‘It has shifted the things that I believed music could do.’ Sixty years later, a creative juggernaut lives on

Douglas Ewart won’t stop creating. 

Ground zero is a sprawling space on the second floor of a duplex Ewart owns with his wife, Janis, in south Minneapolis, which teems with inspirations stacked meticulously or haphazardly depending on their stage of development. There is a funhouse orchestra’s worth of the various wind and percussion instruments he has concocted, along with dozens of paintings, masks, some sculptures and a smattering of his handmade clothing. 

Then there are the stacks of fuel: Recordings and books that pique, refine and document his broad swath of engagement, along with posters and other memorabilia of signal events gone by. The place is so suffused that it feels like a human beehive. 

Amid this creative maelstrom, Ewart appropriately is best known for his longstanding membership in the Chicago-based Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM), an organization founded in 1965 for artists to provide collective support in the making of original music. It is now internationally renowned as a catalyst for musical creation in the 21^st century. 

Ewart has been a member of AACM for 58 of its 60 years and served as the organization’s chair from 1979 to 1986. As a Minneapolis resident since 1990, he is frequently called upon to help curate and perform in local AACM-related events, often sponsored by the Walker Art Center. His handpicked ensemble — the latest rendition of his band, Inventions — will be the opening act for the Walker’s “AACM@60!” concert on September 13, which happens to be his 79^th birthday.

Related: The indefatigable Douglas Ewart is the McKnight Foundation’s 2022 Distinguished Artist 

The group will include the two other Minneapolis members of the AACM, drummer and percussionist Davu Seru and creative vocalist Mankwe Ndosi — both drawn into the AACM fold at the turn of the century thanks to the efforts of Douglas and Janis Ewart. Also included is local dancer, choreographer and spoken-word artist Lela Pierce; the stalwart bassist Melvin Gibbs, most recently of the band Harriet Tubman; and Chicago-based AACM member and horn player Edward Wilkerson Jr., a longtime Ewart collaborator who founded the bands Eight Bold Souls and Shadow Vignettes. 

“I want to pay homage to the AACM in terms of harnessing original music, poetry and movement,” Ewart explained. “And I want to salute the lack of compartmentalization and honor the acceptance I received that gave me a broad view toward what I was doing.”

Serious, original music 

This attitude — an emphasis on collective support to encourage individual originality, unrestricted by form or genre — is perhaps the most influential hallmark of the AACM. It was woven into the fabric of the organization from the beginning. Its charter explicitly states a devotion “to nurturing, performing, and recording serious, original music.” 

That is the atmosphere Amina Claudine Myers discovered when she first came into the AACM orbit in the mid-1960s. Myers, the 83-year old keyboardist, vocalist, arranger and matriarch of AACM, will headline the “AACM@60!” event by performing duets with trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, inspired by their lauded 2024 album, “Central Park’s Mosaics of Reservoir, Lake, Paths and Gardens.”

“There was the freedom to do what you want to do musically, without anybody having judgments. Whatever kind of creativity you had, we did that,” Myers remembered. “Everybody had something different going on: Painting, doing poetry, writing all kinds of music. That inspired me and it showed me that I could do those things. No one tried to tell you what to do — that is very important.” 

It is an ethos that will be evident at the Walker. During the initial planning around the recording of “Central Park’s Mosaics,” Myers asked Wadada for the sheet music to study at home to prepare her for the session. 

“Instead, he explained his music to me, the composition,” she said with a laugh. “We briefly looked at the music and he explained how he wanted me to play, but all of the creativity was left up to me.” 

The result is a stunningly beautiful collection of duets, made luminous by their patience and restraint. “Yes, it was a beautiful feeling, a beautiful experience,” Myers confirmed. “There was a lot of space for me.” 

Like Myers, Wadada Leo Smith has enjoyed increased acclaim and popularity in the twilight of his career — he, too, is 83, three months older than Myers. The delicacy and dynamism of their interactions is an appropriate treat for a 60^th anniversary concert. But in the AACM, there is also an unspoken obligation for the elders to mentor other musicians, as Myers and Smith — and Douglas Ewart — have done.

Not long into their legacy, the AACM started a school that students could attend on weekends, being mentored by some of the finest musicians in Chicago for a relative bargain, as the rearing of new generations of creative artists was seen as a natural extension of the organization’s philosophy. Ewart was among the first group of students, and took saxophone lessons from the great Joseph Jarman, a founding member of the most renowned band of AACM members, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, even before the school opened. 

