With a back catalogue of over 50 challenging albums, it might look like there's no particularly easy way of cracking the enigma of the Art Ensemble Of Chicago. Not so, says Eden Tizard, looking back at the group's first ECM album, Nice Guys, which was released 40 years ago this month
Prolific drummer and collaborator Valentina Magaletti marks the release of Tomaga's finest album by telling Jennifer Lucy Allan about her favourite 13 albums, from The Cure to Miles Davis, Art Blakey, and Can to Deerhoof, This Heat and the Art Ensemble Of Chicago. Photo by Adele di Nunzio
In this month's subscriber essay, novelist Richard Milward travels back 55 years to the cobblestone-strewn streets of Paris, the release of France Gall's album 1968, and discovers how a time of political upheaval had a profound impact on the happy-go-lucky genre of yé-yé