Product Description Sudden music! All alone, unprotected, Roscoe Mitchell confronts Silence: the void, the vast unknown. One and a half of the 38 pieces in this collection are composed. Two more are improvisations that begin with at least some conditions. The other 34 and a half pieces are completely improvised–Mitchell simply picks up a horn or mallets and begins playing. He’s armed only with his wide-ranging imagination, his instruments, his virtuosity, and his experience–for what more does he need? Proof of his self-sufficiency is that each improvisation is a distinctive, flowing work that has its own meaning, its own unique story to tell. "I started working on one CD," he says, "but I started getting more and more material, and I thought that at this point in my career, one solo CD is not enough. I’d better put out three CDs, because time is going on by." Mitchell has been creating a cappella solos for around four decades now. He’s one of the Chicagoans who virtually invented the unaccompanied horn solo in free jazz: "You have to be responsible for all the music–I thought it was part of what I had to learn. To be a good improviser you have to improvise by yourself and also with an ensemble. It’s a good way to get where you’re not following people – inexperienced improvisers will definitely start following the first strong idea that comes along." After a few pioneers such as Eric Dolphy and Jimmy Giuffre, Mitchell and some of his AACM colleagues (saxophonists Joseph Jarman, Anthony Braxton, violinist Leroy Jenkins, trumpeters Lester Bowie, Wadada Leo Smith, how many others?) went on to make a formidable medium of unaccompanied soloing. Along with the aesthetic rewards, there was another reason for this new medium’s growth, in America and around the world, during the 1970s economic recession: Concert presenters who couldn’t afford to hire a group could sometimes afford to hire a single artist. It’s not like the bygone times when artists spent their lives playing, say, Dixieland or bebop. Today’s artists have to continually reinvent themselves. Through all of Mitchell’s musical changes, he has remained fiercely, insistently original. The early years of his Art Ensemble and (from 1969) the Art Ensemble of Chicago were a time of discovery. As his scope steadily expanded–improviser, composer, with many kinds of large and small ensembles, as well as Art Ensemble member and lonesome soloist–he not only made more discoveries, he made remarkable developments of his rediscoveries. As he did with "Little Big Horn 2," he may very well go on to develop delightful new works from some of the wonderfully rewarding improvisations of Solo 3. (From John Litweiler’s liner notes) About the Artist ROSCOE MITCHELL COMPOSER, MULTI-INSTRUMENTALIST, EDUCATOR Mr. Mitchell's innovation as a solo performer, his role in the resurrection of long neglected woodwind instruments of extreme register, and his reassertion of the composer into what has traditionally been an improvisational form have placed him at the forefront fo contemporary music for over thirty years. He is a founding member of the world reknowned Art Ensemble of Chicago, and the Association for the the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Mr. Mitchell is the recipient of many honors and awards inluding The International Jazz Critics Poll, Down Beat Magazine [Composer "Talent Deserving Wider Recognition", Best Jazz Group (Established)-Art Ensemble of Chicago, Record of the Year-Nonaah]; Jazz Personality of the Year, City of Madison, Wisconsin; Certifcate of Appreciation, The St. Louis Public Schools Role Model Experiences Program; Honorary Citizen of Atlanta, GA; The Jazz Masters Award, Arts Midwest; Outstanding Service to Jazz Education Award, National Association of Jazz Educators; Certificate of Appreciation, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Smithsonian Institution; and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's Image Award. He has received numerous composition and performance grants from the National Endowment for the Arts; Michigan State University matching grant; the Minnesota Composer's Forum; Meet the Composer, Cultural Series Grant, Center for International Performance and Exhibition, Chicago IL; Mutable Music; the Comnicut Foundation; the Wisconsin Arts Board; the Institut de Recherche at Coordination Acoustique Musique, Paris; the John Cage Award for Music-Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, Inc.; Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission Project Grant, Madison Committee for the Arts; and the Madison Festival of the Lakes Grant. Mr. Mitchell is the founder of the Creative Arts Collective of East Lansing, Michigan, The Sound Ensemble, Space, The Roscoe Mitchell Quartet, the Roscoe Mitchell New Chamber Ensemble, and Roscoe Mitchell and the Note Factory. His teaching credits include the University of Wisconsin, the University of Illinois and California Institute of the Arts, the AACM School of Music, the Creative Music Studio, and numerous workshops and artists-in-residence positions throughout the world.