''Nice Guys'' is a 1979 album by the

Art Ensemble of Chicago The Art Ensemble of Chicago is an avant-garde jazz group that grew out of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians ( AACM) in the late 1960s. The ensemble integrates many jazz styles and plays many instruments, including "little ...

, their first to appear on the ECM label.ECM Records Catalogue
accessed November 26, 2017

Reception

The

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

review by Al Campbell awarded the album 4½ stars noting that "''Nice Guys'' was the first Art Ensemble of Chicago album released after a five-year recording hiatus and the group's first for the ECM label. During those five years, the Art Ensemble toured Europe and continued to expand its compositional, improvisational, and theatrical jazz fundamentals, captured abundantly on ''Nice Guys''... the album reveals how the AEC managed to turn individual compositions into a fully realized, surprisingly accessible, avant garde group collective".Campbell, A
Allmusic Review
accessed July 27, 2011. ''

Down Beat ' (styled in all caps) is an American music magazine devoted to "jazz, blues and beyond", the last word indicating its expansion beyond the jazz realm which it covered exclusively in previous years. The publication was established in 1934 in Chi ...

'' critic Art Lange writes that ''Nice Guys'', while not the Art Ensemble's best album, "is possibly their most representative, a variegated showcase illustrating much of what they do best."''

The Penguin Guide to Jazz ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled by ...

'' awarded the album 3 stars out of 4 stating "'much of the music seems almost formulaic, the improvisation limited".

Track listing

# "Ja" (Lester Bowie) – 8:43 # "Nice Guys" (Roscoe Mitchell) – 1:45 # "Folkus" (Don Moye) – 11:03 # "597–59" (Joseph Jarman) – 6:46 # "CYP" (Mitchell) – 4:53 # "Dreaming of the Master" (Jarman) – 11:40

Personnel

Lester Bowie Lester Bowie (October 11, 1941 – November 8, 1999) was an American jazz trumpet player and composer. He was a member of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and co-founded the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Biography Born in t ...

: trumpet, celeste, bass drum *

Malachi Favors Maghostut Malachi Favors (August 22, 1927 – January 30, 2004) was an American jazz bassist who played with the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Biography "Favors's tendency to dissemble about his age was a well-known source of mirth to fellow musicians of his g ...

: bass, percussion instruments, melodica *

Joseph Jarman Joseph Jarman (September 14, 1937 – January 9, 2019) was an American jazz musician, composer, poet, and Shinshu Buddhist priest. He was one of the first members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and a member of the ...

: saxophones, clarinets, percussion instruments, vocal *

Roscoe Mitchell Roscoe Mitchell (born August 3, 1940) is an American composer, jazz instrumentalist, and educator, known for being "a technically superb – if idiosyncratic – saxophonist". ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' described him as "one of the key figures ...

: saxophones, clarinets, flute, percussion instruments *

Don Moye Donald Moye, Jr. (born May 23, 1946), known as Famoudou Don Moye, is an American jazz percussionist and drummer. He is most known for his involvement with the Art Ensemble of Chicago and is noted for his mastery of African and Caribbean percuss ...

: drums, percussion, vocal

References

{{Authority control 1979 albums ECM Records albums Art Ensemble of Chicago albums Albums produced by Manfred Eicher