Reviews that mention Malachi Favors
February 6, 2019
Sound
Delmark DE 4408
Milford Graves
Bäbi
Corbett vs. Dempsey CvsDCD052
Bobby Naughton/Leo Smith/Perry Robinson
The Haunt
NoBusiness Records NBCD 105
Instant Composers Pool
GroupComposing
Corbett vs. Dempsey CvsDCD056
Cosmic Forest
The Spiritual Sounds of MPS
MPS 4029759122562
Something in the Air: CD Reissues help define the massive musical changes of the 1960s and 1970s
By Ken Waxman
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February 12, 2011
Malachi Favors (1927-2004)
By Ken Waxman
Trickster to the end, when bassist Malachi Favors Maghostut died of pancreatic cancer in early 2004, his daughter revealed that he had actually born 10 years earlier than his previously accepted 1937 birth date. In a way that concluding jape was perfectly in character for the versatile bassist who from the mid-1960s until his death was a vital component of the Art Ensemble of Chicago (AEC). The quintet proved that theatricism in the form of face paint, costumes, so-called “little instruments” and stylistic turns could be the source of profound and searching modern jazz – or if you prefer Great Black Music Ancient to the Future. MORE
September 8, 2010
Black Horn Long Gone
Southport S-SSD 0128
Celebration rather than lamentation, Black Horn Long Gone’s apt but ungrammatical title was tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson’s response when asked what happened to the sleek ebony horn he played on this early 1993 session. Unfortunately his death at 80 in late June, gives the CD an added poignancy to the statement, not initially envisioned when this CD release was planned.
Metaphorically – and literally – “long gone” are also the two musicians who accompany Anderson (born 1929) on this high quality session. Both bassist Malachi Favors Maghostut (1927-2004) and drummer Ajaramu (1926-2006) were the saxophonist’s long time Chicago associates in the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Separately over the years, Favors, linchpin of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, and Ajaramu were stylistic chameleons, able to work with everyone from tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons to pianist Muhal Richard Abrams. Together, they were more than a rhythm section. Their individual inventiveness dovetails with Anderson distinctive horn cadences on the eight tunes here to produce almost ineffable results. MORE
October 10, 2005
The Velvet Lounge: On Late Chicago Jazz
by Gerald Majer
Columbia University Press
By Ken Waxman
October 10, 2005
A non-faction memoir of tales that may or not have happened, this volume is, to overstate the case a bit, sort of an American À la recherche du temps perdu. Gerald Majer, an English professor at Villa Julie College in Baltimore, utilizes his listening experiences involving major Chicago jazz musicians, as an entrée to his ruminations and meditations on growing up in that Midwestern city.
Don’t be fooled by the photograph of tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson on the cover or the two-page discography at the end of the volume however. Although Majer deals, in greater or lesser degrees, with the sounds of, among others, tenor saxophonist Gene Ammons, Anderson, bandleader Sun Ra, multi-instrumentalist Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Art Ensemble of Chicago members Roscoe Mitchell and Malachi Favors, this is no music encyclopedia or a collection of album and CD reviews. MORE
March 7, 2005
ERNEST DAWKINS’ NEW HORIZONS ENSEMBLE
Mean Ameen
Delmark DE-559
ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO
Sirius Calling
Pi Records Pi 11
An organization’s influence is reflected in how well it continues to evolve after it becomes old enough to become established. So it is with the Association for the Advancement of Creative Music. Heading into its fifth decade, its membership has dispersed away from Chicago -- though the majority of AACMers, young and old, continue to reside in the Windy City -- and some of its more prominent members are starting to die. MORE
March 8, 2004
Tribute to Lester
ECM 1808
ART ENSEMBLE OF CHICAGO
The Meeting
PI Recordings PI07
Could the Art Ensemble of Chicago (AEC) continue performing after the November 1999 death of Lester Bowie following 30 years of close collaboration? Sure, each members had his own side projects over the years and the band had survived the defection of reedman Joseph Jarman in 1993, but going on without the flamboyant presence of the lab-coat wearing trumpeter appeared impossible.
As Bowie once famously replied to another question: “Well, I guess it all depends on what you know,” and chuckled evilly. Not only did the three remaining members regroup to turn out TRIBUTE TO LESTER, but then the unexpected happened. Jarman brought his collection of reeds to mesh with the sounds from fellow reedist Roscoe Mitchell, plus bassist Malachi Favors Maghostut and percussionist Famoudou Don Moye on THE MEETING, although the title may suggest a non-permanent hook-up. MORE
November 3, 2003
DENNIS GONZÁLEZ NEW SOUTHERN QUINTET
Old Time Revival
Entropy Stereo Records ESR 014
JEFF CHAN
In Chicago
Asian Improv Records AIR 0063
Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM) exemplar, and its southern roots, underlines the creativity of the combos on both these discs.
Although only three of the nine players involved are AACM members -- the late trumpeter Ameen Muhammad, bassist Malachi Favors and drummer Alvin Fielder -- the cooperative archetype that the Chicago association feels must be mixed with creative improvised music is on show each time. MORE
December 30, 2002
WADADA LEO SMTH AND THE GOLDEN QUARTET
The Year of the Elephant
Pi Recordings P104
Without trying to be flippant, it seems that a lot of Miles Davis' conception has rubbed off on trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith since did his YO, MILES! tribute disc with guitarist Henry Kaiser a couple of years back.
While this new CD with his all-star Golden Quartet only pays homage to Davis on two tracks, much of Smith's Harmon-muted work here resembles the sort of brass constructions Miles used in the period from IN A SILENT WAY through BITCHES BREW and beyond. Smith doesn't come up with an outright imitation, or produce a CD that's less than attractive. It's just with the talent involved, you feel so much could have been accomplished. As a matter of fact when you're not reminded of Miles here, the tunes often take on that air of precocious profundity that characterize the style of Keith Jarrett, a former Davis sideman and present employer of drummer Jack DeJohnette. MORE
October 7, 2002
Sunshine & An Even Break (never give a sucker)
Fuel 2000 Records 302 061 215 2
Potentially the time when Energy music of both the American and European varieties reached the zenith of acceptance, 1969 was also unique because it suddenly seemed that the very fabric of society was ripping apart.
Riots were commonplace on both continents. Radicalized students were staging sometimes-violent demonstrations to demand more liberalized education processes and to protest against local repression and the war in Viet Nam. Fringe groups had turned to kidnapping, bomb throwing and arson in Europe, while in the U.S., the Black Power Movement had moved into its short-lived, so-called revolutionary phrase. MORE
September 20, 2000
Africa N'da Blues
Delmark DE-519
Chicago percussionist Kahil El'Zabar is one younger musician who makes it a point to interact with the jazz pioneers of the 1960s and 1970s. A longtime member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, he has built the Ritual Trio around the talents of veteran AACMers Brown and Favors, who is also a member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago. More to the point the percussionist has played and recorded with other sound pioneers from that time including saxophonists Fred Anderson, Kalaparusha Maurice McIntyre, Joseph Jarman, Archie Shepp and now Pharoah Sanders.
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