Aram Shelton

continued

music forward while respecting their past was spurred by the musicians who established the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) cooperative in 1965. Many of the best-known members of this organization, such as Muhal Richard Abrams, Roscoe Mitchell, and Anthony Braxton have moved elsewhere, spreading their ideas through performance and teaching, but they have been replaced by younger artists, and the improvised music scene in Chicago now encompasses many different players, groups, and centers--though the AACM continues to play an inspirational role. While many schools and collages across the country enshrine bebop jazz of the fifties and sixties as a frozen model, the eclectic Chicagoans pursue many different avenues to create new musical forms, drawing inspiration from many different sources, including classical and world music, as well as from contemporary popular idioms.