Black Artists Group - In Paris, Aries 1973

BAG's neighborhood roots ran deep in the city's Black community: Lake and trumpeters Lester Bowie and LeFlore all studied together in the Sumner High School's jazz program. They continued their jazz education at Lincoln University alongside Hemphill. All played music in clubs, churches, and auditoriums in St. Louis throughout the '60s. The musicians collectively experienced frustration with the lack of performance or recording opportunities due to racism. They were also in deep dialogue with Black actors who had been marginalized in the theater. These two groups began collaborating on artistic productions around the Laclede Town housing development, as well as the Berea Church.

The group of collaborating players and actors found creative and organizational inspiration in Chicago's Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians -- Lester Bowie became a member of AACM when he joined the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Together, these groups co-founded the Black Artists Group, unique for its interdisciplinary collaboration and inclusion; the founders recruited artists from dance, visual arts, and creative writing.

In 1968, "The Black Artists Group, Inc." was incorporated as a nonprofit organization. Their administrators wrote grant proposals and received funding from both the Danforth and Rockefeller Foundations. In July 1969, the group leased a building at 2665 Washington Blvd. for the annual rent of one dollar. There they held workshops, classes, readings, dance, and theater rehearsals, and offered studio space to visual artists. This lasted for three years before many of the BAG's members (particularly but not exclusively musicians) relocated to Paris and other cities in Europe where, as the Art Ensemble revealed in 1968, American musicians were welcome. While touring, BAG recorded a concert and privately released it as In Paris, Aries 1973, their only album. They formally dissolved in 1973. Lake, Hemphill, and Bluiett formed the African Continuum, an outgrowth of BAG, in the years before they joined David Murray and formed the World Saxophone Quartet.

Many BAG artists relocated to New York and Europe during the '70s. The African Continuum organized the famed 1971 multimedia concert "Images: Sons/Ancestors" at Powell Symphony Hall -- it was delayed by a bomb threat. In 1971, Bobo Shaw, Luther Thomas, and saxophonist Jack Marshall founded the Human Arts Ensemble, an internationally celebrated musical collective that was in near constant in dialogue with BAG and AACM, and hosted many BAG musicians including both Bowies, Parran, Hemphill, Lake, Carroll, and Bluiett, as well as saxophonist Marty Ehrlich, bassist John Lindberg, and percussionist Gene Lake -- who made his recording debut at age six on HAE's debut album Whisper of Dharma.

In 2020, director Brian De Matteis unearthed the 49-minute documentary Black Artists' Group: Creation Equals Movement. It was shown on PBS and at film festivals globally. In September 2024, French indie label Wewantsounds released For Peace and Liberty, In Paris Dec 1972. BAG's second album -- and first in more than a half-century -- offers a performance (long thought lost) recorded in optimal conditions at Maison de l'ORTF (a French state radio). The tapes were unearthed from the vaults of INA (Institut National de l’Audiovisuel). The 35-minute set mixes free improvisation with spiritual jazz and funk. Released by BAG and INA, the sound was remastered from the original tapes. The package offers a 20-page booklet featuring notes from Lake, Joseph Bowie, Carroll and Bobo Shaw's and LeFlore's daughters; extensive liner notes by BAG scholar Benjamin Looker, and previously unseen photos by cult French photographer Philippe Gras. AMG.

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