A Power Stronger Than Itself

Preface: The AACM and American Experimentalism 
Introduction: An AACM Book: Origins, Antecedents, Objectives, Methods 
Chapter Summaries 
Acknowledgments 

Chapter 1: Foundations and Prehistory
 Coming North: From Great Migration to Great Depression 
 Early Musical Experiences 
 Improvisation and Autodidacticism in 1950s Chicago 
 The End of an Era 

Chapter 2: New Music, New York 
 Cultures of Spontaneity: Integrationism and the Two Avant-Gardes 
 Beyond a Bebop Boundary: The Challenge of New Music 
 Critical Responses: Anger, Noise, Failure 
 A Far Cry from New York: Segregation and Chicago Music 

Chapter 3: The Development of the Experimental Band 
 Alternative Pedagogies of Experimental Music 
 Eyes on the Sparrow: The First New Chicagoans 

Chapter 4: Founding the Collective 
 Urban Decline and the Turn to Communitarianism 
 Born on the Kitchen Table: Conceiving the Association 
 Naming Ceremony: Black Power and Black Institutions 

Chapter 5: First Fruits 
 The First Year: Concerts, Critics, and Issues 
 New Arrivals and the University of Chicago 
 Travel, Recording, and Intermedia 
 Memories of the Sun: The AACM and Sun Ra 

Chapter 6: The AACM Takes Off 
 The Black Arts Movement in Chicago 
 New Arrivals and New Ideas 
 The AACM School 
 Performing and Self-Determination 
 Cultural Nationalism in Postmodern Transition 

Chapter 7: Americans in Paris 
 Conceiving the World Audience 
 Le Nouveau Paris Noir: Collectivity, Competition, and Excitement 
 The Politics of Culture: Black Power and May 1968 
 Die Emanzipation: The Rise of European Free Improvisation 
 Homecoming 

Chapter 8: The AACM’s Next Wave 
 More from the Midwest: The Black Artists Group 
 New Elbows on the Table: The AACM’s Second Wave 
 Ten Years After: The Association Comes of Age 

Chapter 9: The AACM in New York 
 Migration and Invasion 
 Europe and the Lofts 
 Beyond a Binary: The AACM and the Crisis in Criticism 
 Diversity and Its Discontents: New American Music after the Jazz Age 

Chapter 10: The New Regime in Chicago 
 Generational Shifts in the Collective 
 The Two Cultures and a New Chapter 
 Form and Funding: Philanthropy and Black Music in the 1970s 
 Strains, Swirls, and Splits 

Chapter 11: Into the Third Decade 
 The 1980s: Canons and Heterophony 
 Great Black Music: The Local and the Global 
 Leading the Third Wave: The New Women of the AACM 

Chapter 12: Transition and Reflections 
 New York in Transition 
 Chicago in Reflection 
 J’ai deux amours . . . 

Afterword 
 The Way of the Arranger 
 The Individual 
 The Book 
 Expansion and Sacrifice 
 Boxing with Tradition 
 Regrets 
 Survival 
 Contemplating the Post-jazz Continuum 
 Atmospheres 
 Futures 

Appendix A: List of Interviews Conducted by the Author 
Appendix B: Selected AACM Recordings 

Bibliography 
Notes 
Index