"Go Home." The Art Ensemble of Chicago released an album by that name in 1970, and although founding member Roscoe Mitchell appreciated the title's layered meanings, he didn't expect that its ironic racist layer would still be enjoying unironic currency 49 years later. Since his career has been all about perceiving sound and humanity as one diverse yet balanced universe, he was a fit choice to head a bill of "Black Fire" music accompanying the Broad's exhibit "Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power."
Mitchell fits because his complex viewpoint aligns with the exhibit's range. You might expect art with a direct, didactic slant, and you get some of that. But as the catalog points out, African-American artists of the '60s and '70s had divergent notions of how to deliver a political message. Norman Lewis often painted in symbolic black and white, but his "America the Beautiful" delivers a first impression not of the nearly subliminal KKK hoods, but of a strong, involving abstraction that embraces our entire conscious and subconscious field. Similarly, the black-and-white photographs of Roy DeCarava succeed in portraying not only a powerful racial presence, but an indefinable and ineradicable core that will persist through the deepest darkness. Betye Saar's totems carry both the spirit/earth core of African voodoo and the nails/jails that define the African-American experience. John Outterbridge, Noah Purifoy, David Hammons, wow.
We could also feel such multiple references in Mitchell's performance. He split his efforts between soprano saxophone and small percussion instruments, the high screams of the one recalling the pain and passion of womanhood, the tinkles and thwacks of the other condensing a vital rhythmic tradition into portable, penetrating tools adaptable to a digital age. The choice of white keyboardist Brett Carson as a duo mate also spoke with authority -- the two counterpointed and melded their furious outpourings so sympathetically that we sometimes could not distinguish one from the other, and the alternating white and black keys on Carson's instrument made their own silent statement. Mitchell responded to the extremely diverse audience's warm and sustained applause with a rare smile of cautious triumph.
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Avant godfather Anthony Braxton headlines the Broad's next "Black Fire" program on Wednesday, August 14; get tickets here. Don't be confused by the "Fully Booked" notice, just click on the date on the calendar, then click on the 8:30 entry time.
ROSCOE MITCHELL PHOTO BY DAVID TAUHID.
MAIN PAGE: DETAIL OF NORMAN LEWIS' "AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL."