| Sound American

Sound American celebrates the life and work of Art Ensemble of Chicago founder and American iconoclast, Roscoe Mitchell.

One of our highly-regarded “artist portraits” that Sound American has produced over its ten-year history, this issue recognizes the life and work of a musician’s musician, an artist’s artist, a thinker’s thinker, and a true cultural treasure.

The issue includes an overview of Mitchell’s career by Brooklyn-based saxophonist, Sam Weinberg. An ensemble of iconoclasts–including Dr. Tyshawn Sorey, Darius Jones, Ken Vandermark, and James Fei–offer their own insights into Mitchell’s work and methodology. Composer and improvising harpist Zeena Parkins explores Mitchell’s work as an educator through a series of interviews with former Mills College students, all of whom were collaborators in orchestrating and arranging Mitchell’s recent works for large ensembles.

The issue also features four interviews with Mitchell himself: a previously published conversation on music and the saxophone with Bay-Area stalwart, Phillip Greenlief; a conversation about living the “musician’s life” with cellist Tomeka Reid and architecture scholar David Brown; a friendly talk on all things saxophone with the radical contrabass/clarinetist John McCowen; and a revelatory talk about Mitchell’s visual art practice with Chicago writer and gallerist, John Corbett.

Afro-futurist conceptualist and composer Jessie Cox contributes the issue’s “Exquisite Corpse”, an homage to the issue’s subject with an eye toward outer space.

Last but not least, the issue includes a double gatefold color reproduction of Mitchell’s paintings in advance of his first one-person exhibition at Corbett vs. Dempsey gallery (opening in early 2024).