AACM 50th Anniversary Celebration

The Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) celebrates its 50th Anniversary this year.

The AACM is preparing for a worldwide celebration of musical presentations, installations, exhibitions and more as the organization reaches a half century in 2015. This year-long celebration will honor, show and advance the organization’s contributions to the world’s musical landscape.

The first initiative in AACM’s 50th Anniversary takes place Monday January 19th marking the official opening of the AACM exhibit at DuSable Museum of African American History! In time for Martin Luther King Jr. Day

“FREE AT FIRST: The Audacious Journey of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians”

The phrase “Free At First” is meant to reflect the very birth of this organization was inclusive of the members of AACM, who were unfettered by convention and tradition and adopted a “free” style that recognized no boundaries and defied categorization. The AACM had the audacity to compose, perform, publish, own, and institutionalize their own music and to prepare future exponents of their genre-bending, experimental form. Further, their collective, rather than confining the individual, actually made room for individual freedom of expression.

“Free At First” is also a reference to the sense of freedom the founders and early members approached musical compositions, organizational concepts and institution building – especially with the AACM School of Music. The scope of the exhibition is intended to provide the social framework, political climate, cultural milieu and the philosophical underpinnings within which this musician’s collective has thrived and survived – the only musicians’ collective still standing!