A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music (Google eBook)

George E. Lewis

University of Chicago Press, Sep 15, 2008 - Social Science - 690 pages

Founded in 1965 and still active today, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) is an American institution with an international reputation. George E. Lewis, who joined the collective as a teenager in 1971, establishes the full importance and vitality of the AACM with this communal history, written with a symphonic sweep that draws on a cross-generational chorus of voices and a rich collection of rare images.

Moving from Chicago to New York to Paris, and from founding member Steve McCall’s kitchen table to Carnegie Hall, A Power Stronger Than Itself uncovers a vibrant, multicultural universe and brings to light a major piece of the history of avant-garde music and art.

What people are saying

Review: A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music

User Review  - Declan - Goodreads

A superbly well written and thorough account of the coming into being of The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, a co-operative which formed on the South Side of Chicago in the ...

Review: A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music

User Review  - David Keffer - Goodreads

This book serves as a one-of-a-kind historical documentary of the AACM. It provides personal and professional anecdotes of the musicians. It also provides a social analysis of the challenges ...

Contents

• 1 FOUNDATIONS AND PREHISTORY: 1
• 2 NEW MUSIC NEW YORK: 29
• 3 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE EXPERIMENTAL BAND: 55
• 4 FOUNDING THE COLLECTIVE: 85
• 5 FIRST FRUITS: 115
• 6 THE AACM TAKES OFF: 163
• 7 AMERICANS IN PARIS: 215
• 8 THE AACMS NEXT WAVE: 259
• 9 THE AACM IN NEW YORK: 325
• 10 THE NEW REGIME IN CHICAGO: 389
• 11 INTO THE THIRD DECADE: 439
• 12 TRANSITION AND REFLECTIONS: 481
• Afterword: 497
• List of Interviews Conducted by the Author: 515
• Selected AACM Recordings: 519
• Notes: 525
• Bibliography: 601
• Index: 637

About the author

George E. Lewis is the Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music at Columbia University. A recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship in 2002, Lewis has made over 120 recordings as composer or performer, and his publications on experimental music appear regularly in scholarly and popular journals.

 

Bibliographic information

• Title: A Power Stronger Than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music; The Kenneth Nebenzahl, Jr. , Lectures in the History of Cartography Series
• Author: George E. Lewis
• Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2008
• ISBN: 0226477037, 9780226477039
• Length: 690 pages
• Subjects: Music / Genres & Styles / Jazz; Social Science / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies; Social Science / General