Artifacts: Tomeka Reid, Nicole Mitchell, Mike Read - ...and then there's this

2021 CD release.

The members of the all-star Artifacts Trio – flutist Nicole Mitchell, cellist Tomeka Reid and drummer Mike Reed – have long been recognized as torchbearers of Chicago’s innovative jazz scene, as well as the most prominent performer-educators in the third generation of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Music (AACM), the historically vital, leading-edge Chicago arts organization. The trio served on the organization's executive board from 2009–2011, and their music advances the organization’s motto, “Ancient to the Future,” celebrating African-American culture while reaching across genres and integrating new, progressive ideas into the legacy of jazz and composition. The first Artifacts Trio release, 2015’s Artifacts, showcased classic compositions by such AACM composers as Henry Threadgill, Roscoe Mitchell, Fred Hopkins, Leroy Jenkins, Amina Claudie Meyers, Steve McCall, Anthony Braxton and Muhal Richard Abrams. The album placed in lists of top albums for 2015 on NPR as well as in The New York Times and All About Jazz, among others. New York Times critic Ben Ratliff declared Artifacts to be “exceptional,” while The Free Jazz Collective dubbed the band “a next-generation AACM dream team.” Now, the second Artifacts Trio album – …and then there’s this, to be released digitally and on CD via Astral Spirits Records on October 29, 2021 – furthers the evolution of the band by featuring compositions by each member of the trio, plus interpretations of more pieces by Mitchell and Abrams.

Reviewing the band live, The New York Times encapsulated the Artifacts Trio sound: “Nicole Mitchell’s flute and Tomeka Reid’s cello met with Mike Reed’s cymbal-heavy drumming to make an aqueous sound that allowed itself to be warped and melted and spread about by the room.” As for their recordings so far, Tomeka Reid explains the trio’s intent: “The aim with our first record was to honor classic AACM composers – to bring our own approach to some of our favorite pieces by them, pieces that we thought would work especially well with our distinctive instrumentation. For this second album, we wanted to underscore that theme while also recognizing that we ourselves are also AACM composers – we want to contribute to that canon of music.”

For all its ambitions, “the Artifacts Trio is a fun band – because the three of us have been close friends for many years,” Nicole Mitchell says. “I don’t think we can separate our friendships from the music. This project has been a way to celebrate our mutual inspiration from the AACM, while also learning more about how to support each other’s musical aesthetic – and the free improvisations on the album reflect how we’ve grown together. The new album is also more focused on groove than our debut, and this is the first record together where we are supporting each other as composers – contributing to each other’s arrangements, developing more of a vibe in our grooves, and getting almost telepathically close in our open improvisations. Our initial album, Artifacts, was the first real project where I incorporated electronics through the use of guitar pedals – in this space, that sort of experimental approach is welcome. This is a band that enables each of us to stretch out and try new things.”