into a reprise of the opening Senegalese rhythm, a captivating illustration of the intimate ties between the music’s roots and future. Devoid of context, For Peace and Liberty is a thrilling, musically acrobatic live recording. As a vital document of an underrepresented movement and a formative period in the development of some of the music’s most influential philosopher-performers, it’s an essential release.

Wewantsounds presents the release of BAG's first album since 1973, For Peace and Liberty, recorded in Paris in Dec. 1972 when the musicians had recently arrived from St Louis. BAG only released one album during their existence. This long-lost performance, recorded at Maison de l'ORTF in optimal conditions just a few months previously, was thought lost until recently unearthed from the vaults of INA (Institut National de l'Audiovisuel). Here the group unleashes an incandescent 35-minute set mixing free improvisation and spiritual jazz with funk grooves. Released in partnership with the band and INA, the album features sound remastered from the original tapes, plus a 20-page booklet featuring words by Oliver Lake, Joseph Bowie, and Baikida Carroll plus Bobo Shaw's and Floyd LeFlore's daughters as well as extensive liner notes by BAG scholar Benjamin Looker and previously unseen photos by cult French photographer Philippe Gras. The Black Artist Group (BAG) was founded in St Louis, USA, in 1968 to promote local artists from the burgeoning Black Arts movement, including musicians, playwrights, dancers and poets. The BAG quintet heard here pulled together key musicians from the larger organization, including Oliver Lake on sax, Baikida Carroll, and Floyd LeFlore on trumpet, Joseph Bowie on trombone and Charles 'Bobo' Shaw on drums. The musicians emerged from the organization to become a vital force within the late '60s free jazz revolution. Modelled on the AACM and the Art Ensemble of Chicago with whom they had close ties, this subset of BAG musicians followed in the footsteps of their Chicago colleagues, relocating to Paris in the early '70s on the recommendation of Lester Bowie, Joseph's older brother. Arriving in the French capital in Oct. 1972 the group made an instant impact on its underground music scene. In December of that year, Andre Francis, ORTF's jazz supremo invited them onto his "Jazz sur Scene" radio show, which showcased four groups live over two hours. Arriving onto the stage of the prestigious Studio 104 auditorium of the Maison de la Radio, the group delivered a jaw-dropping 35-minute set that left the audience mesmerized. Only thanks to a chance listening of another concert -- where the BAG live set was buried within -- was the recording unearthed making this historic release possible fifty years on. The release counts as an invaluable document, shedding fresh light on one of the most fascinating groups in modern jazz history.