Fifteen years after the Art Ensemble of Chicago's 'The Third Decade', master saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell returns to ECM with his extraordinary Note Factory group, an ensemble brimming over with improvising soloists of the highest calibre. It is a band that builds on long-standing musical relationships between players who have done much to shape the history of post-free creative music in America, and its reach is at least as broad as that of the Art Ensemble. Mitchell: "'Nine To Get Ready' is the coming together of a dream I had many years ago of putting together an ensemble of improvising musicians with an orchestral range".

Recorded 1997

Personnel:
Roscoe Mitchell - (saxophones, flute, vocal), Hugh Ragin - (trumpet), George Lewis - (trombone), Matthew Shipp - (piano), Craig Taborn - (pianos), Jaribu Shahid - (basses, vocal), William Parker - (double-bass), Tanni Tabbal - (drums, percussion, vocal), Gerald Cleaver - (drums)