Consequently, Ewart felt his increased commitment to the organization to be “a natural ascendancy. We assumed the responsibilities of the elders as they migrated east to New York or Europe” in the 1970s. He is proud to have found a new home for the school during his time as chair, along with other administrative and artistic responsibilities. And when he joined his wife Janis, who had taken a job in Minnesota with Arts Midwest, the mentorship commitment came with them, with Davu Seru and Mankwe Ndosi among the most notable beneficiaries. 

Just entering his 20s in Minnesota in 1999, Seru had already had his “mind blown” by albums from AACM-affiliated groups, and had made the decision to “make the pilgrimage to Chicago” and explore his musical potential. It just so happened that on an early trip to find a job and living accommodations, he attended a performance by AACM member Roscoe Mitchell at the jazz club Hothouse, and was seated at the same table as Janis Ewart, visiting old friends in town. 

“She told me to look her up when I got back [to Minnesota] and when I did she opened up her phone book to me,” Seru said, the gratitude still in his voice. He leveraged those connections and his own talent and curiosity into gigs with prominent musicians in and out of the AACM. “It was such a rich year or so for someone 21 years old. It gave me a great deal of confidence that I was worthy of the path I was cutting for myself.” 

Ndosi also met Janis before she met Douglas, interviewing for an internship at Arts Midwest. She didn’t get the gig, but a connection was made. Not long after she returned to the Twin Cities, she ended up living above them. Ndosi had always regarded herself as more of a spoken-word performance artist, but one day in 2000 Douglas heard her “playing with my voice — I was very embarrassed when he came up the steps,” she recalled. Douglas suggested she become a vocalist in the Inventions ensemble. 

As with Seru, exposure to the high-profile Chicago music scene (via four or five trips per year) boosted her confidence and reset her career path and trajectory. She eventually moved there, sharing an apartment with the great cellist and AACM member Tomeka Reid, before returning to the Twin Cities. 

Boundless creativity

Even as they have flourished in careers inside and outside of musical performance, Seru and Ndosi openly gush about the impact the AACM has had on them as artists and human beings. 

Asked for a succinct definition of the organization’s prevailing attributes, Seru replied, “Experimentation. Creativity — boundless creativity. And a kind of matter-of-factness when it comes to being people of African descent. Black people don’t have to talk about it as much because it is just us, and that feels really great. You’re not trying to sell ‘being Black,’ and that feels really great — nobody is selling anything to anybody. 

“It’s just — I still have enormous respect,” he added. “I am the current recording secretary of AACM so I make the meetings regularly and take the minutes. I have learned a lot through that process, about personalities and about the history. It has been rewarding.”

Ndosi is equally effusive. “The community in and around the AACM helps me to develop my voice, my imagination, my listening, the creative palette I have and the trust I have for myself as a musician,” she began. 

“It has helped me to consider listening to music differently, particularly in songs that are more straight-ahead. I love songs that have a story or a melody; they can be very beautiful. But [the AACM] also opened me up to the idea of vistas, or landscapes, of music that will stimulate you into having your own experience. Music as the catalyst; not necessarily being spoon-fed a particular message but being a place for messages to be made in the moment, by the specific musicians, audience and location. 

Related: Songs made from scratch: How Triganol, a local super-group of improvisers, fashions music in the moment

“So it has shifted the things that I believed music could do,” Ndosi continued. “It spoke to the whole of me. I didn’t realize I was so connected to my parents’ artistic lineages. It has encouraged me to define myself, let myself be loose, open, to stretch myself. It has stimulated and challenged me to put things into the world that I hear through myself, through my body. It has given me a place to rest because there was no definition of Black that was constrained or restrained in Chicago, particularly with the AACM. And so it has been invaluable and incalculable. I am able to challenge myself as an improviser because I have rigorous colleagues and co-conspirators.

“So, yeah, I can’t think of a place in my creative life or work that has not been affected by the AACM. It is foundational, as well as a celestial force on me as an artist,” she said.

Seru and Ndosi have talked about building similar momentum in the Twin Cities, hoping to generate and sustain a critical mass of artists that would one day enable them to apply for a Twin Cities chapter of the AACM. Currently, the lone official chapter away from Chicago is in New York, where Wadada Leo Smith, Amina Claudine Myers and saxophonist Henry Threadgill reside — all thriving but aging legends. But when asked about the future, Myers is as resolute as Ndosi and Seru. 

“I will always be an AACM member. And we will continue [the chapter] in New York as long as we can. Because you know the AACM is known throughout the world. Whenever I go to Europe people always ask me about it. So what I can tell you is that as long as I’m alive, the AACM will continue.”

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