Muhal Richard Abrams

Muhal Richard Abrams Things To Come From Those Now Gone (Delmark)

When Muhal Richard Abrams was awarded a resounding first place in last year's Downbeat Critics' Poll as the Pianist Most Deserving of Wider Recognition, a lot of people may have wondered who the hell he was. The answer is surprisingly simple. The Chicago Daily News has said it best: "Muhal Richard Abrams is Chicago 's current resident genius in the world of improvised music."

The past year has been a rewarding one for Abrams and for the organization which he was instrumental in founding, the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). This is the AACM's tenth anniversary year, and even in the far reaches of the world those initials have come to stand for the unique form of musical expression and interaction associated with Abrams and those who work with him. Immensely gifted both as an artist and an organizer, Abrams has a special knack of inspiring those around him to their best performances.

Things to Come From Those Now Gone is perhaps Abrams' most accessible album to date. Then again, the number of LP releases by artists who have worked under Abrams' aegis has increased dramatically over the last couple of years. It's not unknown for an album by Anthony Braxton or the Art Ensemble to be advertised in Billboard or Rolling Stone. Abrams himself has never set out to be cryptic or iconoclastic. More than many people realize, his career has always been closely tied to the main stream of Black music. He worked for years with artists like Gene Ammons, Dexter Gordon, Clark Terry, Art Farmer, and blues singer Ruth Brown. More recently, he has worked and recorded with Eddie Harris' group.

In 1961, amid all this kind of work, Abrams founded a group called The Experimental Band, not as a break from the past, but as a challenge to himself and his own musical development. The next step was the official organization of the AACM, which was not intended as a particular performing group, but as an association of creative artists who, instead of fighting each other for a share of the limelight, worked in a collective fashion to support and encourage each member's creative growth. As it enters its second decade of life, the AACM is probably one of the most successful and long lived artists' collectives in this country.

Of the musicians performing with Abrams on Things To Come, most are AACM veterans. Steve McCall is a founding member of the AACM and has performed and recorded widely both here and abroad. Wallace McMillan has been a member of Abrams' regular group for many years and is one of the outstanding reed artists in the AACM. Rufus Reid and Wilbur Campbell are veterans of the Chicago bop and hard bop eras. Reid has performed widely with Eddie Harris, and Campbell goes back to the days when artists like Lester Young and Charlie Parker would come to town looking for a rhythm section.

Muhal Richard Abrams is a unique person, and Things To Come From Those Now Gone, at once a tribute to his roots and a highly personal vision, stands as perhaps his most fully realized recorded work. Then again, his last LP, Young at Heart, Wise in Time, received a 5-star Downbeat review, but who's counting? -- Steve Tomashefsky