On this episode, Marc talks with Paul Steinbeck, the author of “Sound Experiments: The Music of the AACM,” published in paperback in December of 2023. It’s a look at the longtime Chicago-based musical organization the AACM, or Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians, and began in 1965 and is still going strong today. Paul chose to approach the history of the AACM through individual recordings, focusing each of his chapters on a single album, and providing both a background of the artist and the recording, and a detailed, step by step description and analysis of the music on that record.

As he writes in his introduction, “Close analyses of these pieces illustrate how AACM composers and performers advanced the Association’s signature musical practices, from extended forms and multi-instrumentalism to experimental approaches to notation and conducting.”

We hope you enjoy Marc's talk with Paul Steinbeck!