The Art Ensemble of Chicago grew out of the AACM in the late 1960s, when Roscoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman and Malachi Favors joined forces and, in Paris from 1969, added the drummer Don Moye. Under the motto "Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future" they integrated styles spanning the whole history of jazz and beyond, from marches and blues to free improvisation, and made theatre of it with face paint, costumes and silence. Their multi-instrumentalism, especially the "little instruments", bicycle horns, bells, party noisemakers, wind chimes and a vast array of found percussion, became a signature.

The Art Ensemble of Chicago grew out of the AACM in the late 1960s, when Roscoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman and Malachi Favors joined forces and, in Paris from 1969, added the drummer Don Moye. Under the motto "Great Black Music, Ancient to the Future" they integrated styles spanning the whole history of jazz and beyond, from marches and blues to free improvisation, and made theatre of it with face paint, costumes and silence. Their multi-instrumentalism, especially the "little instruments", bicycle horns, bells, party noisemakers, wind chimes and a vast array of found percussion, became a signature.